Of all the eulogising about Apple and Steve Jobs that has been published since his death a couple of days ago, almost predictably, the best one in my humble view comes from Gary Hamel who looks at Apple through his lens of Strategy.
Hamel thinks about the development and execution of the sources of competitive advantage, and he applies these thoughts to Apple and the legacy of Jobs.
Innovating a business model usually is about finding ways to put elements of a service delivery together differently, these days it is usually also about combining technologies to deliver an outcome that would have been impossible without both the technology and the new combination.
In the US there is a new car sharing (as distinct from rental) service, Zipcar, growing very rapidly by delivering a car-share service without the frustrating paperwork, queues, and uncertainty that is present currently in car rentals.
Simply join, and receive a “Zipcard” which activates a reader on the windshield of a Zipcar, updates your account, records mileage and location of the car, and opens the doors so you can get in and drive away. You can just turn up at a depot, or reserve over the net or mobile app, no paperwork, no hassle.
Suddenly, inner city living just got a whole lot easier!
Nothing new ever happens when the past is just repeated.
When Apple was at the bottom of its life-cycle, when they basically ran out of cash, and survival was improbable, Steve Jobs, just reinstated at the company he founded took a step that redefined the persona of the business.
He made an advertisement, aimed at the diminishing pool of customers, and potential customers, but also at the employees and other stakeholders, an ad that should be remembered as one that started the redefinition of the business that now pervades every category they create. The ad was sufficiently successful to attract that doyen of social commentators, the Simpsons, to have a shot.
Thnking differently is a challenge to most, it creates anxiety, the fear of failure, and puts people at risk from the naysayers and bureaucrats, but without them, we have no innovation, nothing different.
What a boring world that would be.
Ask a SME manager in packaged goods, “would you like a phone call from Woolworths ordering stock of your new product for every store in the country?” and you will most likely get a tear with the nodded head.
Enter the “Orabrush” story, they got the call from Walmart without any of the usual begging.
There are many hurdles for SME’s in the packaged goods industry to jump before distribution in the major retailers can be obtained, and then the problems really start, because SME’s lack the resources to move the product off shelf before the trial period runs out.
Social media has helped over the past couple of years, you now have the opportunity to reach highly targeted groups of consumers, and deliver them a message, but generally it has not helped much to get the product on shelf in the first place.
Orabrush really broke the mass market model with a product I still find odd, but great creativity and lateral thinking combined with social media has turned the product into a hit, and can now be found in Walmart stores around the world
Have a look at the Youtube ads in the link, gems.
Coles & Woolies are starting out to reduce the gap between their marketing practices and those of the trendsetter, Tesco in the UK.
I guess this is not surprising given they are both watching Tesco very closely, and Coles management is now dominated by ex Tesco personnel, but I wonder if Australia has the depth of Innovation capability to not just copy what others have done, but to create genuine innovation in this exploding digital space.
We appear to have taken the edge off our capability, Universities and research facilities are starved of funds, hobbled by any current political agenda, and standards do not appear to be sufficiently rigorous to test and train the very best minds we produce. This is a long term challenge, way beyond any political cycle, but in my view should be high on our agenda if we are serious as a nation about the role we play into the future. It is not just about the carbon tax (look at what Iceland is doing) or what to do with a few desperate people arriving in leaky boats, it is about how we set up our nation for the long term.
Insead Business School and the Confederation of Indian Industry have produced a credible report that ranks our performance in the all important “Innovation Stakes” at 18, better than Thailand, but behind New Zealand. Australia’s profile is on page 79.
Googles purchase of Motorola poses an interesting management challenge.
To date, Google has been a producer of software, an intellectually intensive activity that can be accomplished anywhere the brain is located.
Manufacturing is a different beast.
Suddenly you have factories, supply chains, unions, fragmented regulatory regimes covering OH&S, environment, waste, and a myriad of other stuff that sometimes seems designed to ensure you drown in red tape. What a difference!
This will stretch Google’s leadership and culture, as any manufacturing executive will tell you, it is not as easy as it looks.