Structure? The Flatter the Better, says Cristóbal Conde. Adaptability: The New Competitive Advantage. The Idea in Brief Traditional approaches to strategy assume a relatively stable world. They aim to build an enduring competitive advantage by achieving dominant scale, occupying an attractive niche, or exploiting certain capabilities and resources. But globalization, new technologies, and greater transparency have combined to upend the business environment. Sustainable competitive advantage no longer arises from positioning or resources. Instead, it stems from the four organizational capabilities that foster rapid adaptation: The ability to read and act on signals of change The ability to experiment rapidly and frequently—not only with products and services but also with business models, processes, and strategies The ability to manage complex and interconnected systems of multiple stakeholders The ability to motivate employees and partners Slideshow: See what 50 years of volatility looks like in five major sectors.
We live in an era of risk and instability. Think about it. Reinvent Your Business Before It's Too Late. The Idea in Brief High performance companies rethink their strategies and reinvent their operating models before debilitating stalls set in. In order to successfully jump from one financial S curve to the next, they do three things differently from their less-successful peers: Focus on the edges. They pay attention to the edge of the company and the edge of the market, to avoid the myopia that long-running success engenders. Shake up the top team. Maintain surplus talent. Artwork: Damián Ortega, Cosmic Thing, 2002, Volkswagen Beetle 1983, stainless steel wire, acrylic, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Installation view, Damián Ortega: Do It Yourself, The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, September 18, 2009–January 18, 2010 Sooner or later, all businesses, even the most successful, run out of room to grow. The potential consequences are dire for any organization that fails to reinvent itself in time.
Thrown a Curve. The Anti-Blockbuster Way: Disrupt Your Business Rituals Before Someone Else Does. It’s the spring of 2002, and you’ve just been invited to attend one of Blockbuster Video’s quarterly board meetings. Great news: the company’s stock has just hit a new high of $30, and spirits are rowdy. As the board is on the verge of wrapping up the proceedings, and congratulating the CEO for yet another successful year, you discreetly slip a Powerpoint slide onto the screen with the tagline, Blockbuster. Watch your favorites. Anytime. For free. Now let's imagine another scenario, this one from the early 1970s. Years later, no one present in these two rooms could imagine these slogans would represent two category-busting new ideas, Hulu and Instagram.
Science has shown that human beings prefer routine roughly 12 times more than they do change. Yet paradoxically, there’s no better time than in the midst of routine to disrupt business as usual by coming up with an apparently wild idea that thumbs its nose at every entrenched wisdom your company holds dear. Let me give you an example. World Economic Forum Tech Study Shows U.S. Lagging. Lars Bjork of QlikTech, on Order vs. Bureaucracy. For Your Company To Last, The "Brand" Must Die. But Stories Should Survive | Co.Design.
Off the coast of Newfoundland is a place called Fogo Island . At the height of its economy, about 3,000 people were living on the island, mostly employed by the fishery. When the fish population declined in the 1960s, so did the human population, as many were forced to look elsewhere for work. Recently, a brother and sister who were a part of that exodus have returned home. Both Zita and Tony Cobb left in search of opportunity and education. And both achieved success, going on to university educations and great careers in the tech industry. The project was about telling an already wonderful story directly. Bruce Mau Design was invited in to help clearly define the story of what the Cobbs are about. We are proud to be associated with the project, even in our humble way.
Branding's beginnings We use the word "branding" to describe the act of shaping the perceptions of a product or service for consumers. But in every case, at these early stages of branding, the product was still the heart. Inviting great ideas by infusing entrepreneurial inventiveness into your company. Dr. Glen Taylor, Director of MBA Programs for Global Innovation, California State University, East Bay Despite the best intentions, too much success may ultimately lead to failure as employees in well-established companies focus on maintaining the status quo and following procedures instead of looking for new opportunities. Executives ultimately get a wake-up call when a svelte competitor swoops in and seizes market share by capitalizing on an untapped opportunity.
“When things are going well, it’s natural for companies to thrive on their own logic and nurture a culture that resists change,” says Dr. Smart Business spoke with Taylor about the techniques that help executives infuse an entrepreneurial spirit into mature companies. How can executives begin the journey toward an entrepreneurial culture? Entrepreneurs are found in all types of organizations — small and large, business and government, whether people are paid or act as volunteers. Entrepreneurs are not loners. Dr.