If you are feeling overwhelmed by the volume of information, options and messages bombarding your daily life, you are not alone. Enter the curator – a role that I believe will become even more dominant in the decades ahead, creating opportunities for individuals and companies alike. The term curator has traditionally been associated with the experts working at museums who bring together the right collection of pieces to convey new insights into a subject, be it an art movement or geological period. Normally, seeing a part versus the whole of something reduces our understanding. Who would envision an elephant from a tusk? The genius of museum curators rests in their ability to select, from an entire body of work, the right subset to deepen the audience’s understanding of both the part and the whole. There are many other types of curators all around…
Product-Service Business Model Best Practices
I had occasion this week to look through a number of business-to-business manufacturers’ websites and noted the growing role of services in company offerings. Some services link directly to the products (e.g., financing or warranty services). Others are complementary – e.g., “buy our power generation products and our service team will help you minimize your carbon footprint.” The additions of services to products make sense in a world where products are increasingly commoditized by excess global supply, growing customer power and a flood of copycat offerings. More and more of these services are must-have additions to a product line because customers have come to expect them. And that means product manufacturers best not remain stuck in product-centric business models. Furthermore, because its getting harder to differentiate individual services, product manufacturers best be savvy in how they add services. There are two myths associated…
Are your business model decisions aligned?
I had occasion this week to look at a number of different frameworks containing questions that help you design and innovate business models, each one developed by an insightful strategist and each offering advantages. While they varied in details, there was a singular logic that leaders, charged with ensuring their company is competing with winning business models, could benefit from. To illustrate, a story might fit the bill. All Pleasant Rowland’s advisors argued against her desired channel strategy. A former schoolteacher turned grade-school textbook writer, Rowland wanted to create a doll that would help mothers keep their daughters’ attitudes and dress younger, longer. An aunt herself, Rowland had observed how contemporary culture encouraged girls to consider make-up and the like at earlier ages than had Rowland. Rowland wanted to sell the doll through direct marketing (just catalogues at the time) in lieu of…
Don’t let paradigms preclude business model innovation
Business model innovation lessons abound in the daily news, and not just in the business section. CNN and Fox News provide recent examples. Both offered breaking but inaccurate news that the US Supreme Court ruled Obama’s signature healthcare reform – the Affordable Care Act (ACA) – as unconstitutional. Their paradigm – a mental model for how things work – coupled with competition to offer breaking news resulted in their reporting mistake. Most of the courtroom and media debate about the ACA centered on whether the US Constitution’s commerce clause allowed the federal government to mandate insurance coverage. This discussion produced a paradigm that the case would be ruled on this clause. Chief Justice Robert’s reading of the majority decision even started with the mandate not being constitutional under the commerce clause. So CNN and Fox jumped to a false conclusion. That’s what paradigms…
Reviving local retail through business model innovation
In the new Broadway-bound musical Hands on a Hardbody, ten East Texans seek to reverse their hard luck lives in a competition to win a Nissan truck. In one song, Used To Be, the contestants lament the loss of independent stores across Texas. “How will we know when we’re home,” the cast croons, “in a land filled with Walmarts and Walgreens and Wendy’s?” The musical captures much of what is hurting in America, the retail landscape being but one example. Office Depot, Staples and Office Max for example displaced local office supply stores while Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, Target and other national chains displaced locally owned pharmacies. National retailers then pressured manufacturers for cost reductions, creating ruthless competition that’s driven every last penny and non-essential US job out of consumer goods companies’ cost structures. The change from local to national had advantages. A developer…
Disney’s forward-looking business model innovation
Disney’s recent decision to restrict products advertised on its child-focused media properties might not appear to be business model innovation in the classic sense. But it is. With that one decision, Disney is redefining how, where, and why they will do business with other companies, and offering a leading-edge value promise to consumers. In reading societal tea leaves correctly and taking bold action, Disney will advance its financial and social value. Starting in 2015 Disney will restrict advertising on its child-focused TV channels, website and other media properties to brands that meet a strict new set of federal nutritional standards. The decision will reduce Disney advertising revenue from brands like Capri Sun™ drinks and Kraft Lunchables™, foods that may be fun to eat but not good nutrition. Concurrently, Disney will reduce the salt content of meals served at its theme parks and engage…
Culture as a business model advantage
The last chapter in my book “Beyond Price” focuses on culture change as a key mechanism for realizing the growth potential of new business models. Business model specialist Patrick Stahler also emphasizes values and the culture they create. Chicago-area’s Tasty Catering provides an excellent demonstration of our arguments. Tasty Catering has an ambitious goal: being one of the best-known and most highly regarded companies in their industry. The Chicago-based company, which employs over 70 full-time and 150 part-time seasonal workers, is well on its way to realizing that vision. Inc. Magazine Best Top Workplaces, Wall Street Journal Best Small Workplaces, and Catering Magazine awards, among others, cover one wall. The secret of Tasty Catering’s success lies in the company’s culture of individual excellence and initiative, aligned around a shared aim of customer delight. Sound business practices with a customer focus Brothers Tom, Kevin…
Can you shape your industry to better support your business model’s success?
Leaders make a mistake when they assume industry dynamics are unchangeable in their model innovation work. Industry collaborations that change dynamics can be very smart strategy in both mature and emerging markets. Industry cooperative marketing efforts can advance an industry’s products. Remember the successful “Got Milk?” campaign creatively placing milk mustaches on famous faces? Cranberries would merely remain a Thanksgiving staple without farm cooperative Ocean Spray’s efforts that landed cranberries in juice, cereals, salads toppings and snack foods. Setting standards also shapes industry dynamics. During my tenure at Datex-Ohmeda, global leader in anesthesia systems that’s now owned by GE, we worked closely with competitors and the American Society for Testing and Measuring to establish basic monitoring standards for anesthesia equipment. Yes, the standards advanced patient safety, but they also blocked low-cost competitors from entering the market, accelerated machine replacements and reduced our product…
Reflections on business model innovation from a company strategy retreat
“Select a once rapidly growing company whose growth stalled. Then, contemplate the root cause for its decline and be prepared to share your reflections at the retreat.” This assignment was one of many I asked leaders of a rapidly growing, omni-channel apparel retailer to complete in preparation for our two-day strategy retreat. (Omni-channel refers to the fact that people increasingly engage with companies across multiple channels, using each channel for different tasks.) The chosen once-celebrated examples of stalled growth included company names that used to fill articles on “best practices” to secure revenue growth. If nothing else the following names serve as a testimony to why leaders should never assume their existing business models will remain vibrant over the long haul. Kodak Too slow (or quarterly profit focused) to change from film to digitally-based business models Never fully immersed itself in digital photography…
Segment markets on situation to unearth winning new business models
“Situation” is a powerful lens for identifying business model innovation opportunities and protecting whatever market space you now command. “Situational segmentation” recognizes that any one customer’s needs – for a restaurant for example – depend on the circumstances giving rise to the need – entertaining, date-night, shopping with a friend. You can disrupt a leader or protect your position by finding situations where existing offerings fail to address situational needs. Zipcar, founded in 2000, did just that. Errands and other short trips lead auto nonowners, like college students and young urban dwellers, to need a car for hours instead of days or weeks. Auto rental companies, designed for travel and longer-term rentals, are often too far away, too expensive and take too much time to transact with to meet short-hop situational needs. Zipcar’s car sharing subscription service addressed the unmet need, allowing its…