Category: business transformation

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business transformation technology work

Ska vi slösa några år på AI-frågan?

Eller lite mer utförligt: finns det en risk att vi (i onödan) slösar bort dyrbar tid på AI-frågan, precis som vi gjorde med “digitaliseringsfrågan” när det begav sig? Kort svar: ja, risken är överhängande. (För den stressade: förslag på en del av lösningen.)

I snart 15 år har jag på olika sätt arbetat med frågor kring digital teknik, nya beteenden, digitalisering, affärstransformation – det finns många namn. Gemensamt för arbetet, oavsett projektets plats i en organisation, har varit att det handlat om något nytt. Det var magiskt. Digitalt, svepande utryckt, löste det mesta. Specialister anställdes, som i ett slags vakuum skulle ansvara för och driva den digitala frågan. Dessa satt rätt ofta på marknad. Där var man framåtlutad. Buzzwords haglade som knott en sommarkväll.

Under en lång period, och i vissa fall pågår detta tyvärr ännu, slösades otroligt mycket tid. Avdelningar såg på saker och ting helt annorlunda. Inte för att det som en naturlag faktiskt var så, utan för att man lät det bli så. För att göra en lång historia kort, här är en förenklad diagnos på denna tid: dels de många specialisterna på olika avdelningar med olika drivkrafter, prestige och incitament. Helt klart ett mellanchefsproblem. Men en minst lika stor anledning är hur generalister underskattades. Det ser vi tydligt så här i efterhand. Det krävs kunskap och förståelse överallt. Ligamenten, lederna, synapserna, broarna. Kittet.

Nu är vi nog tyvärr där igen. Denna gång är fokusämnet AI. Det går inte en dag utan en AI-nyhet. Den ena sexigare och mer visionär än den andra. Det finns inte ett företag där ute som inte talar om AI. I vårt dagliga konsultarbete i en mängd branscher dyker ämnet upp titt som tätt. Det finns inte ett startupbolag i världen (känns det som) som inte hävdar att deras lösning bygger på AI (vilket de ofta inte alls gör). Förståsigpåarna blir fler och fler. Jag vill då bestämt inte framstå som en. Men jag gör vad jag kan för att försöka förstå vad det handlar om, och lika mycket vad det inte handlar om, samt hoppas ha fingertoppskänslan att balansera rätt. Slå till mig annars. Förhoppningsvis blir jag en god generalist med ett bra nätverk av specialister. För det, vill jag lova, behövs där ute. Generalister. Denna gång måste de vara på plats i tid, i alla de olika delarna av företaget. Det är arbetshypotesen.

Så nu tänker vi på Co:LabX att vi flippar på specialiststeken och fokuserar på detta med generalister. Vad gör man först av allt? Research och tar en massa möten. Vad gör man sen? En pilot. Och här är den. En 1,5-dagars utbildning för att bli generellt sett Startklar för AI.

Categories
business culture business transformation work

working concretely with culture and behaviors

A while back I posted this list (below) from McKinsey showing a ranked order of challenges with regards to meeting digital priorities. Now, I’d like to add to that an initiative from colleagues of mine (with whom I also collaborate on the project) that seeks to spread solutions for how to deal with this situation.

Culture for a digital age - McKinsey Quarterly, July 2017

The initiative I’m referring to is a Kickstarter Campaign for a series of books that’s a part of a collaborative project called The Book of Collaboration. A project that is more than a book.

The need for working human-oriented

The basic premise for the project is quite depressing: Only 15% of employees are engaged… How about that for starting point when really needing to change, transform, build and all those things we need right now…

Now to the solutions. The project is based on 5 key pillars that help you ask better questions with regards to the diagram above and most business challenges. They help you work with what you can affect and not just the outcomes. If you look at the above items, they are the equivalent of lagging indicators, whereas the 5 pillars help you work with leading indicators that can actually be affected. Kind of like happiness correlating to innovation output. Just looking at output won’t help you affect or control it. Ok.

