Posts Tagged ‘mike’
Do Things that Don’t Scale
If you can find someone with a problem that needs solving and you can solve it manually, go ahead and do that for as long as you can, and then gradually automate the bottlenecks. It would be a little frightening to be solving users’ problems in a way that wasn’t yet automatic, but less frightening than the far more common case of having something automatic that doesn’t yet solve anyone’s problems.
Source: Do Things that Don’t Scale
Read MoreLessons Learned Building A Productized Service – Smashing Magazine
It’s Not SaaS: It’s A Productized Service
I started out with the goal of building SaaS. But as it evolved, I learned that the value was not so much in the software part, but rather in the service. A more accurate way to describe the business today would be a productized service.
It’s largely built around manual processes. We personally talk to and follow up with every visitor who requests a consultation. We then manually set up every new customer’s website, input all of their content and make customizations. We even offer “done for you” ongoing support.
Source: Lessons Learned Building A Productized Service – Smashing Magazine
Read MoreIn the age of disruption, complacency is an investor’s biggest enemy
The difference today is that it no longer takes 30 years for an innovation to become disruptive. Take for example the roll out of Airbnb and its impact on the hotel industry; Uber’s low-cost ride sharing, which will soon make city controlled high-cost taxis obsolete; Amazon’s online business, which is threatening higher cost big-box retailers such as Best Buy; and streaming services such as Spotify and Netflix, which are making CDs and DVDs a thing of the past.
Source: In the age of disruption, complacency is an investor’s biggest enemy
Read MoreDisrupting Industries With Cognitive Computing
With cognitive computing, we are now able to unlock the value in ALL the data — from internal, external and even publicly available sources — available to a business. Much of this data was previously inaccessible as it existed in was unstructured (documents, emails, social media posts and images etc.), or was dispersed among any many systems and silos. Hear how two companies are already using cognitive computing to disrupt their industries:
Source: Disrupting Industries With Cognitive Computing
Read MoreIs the Life Expectancy of Companies Really Shrinking? – Only Dead Fish
It’s difficult to navigate through all the myriad factors to identify what might really be behind this picture, but perhaps the real story is less about the impending death of large businesses and more about their need to adapt – to move through business and product life cycles more quickly than before, to be more focused on systematic experimentation and organising swiftly around opportunity.
Source: Is the Life Expectancy of Companies Really Shrinking? – Only Dead Fish
Read MoreA Look Back At Why Blockbuster Really Failed And Why It Didn’t Have To
The irony is that Blockbuster failed because its leadership had built a well-oiled operational machine. It was a very tight network that could execute with extreme efficiency, but poorly suited to let in new information. Antioco’s fatal flaw wasn’t one of intelligence or capability, but a failure to understand the networks that would determine his fate.
Source: A Look Back At Why Blockbuster Really Failed And Why It Didn’t Have To
Read MoreLow-End Disruption in Consumer Markets | Tech-Thoughts by Sameer Singh
In the 1960s, General Motors held a ~50% share of the US automobile market and 80% of the industry’s profits. General Motors’ integrated value chain allowed it to dominate the industry in an era where products were still not “good enough” (with respect to performance and reliability). But as automobile performance improved, modular, “low-end” disruptors like Toyota attacked it from below and profits evaporated. Toyota did not succeed by immediately attacking the premium segment of the market. It started with the low-end Corona and “then moved up-market by introducing sequentially its Tercel, Corolla, Camry, Avalon and 4-Runner models, and ultimately its Lexus”. Honda and Nissan followed similar approaches to disrupt integrated incumbents like General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. Now, these disruptors are in turn facing low-end disruption from the likes of Kia and Hyundai.
Source: Low-End Disruption in Consumer Markets | Tech-Thoughts by Sameer Singh
Read MoreThe Innovator’s Solution by Clayton Christensen
Utilizing in-depth research of multiple companies and industries, the authors identify what actions and practices are essential for companies to embrace new disruptive innovations and avoid being disrupted themselves.
Source: The Innovator’s Solution by Clayton Christensen
Read MoreEpic Fail: How Blockbuster Could Have Owned Netflix | Variety
Barry McCarthy, Netflix’s former chief financial officer, said in an interview with the Unofficial Stanford blog in 2008, “I remembered getting on a plane, I think sometime in 2000, with Reed [Hastings] and [Netflix co-founder] Marc Randolph and flying down to Dallas, Texas and meeting with John Antioco. Reed had the chutzpah to propose to them that we run their brand online and that they run [our] brand in the stores and they just about laughed us out of their office. At least initially, they thought we were a very small niche business. Gradually over time, as we grew our market, his thinking evolved but initially they ignored us and that was much to our advantage.”
Source: Epic Fail: How Blockbuster Could Have Owned Netflix | Variety
Read MoreThe Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
Clay Christensen shows how most companies miss out on new waves of innovation. His answer is surprising and almost paradoxic: it is actually the same practices that lead the business to be successful in the first place that eventually can also result in their eventual demise.
Source: The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
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