Reinvention
If you stand still in the world of products, you are going backwards! This stays true even more so today than in the past. What does it mean? Well, in the industrial age, you knew your competition. Adjacent industries were easy to identify and track. Red oceans were identified with defined boundaries, and success was competing against competition until you had a commodity and a race to the bottom on price or innovated through adjacent diversification. When I consult with product companies and charities, they have a similar product strategy. Keep milking the sacred cow, the giver of margin and profit. Even when the margin erodes, it’s like there is a strong gravitational force keeping them stuck.
Why do so many get stuck on a strategy? Well, it’s because of two things:
- Certainty (knowing the playing field guaranteed returns even if they are reducing
- It’s straightforward to get hooked on the most significant revenue stream and protect it at all costs. This may work in the short term, but you will be left with a dead cow in the longer term!
So, what’s the solution here? Reinvention: I am not talking about bringing in expensive consultants to create a reassuring,expensive slide deck with a copy-and-paste transformation strategy framework. I’m talking about a fixer-upper strategy, which is a strategy based on sustainability and high performance, where profits and new opportunities are uncharted.
Ok, so maybe you have heard all the above before. I know I have. Why is it so difficult to decide the first and best move? This comes down to leadership embracing uncertainty. I am not saying send your sacred cow to the slaughterhouse; I am saying it’s a yes and. You must optimise your revenue stream to protect all you can, reduce churn and put a big expirationdate on it. Best before mm/yy. The vision is then to have a firm objective that you have alternative revenue streams and products out in the market before the expiry date. Remember, strategy comes from the military field of confronting the enemy and winning. I am talking about exploring the uncharted ocean and reinvention. We have seen this repeatedly:Nike, Disney, Pixar, Apple and even Taylor Swift. They are reinventing themselves to ensure a sustainable future.
So, you have an expiration date, set a course to reinvent your organisation, and have several experiments running,exploring what works and what will sink your ships.
What is next, well, is people. The above can be done with a team of 1-4 people. However, your organisation needs to be on board the ship and willing to ride the waves to get a lasting impact. If you have kids, as I do, you will be familiar with many Disney songs. To quote a Disney song from Frozen.
“People make bad choices if they’re mad, or scared, or stressed
Throw a little love their way
And you’ll bring out their best
True love brings out their best!”
The song highlights the need for compassion and empathy with your people. If you are squeezing your executive team to milk the cow harder or to squeeze every penny, they will be in tactical execution mode with short-term choices to reach the goal without considering the future. Upgrading the operating system of your leadership team is critical to get them looking beyond the horizon and strategically figuring out where the organisation needs to go. This could include replacing some or all of the team and changing the operating model and value chain.
The market has universal opportunities, and the guarantee is that you will fail. The first failure will hurt hard. However,holding to the objective of an expiration date, you need to push on to find the winning strategy and products. I know it’stough with all the sunk costs; however, it’s essential for reinvention.
Bhavesh Vaghela
Delightfully Dyslexic So please forgive the typos