  • Reinforcing a human-oriented culture and building trust
  • Applying a growth mindset, unlearning, and learning in new ways
  • Creating effective teams and collaborating for real
  • Making everyone leaders and focusing on growing facilitation skills
  • Re-inventing leadership and organizations – with engagement as core

Leaders: mind your toolbox

If you’re a typical leader it’s unusual to you, you don’t immediately have tools that come to mind and you might think it’s fluff. If you’re an interested, great future leader, you understand the need to include this in your toolbox and catalogue of methods. I’m basing this on my day-to-day work from within, and not looking in from the outside. It’s not even debatable and it’s easy to see.

The good thing with this diagram is that the number one item – culture and behavior – indicates the realization of a human-oriented focus as a prerequisite. The challenge is still how this is done, but that’s a better problem to have. And that’s the aim of the project, so go back it if you’re smart.

Categories
business culture business transformation digital transformation

Do you ask the right questions (for building with culture in mind)?

Kevin Kelly has written many good books and said many wise things with regards to digitalization, technology and constant change. Often very technology focused and visionary but always touching on culture. After all, he is somewhat of a futurologist. With his last book The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future (which I haven’t read, only pod-heard about and from) he goes into how great leaders ask really good questions. Although it’s in relation to AI and super powers that help provide answers, it’s relevant far beyond that. It really resonates well with me.

Given how digital transformation, as the figure below, from McKinsey Quarterly shows, has shifted from the more technical and concrete aspects and focus areas, to a much more abstract one – namely culture – so must our questions. Question is: have they?

Culture for a digital age - McKinsey Quarterly, July 2017

Have you asked who (or what focus) needs to be onboard besides the, so far, frequent and apparently obvious head of digital, chief technical officer, innovation officer, digital director, chief data strategist, data guru, chief head of atomic big data machine learning robot executive master etc and so on?

Have you as someone responsible for transformation work, leader or in other capacities, developed the powerful questions behind the questions? Have you developed or stumbled upon ways of understanding and approaching the problem behind the problem (and opportunity within the opportunity)?

Categories
business transformation digital transformation innovation organizational

Do to get curious

TheFutureIsRepugnant_Keynes

Do you recognize yourself in the quote above? Some people admit to it, most people don’t.

It’s easy to keep reading and keep going to seminars and courses, in an effort to understand what to do in the future. If we could only get the hang of this digitalization thingy, we’d know how to change. I get to meet lots of people in the midst of those efforts, but we have no doubt reached a tipping point from ”what should we do” to ”how do we do that”. It is of course not evenly distributed yet, but the macro shift is indisputable.

This means the world now knows a whole lot more about what can be done and what’s possible. We’re familiar with a few “best practices” and cases of successful digital transformation. Now all that remains is to do it. Our Head of Digital has been here a while, maybe even a head of digital innovation. Question is – how do we do something differently in your organization? Not daily operations. Something different. How do you do new things? Here’s the new frustration, bigger than ever. But it’s the right one.

In a pre-workshop interview recently, I read this: ”I will be very impressed if I can walk away with concrete tools for changing things, or actually doing something different.”

This is why Co:LabX – where I spend most of my time since mid 2015 – is about helping companies practice doing things differently. We are an innovation partner and we design innovation processes, but what we really do is help companies practice doing new things, and with new people. The key to really start working on the future is to become more curious, and you become curious simply by doing.

We paint future scenarios, we apply lateral ideation methods to produce vast amounts of ideas and we produce prototypes to test in quick ways. But the most important thing is to foster new ways of collaborating in organizations. New types of personal relationships. That takes creativity. And like another workshop participant said: ”…but then it feels like we all have to be change change agents nowadays”. That’s exactly it, isn’t it?

Here, you can read more about Co:LabX, an innovation partner with equal focus on the what and the how.

Categories
business transformation digital digital transformation organizational presentation strategy

Digital strategy deconstructed: key considerations, part. 2

This is the second part of a few, deconstructing and highlighting some important aspects of the concept of digital strategy and what to consider when approaching it. You’ll find part 1 here.

Part 1 was much about the power of words and definitions, and the need to actively reflect on this with the group responsible for thinking “digital strategy”. It also highlighted the power of using a networked perspective for understanding the integration, organisation wide implications as well as stakeholder alignment.

In this second part I’d like to touch on how brand culture and purpose matters greatly, and how reframing this, and ones market, creates a vantage point that fuels the thinking. I use two fairly well known examples to do this.

