Thought Leadership in Solutions

Thought LeadershipWhat and How?

Bridgestone gained thought leadership in the tire industry by pairing up with Ferrari on F1 - viewer brand recall jumped From less than 15% to over 75% in the first year

By taking on Aston Martin in the early years, Enzo Ferrari established his company as a thought leader in high performance automotive technology

Thought Leadership in Solutions ManagementWhat Does it Mean?

Software-as-a-Solution

Create new markets while the competition plays catch up

A Little Depth…

Chink in the ArmorWhy The Biggies Cannot Do It

• Sears, IBM, Digital, Xerox, Apple– Market leaders, extremely well-managed companies, yet lost

significant market share in the face of disruptive technical innovation

• Big companies are held captive by their customers• Their processes and products are optimized for the current

market– but it renders them incapable to adapting to upcoming and emerging

markets and innovations

Innovation is Not Born Equal

• Large companies are extremely good at incremental innovations – always improving what they are good at

• Small companies like us are more suited for radical, disruptive innovation because we are not bound by our customers

• Our large and varied customer base and breadth of exposure makes us extremely well suited for driving disruptive technical innovations

The Innovate-Commoditize-Innovate Cycle

• Innovation is seeded through Informal, unsanctioned POCs in the well-established companies

• Marketing tests POCs with customers, realize the market is small and non-profitable

• Management focuses on strengthening existing offerings for it’s larger, more important customers

• Find a new niche through spin offs ready to sell to whoever wants to buy

• New entrants move up-market into the customer base of its larger and bigger rivals

• Bigger players race to defend its market

Five Principles Guiding Successful Innovation

• Customers guide resource allocation in well-run companies• Small markets are not interesting to large companies• Ultimate use of disruptive innovation is unknown – failure is

critical step to success• An organizations strength is in its core values and processes –

and this is also its biggest weakness in embracing disruptive change

• The same attributes that make disruptive technology unattractive to established markets are its strengths in emerging ones

Harnessing the 5 PrinciplesChannelizing the Organization for Innovation

• Embed disruptive projects with “special” customer needs to ensure resource allocation

• Create small organizations and units to get them excited about the small wins

• Prepare to fail often, minimize losses by failing early• Use the parent organization’s resources, but not the

processes and values• Use disruptive technologies in new markets rather than using

technology for gaining share in established markets

The Solutions Management Puzzle

Step Owner

Solution Identification Owner BU Head with approval of CEO & COO

Solution Creation Solution (Product) Manager

Solution Pilot Solution (Product) Design and Implementation Team – Innovation Unit

Solution Delivery BU Project Teams (multiple)

Solution Evolution and Sustenance

Solution (Product) Design and Implementation Team – Maintenance Unit

Solution Retirement Solution (Product) Design and Implementation Team – EOL Unit

Solution Sales and Marketing Solution (Product) Sales and Marketing

Bringing it all Together

Functions and Partners Actions and Impact

HR Encourage rebels, non-conformists, reward innovation not just productivity

Partners in the Ecosystem Our value network, find us new markets

Technology Competency Centers Focus on applying disruptive technologies to solutions

Sales and Marketing Incentivize to create new markets, not volumes

Corporate Communication Focus on garnering exposure, even if controversial

Training Train for innovation and experimentation. Also, train for product management

Business Models and Organization

Separate unit tasked with innovation and market creation, different yardsticks for success compared to parent organization

Engineering Processes Institutionalize innovation and knowledge management, harness creativity and channelize it towards solutions

References

• The Innovator’s Dilemma, Clayton M. Christensen