It came as no surprise to many analysts that Microsoft has had a disappointing few months, with very slow holiday sales of its Surface tablet and continuing tepid-at-best reviews of Windows 8. PCs and Windows software are in trouble – so much so that Microsoft is investing billions to prop up one of its channels to the market – Dell, and some predict a Kodak-like demise of Microsoft. It also comes as no surprise to anyone who, like me, turns on a Lenovo Think Pad (or any other PC) and resumes Microsoft Windows. Depending on how I exited my computer, I may have to wait as long as 5 minutes before it is usable. A similar delay occurs throughout the day when my computer falls asleep. Consider that my employer (IBM) has 400,000+ workers across the globe experiencing these delays every day, every…
Alignment builds a winning brand and business model for XIAMETER®
Brand trust is harder to earn in today’s economy? The pressure to cut costs makes delivering day after day on promised benefits more challenging. Social media creates messages that listeners deem more reliable than your own. And retaining meaningful and hard-to-copy differentiation has become more challenging in our copycat global economy. Silicon leader Dow Corning is one company that has managed to build authentic brand trust by clearly communicating its value promise, aligning people, adapting its business models, and letting its culture evolve to support its two brands, Dow Corning® and XIAMETER®. Dow Corning created the XIAMETER brand in 2002 to preserve market share as specialty silicon products commoditized, a savvy example of business model innovation that I wrote about in late 2011. The fully automated (from ordering to fulfillment) business model enables the brand to maintain profitability at the lower price points…
As CMOs become immersed in technology, beware of the CIO myopic thinking trap
If you thought that the move from the Industrial Era to the Digital Era was the last major economic transition that your business would have to deal with, think again. We are in the middle of yet another transformation of comparable magnitude. The slow but steady shift of power away from companies and to customers as we moved into the Digital Era will reach its zenith in the years ahead. Today’s customers, clients, and consumers are instrumented, interconnected, intelligent, engaged, informed and empowered. They want companies they buy from to know them, interact with them on their terms, and personalize marketing offers and customer support. They even want personalized products and services. IBM (my employer) calls this the Connected Consumer Era and it will lead into a digitization of the front office comparable to the back office digitization of the past two decades….
Business model innovation lesson in HP exiting PCs
What should we make of HP CEO Leo Apotheker’s recent announcement that HP is spinning off its PC business for a future sale, despite holding worldwide market share leadership? Here are three potential answers. HP understands portfolio management. The PC industry as traditionally defined is maturing, with growth mostly in the developing world. HP has higher growth businesses in which to invest. Apotheker’s copying another company’s winning strategy. In 2005, IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo to focus on its Smarter Planet B2B solutions business. HP’s recent announcement that it is buying British enterprise software maker Autonomy Corporation at a 60-80% premium (depending on the analyst) suggests a copycat strategy. Autonomy provides unstructured data analytics and data management software, positioning HP for the $20 billion enterprise information management market and $55 billion business analytics software and services market. HP can’t compete. Computing…
Does Carly Fiorina’s HP legacy foreshadow her Senate leadership?
It seems natural to judge a political candidate by her previous work performance, which is precisely why my eyes are on the California Senate race. Former HP CEO Carley Fiorina is challenging the incumbent democrat, US Senator Barbara Boxer, to represent the financially strapped state. While the two women trade public policy barbs, HP shareholders are debating whether to dump HP stock. From my perspective, the seeds for HP’s current problems were planted from 1999-2005 during Fiorina’s tenure as CEO of HP. (Disclosure: I vote in Wisconsin. I am an independent and have voted for both parties.) Before her forced exit, Fiorina changed HP in two ways that each demanded significant internal focus. First, she reorganized the company, a reorganization that Mark Hurd who followed Fiorina spent time dismantling, as it diffused responsibility for organic growth and delayed decisions. (Hurd’s reorganization cut out…