Ford manufactures cars, but a while back they redefined themselves as a mobility brand (actually, the original mission was to make America mobile, so not that drastic change…). What does that do? Obviously that depends. But there’s a number of things that fit very nicely together in business strategy, but I’d like to include it in digital strategy as we define that as broadly as strategic thinking in a digital (networked) world.

The mobility brand Ford saw the number of 16 year olds who get their first car drop considerably. More numbers are showing the same changes in demand. But if you’re not in the business of selling cars, but rather mobility, there’s another side to that.

Ford partnered with Zipcar which offers a subscription based model for access to mobility, in the form of cars. This could have been done without Zipcar. It is now done in different shapes and forms by many car manufacturers (I recently saw that Audi pushes micro-sharing experience, collective access to Audi cars)

Zipcar bought by Avis, but what if Ford bought it? Making money from providing mobility services in Volvos, BMWs etc? Competitors become collaborators. The revenue model drastically different. Not switching, complementing. All facilitated by new, networked, technology. But, more importantly: new self perception on behalf of the brand. The organisation, and how everyone sees value creation.

digital strategy – key considerations from funny you should ask

Slideshare: Part 2 touches on slide 5-7

reframing the market and the business

Product development vs business development. A networked perspective can dramatically fuel the thinking in business development. Looking at the brand, its purpose and meaning in peoples lives, is an important part of digital strategy. It might make it inseparable from business strategy, that’s fine. That’s actually just right. And here’s also where it becomes something bigger than a digital thing. That’s important, because when it’s a business matter, and even a cultural matter, you (still) have a better shot at getting more people excited and onboard.

The vast majority still don’t feel ”digitally savvy” and hence exclude themselves from ”digital” projects. Many are literally scared of it. But cultural transformation, processes, thinking about markets and business – there’s where you might find those people.

I’ve jotted down some thinking on meaning markets before. In the case with Uber, on slide 6, they think of themselves in a number of ways appart from ”taxi company”. One is as a logistics platform. What makes sense when you’re a logistics platform? Partnership with destinations. An open API. Revenue sharing between company and private drivers carrying out the transportation. All of the things that any taxi company could have done, but didn’t. Because their culture, self-perception and view on value creation, doesn’t allow for it. That’s right, it doesn’t allow for it. That’s how strong impact culture has on ideas. It’s back to definitions in a sense.

  • Always include, and even describe, your digital project/initiative as a (organizational) cultural one. You benefit from appealing to people who dislikes and even fear digital.

  • Rethink your market. Do the product vs. meaning exercise. What is your product? What is the meaning of you, and that product/service, in peoples’ lives? Then think about what your market really is. I’ve heard Unilever is very much in ”home care”, aiming to ”free up family time”. So how about a global platform for subscription based home-cleaning, laundry service, laundry pickup etc?

  • See also a method called Jobs To Be Done. This is not equating an initiative around digital strategy with innovation, but it is highlighting the perfect occasion for truly taking a stab at preemptively exploring ”how the business might change”.

OK. So two posts in and still no focus on media channels, social platforms and communication. I don’t think the next one will be either.

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business transformation digital transformation organizational strategy technology video clip

online mobile in offline and why it’s wrong

Margot Langsdorf from PSFK on Vimeo.

A good reminder of a few things. There’s not offline and online. Connectivity is simply a new dimension and mobile is hence about mobility. Which means there’s confusion to be experienced when/if working on mobile strategy and digital strategy and social strategy. Maybe it’s best to just talk about strategic planning and thinking for being real world ready…

The holistic approach to digital strategy is simply about the real world

In the article Why Nordstrom’s Digital Strategy Works (and Yours Probably Doesn’t), from Harvard Business Review, the three authors (from MIT Sloan School of Management, MIT Sloan’s Center for Information Systems Research and University of Texas at Austin) stress the fact that although a great number of respondents (in their research) expect competitive advantage from SMACIT technologies (Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud, IoT) – it’s unlikely to happen. Those technologies are rather minimum requirements, and highly available to boot.

The trick lies in how you combine, deploy and use them. Yes, that’s when you add a strategy behind it all. But as is often the case with strategy – it’s mostly a word used (bantered) and rarely a concept well practiced. Reasons being lack of a true aim, a real problem to overcome, no sober discussion around strengths to focus on and weaknesses to accept, overly unrealistic expectation (feels good and looks good, but doesn’t help with crafting strategy that actually helps) etc. So it’s unlikely to happen not because it can’t happen, but because the concept of strategy is so poorly practiced.

The Nordstrom example they use highlights the difference between disparate initiatives in different parts of an organisation – masquerading as digital strategy – versus a coherent and holistic approach that realizes that a powerful digital strategy that actually accomplishes something has to take the full picture into account. Not mobile. Not social. But how everything fits together in the real world, and in real situations, with the business in the center.

This is not a matter of having the best apps, analytics, or social media tools. Instead, it’s a matter of tending to the details of building integrated digital capabilities, one at a time, making the right data accessible, and simplifying processes. Most retailers will struggle to do this because they haven’t architected their product or customer data for easy access by the new digital capabilities. Without those core capabilities, integration with and among new digital capabilities is virtually impossible.

  • building integrated…
  • data accessible
  • processes
  • easy access
  • integration

Notice how all of that has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with how people are going to work with it. And that demands understanding why it’s needed at all (what can we do better, i.e. what problem do we have today). These aspects revolve around the business, they highlight the importance of stakeholder alignment, cross departmental understanding, processes etc.

The authors sign off by suggesting that we Develop a strategy for succeeding in the digital economy—a purpose that leverages your unique capabilities and responds to market opportunities. Then grab every technology that takes you there.

And thinking about how to succeed in the digital economy is, of course, equally thinking about how to be real world ready. So if strategy is a word that sets the wrong tone and triggers the wrong associations – just make it about the real world.

Categories
business transformation future technology

future of key societal institutions

So, as mentioned earlier, banking is one of the most exciting industries from a service design perspective and definitely one on the verge of really being disrupted. Perhaps less likely by new entrants surprising the old dragons, but rather one or more old dragons to finally redefine and rewrite their ”normal” approach to banking.

In my feed, these two initiatives surfaced. Don’t know how serious they are with this, but we’ll see.

nordea innovation challenge

Nordea Bank Challenge
A team from IBM, Nordea and Apple were available for all the teams through out the event.

Deutsche Bank, future of banking

Design boom - future of banking
A future of banking event by designboom, in collaboration
with Deutsche Bank.

If banking, as a key institution in society yet until recently quite unlikely to progressively move forward, is doing it , who aren’t, yet? Library and other public services? Governments as such? Traditional education system? What area or industry is the least progressive and change embracing, I wonder.

Categories
brand business business culture business transformation marketing organizational

Meaning based brand development

For quite a while, I’ve been using Ford as an example of a brand that’s redefined itself (or rather refocused) from car manufacturer to what they refer to as a mobility brand. I think it makes all the difference.

What they did early on was team up with ZipCar on US campuses, getting young drivers (note; drivers, not car owners) to get into Ford cars. Stats on that car selling challenge here. Now, of course the meaning with owning a car is transportation and mobility (not taking into account the, to be honest, not so small addition of signalling something about you as a person, which I think sits equally much in what you choose to drive and not just what you own). Hence a new business model. You may come from manufacturing and selling Ford cars, but that’s not necessarily the business for ever after. If Ford viewed their meaning market like Avis do (Avis bought ZipCar), they’d step past the competition by way of a business focused on getting people transportation – whether that’s a BMW, Volvo, Ford or whatever car brand. Potentially pretty drastic from a scaled up business model perspective .

Envisioning freely what Ford could be doing and what the larger meaning market could be, and what offers and services fit in, you touch on selecting models and vehicles. So I’m always thinking why not be able to buy the sporty one – but get 5 free rentals a year for when the family needs a larger vehicle for soccer games or something like that. You know, bake that in as the augmented product. Relieving difficult choices, in a way. Because it’s not about buying a car, it’s about transportation, mobility – even family logistics, when you think about it.

So now I found this similar offer/service/nudge from BMW to make the decision of buying the i3 easier. Good one.

The exercise of thinking Product (category) vs. Meaning (value of the (bigger/multiple) market(s)) is one that I stress every brand and organisation to do in a recurring manner. It sits in the project/process/challenge of figuring out the digital strategy, mind you. It’s because technology and digital, if we allow ourselves to refer to it as loosely as that, is driving societal changes. That means what you do, who you are and how you do things – can, and will, drastically change. Meaning your basic existence is the topic. That’s a cultural question, not a technical one. And that, dear reader, is the most importan distinction to be made when getting an organisation of not-so-tech-interested people to start pulling in the same direction. To feel ownership in a question that they, hence, understand and grasp (culture and meaning as opposed to that “digital stuff”).

I use meaning* and not purpose. I might seem like semantics but I think the two are distinctively different. With brands defining their purpose, I think often we see an inside/out perspective still lurking there. It’s our purpose (for us) vs. the meaning (for users). Meaning is about the new markets (and business ideas, models and revenue models) that can be identified and that may not resemble anything your used to from before (scary). The value they provide and generate. Purpose is centered too much around a statement about the brand and doesn’t get “verbified” as well.

Have you phrased, framed and begun the cultural transformation that is the result of technological change yet?

* I am aware that if you are looking at the word meaning in the context of brands and consumption, we also have another definition in the consumer culture research discipline. I use meaning markets more in a business development sense, where function/utility takes precedence over the development of signaling powers of brands, although the two are intertwined.

A Ted Talk where Bill Ford Jr shares some thinking on the future of transportation and mobility (2011).




Categories
business business transformation marketing strategy

Medieorganisationers större roll i samhället

Tidningar, nyhetsorganisationer, journalistiken (?), mediehus i en bredare bemärkelse har problem. Utmaningar drivna av teknisk utveckling, och med detta förändrade beteenden med betalningsovilja betyder grus i maskineriet. Knappast en nyhet för någon. Men som en mycket intelligent man påpekade, så kan man inte lösa problem på samma nivå som problemet skapades.

I många fall betyder det att dessa tekniskt drivna förändringar och utmaningar inte nödvändigtvis löses med hjälp av tekniska lösningar, utan lösningen ligger på en djupare, mer fundamental nivå. Från två medieorganisationer kommer två exempel, inte på lösningar, men intressanta steg som vittnar om en utvärdering av sin roll i samhället. Sin mening ur ett större perspektiv och därmed nya möjligheter att tackla utmaningarna.

Det jag enkelt kallar meaning markets (och skrev lite om här) är ett förlösande koncept/metod/arbetssätt. Absolut besläktat med begrepp som brand purpose men mycket mer aktiverande än så. Brand purpose är en form för att, som så ofta, kort och koncist utrycka ett varumärkes kärna och syfte. Ett viktigt konstaterande, men inte så speciellt drivande i sig. Att aktivt arbeta med meaning market genererar riktning, idéer, förhållningssätt och även nya/alternativa affärsmodeller eftersom det hela tiden söker slutvärdet för användaren. Inte ingångsvärden. En verbifiering av purpose helt enkelt.

Medieorganisationer tycker jag är extremt intressanta ifrån detta perspektiv. Vad har vi dem till? Vad är dom för oss i samhället? Förr i tiden väldigt tydligt nyhetsförmedlare. Mycket papper. Initierade, inlästa, ifrågasättande och granskande. Men varför?

Medieorganisationer beskrivs medievetenskapligt utefter ett gäng parametrar så som organisation, medieteknisk beskaffenhet (etermedia, print etc), juridiska aspekter, affärsmodell och så vidare. De skiljer sig på olika sätt, men hur man än vänder och vrider på det så är medieorganisationer det (starka) klistret i samhällskittet som ju förutsätter insatta och upplysta medborgare, och aktiva kanaler mellan samhällets deltagare.

Betyder det då “bara” rapportering eller har detta av historiska (och medietekniska) skäl varit så bara för att…?

The Guardian har en väldigt framåtlutad och offensiv inställning till deras roll i framtiden. Globaliserad organisation med exempelvis satsning på USA. Digital first-initiativet är mycket tydligt. De är erkända som bland de bästa på nyhetsvärdering, men inte nödvändigtvis de bästa att snappa upp och rapportera. De kan alltså inta en mer faciliterande roll, med samma slutmål, och gör också detta genom tydliga initiativ kring citizen journalism.

Guardian Reporting

Det är då ett naturligt steg att för ett mer kollaborativt arbetssätt (och globaliserat perspektiv) börja utbilda. Inte journalister, bredare än så. Vad de kallar Guardian Master Classes har växt till sig.

Att arbeta för att stärka samhällskittet, inte själva bara rapportera och granska. Samma mål, mycket större mening. Större marknad, ökad och bredare relevans samt möjligheter att generera nya typer av intäkter och bättre knyta användare till sig (lock on, som en kollega utrycker det).

SvD tillhandahåller “SvD Läs och Skriv”

Även SvD har reflekterat över sin roll bortom rapportering och ett samtidigt konstaterande av minskande intresse ibland yngre personer. Med “Läs och Skriv” agerar man proaktivt och inte endast efter ett rapporteringsfokuserat syfte. Man spelar en aktiv roll i skapandet av intresserade (och läskunniga) medborgare. För det är målet med rapporteringen, men därmed inte sagt att rapportering är den enda aktiviteten eller metoden. Intressant, och förhoppningsvis mer än en sidosyssla.

Här finns sådant som är relevant för tonåringar. Jag läste en krönika om skolor som slösade pengar på reklam; det var något som jag inte hade tänkt på förut, säger han.

– Alexander Willemsen, 15 år

Att få engagerade samhällsmedborgare är ju jätteviktigt, säger hon och tillägger att ungas läsförmåga och samhällsintresse är centrala frågor för en demokrati.

– Madeleine Ellvin, lärare

Det är inte svårt att komma att tänka på mängder av företag – varumärken – som kämpar för sin relevans, momentum, betydelse(fullhet) och lönsamhet. Hur många är inte de som tuffar på, bakbundna av det man alltid gjort? Vad kan de göra? Vad skulle de kunna vara? Jag påmindes att posta de här raderna som legat och skrotat som lösa reflektioner när följande citat dök upp på en skärm nära mig.

“Every organisation eventually becomes inward looking, bloated and loses sight and becomes pretty much useless”

– Steve Forbes

Ouch!

Categories
brand business business transformation digital just a reflection research technology

Business transformation report, by Tieto

My work is never dull. I frequently get involved in workshops and discussions with stakeholders from different industries, all battling the same core challenge. That of change and transformation. Recently I got a taste of private banking. I’m not going to share any of that, but it struck me how true much of this Business Transformation Report, from Tieto (a leading Nordic IT Service Company) and Kairos Future (Strategic Futures Consultants) is spot on and true based on the conversations. Some excerpts:

“Hand on heart: Is your prime goal with adopting new technology incremental change or radical innovation?”

”The reason we do not invest more in transformation is not lack of resources. It’s because we simply don’t know what to invest in”.

– Major Bank executive (Tieto report)

“Even though they might have a rough idea of where the market and technology is heading, they are uncertain of how the business models will play out and what the consequences will be. The questions those executives need to ask is: Will you be more certain if you sit waiting, or if you invest small in exploration and low-cost experimentation?”

Easier said than done, transforming and changing. But waiting to be sure isn’t the route you want to bet on.

Don’t just stand there (chapter):

  1. Do you have a clear view of where the future of your industry is heading over the next 3-7 years?
  2. Would you describe your company as an active future-oriented reallocator?
  3. Do you have a process for scouting and acquiring promising companies or technologies?
  4. Do you actively engage your partners and customers in co-creation activities to find the future for you?

“Consequently, having a culture where people are embracing or at least not rejecting changing behaviours (my marking), practices and attitudes is necessary if a fundamental transformation will ever take place.”

That’s an interesting distinction when working with change. You don’t have to focus on loving change, start by not disliking it so much, and from that position you can do things slightly different. Doesn’t sound as a big difference, but it is. Don’t go for daring to do things differently. Go for not being afraid of trying some things differently.

“As neurologists and neuroscientists say, we become what we constantly do. This is true not only metaphorically. Even our brains are being transformed and rewired as we start to use them in different ways. So fundamental transformation in terms of new practices and behaviours is – literally – fundamental.”

End of block quotes…

Full report accessible here.