Worried about Disruption, you and your business need to learn how to ADAPTOVATE. Be willing and able to ADAPT your strategy and business model to address market changes, and then have an internal way of working that enables the company to INNOVATE, to create new products and services to deliver to the disrupting market.
Yes, ADAPTOVATE is a made up word!
ADAPTOVATE is what you get when you put the verbs ADAPT and INNOVATE in a blender.
We use those normal English words every day in the same breath as DISRUPTION and THE FUTURE OF WORK. But in 2010, when I dreamed up the doozy ADAPTOVATE, I was really thinking about the two things that really worked for people and teams as they successfully transformed their businesses and delivered products and services that their customers absolutely love.
ADAPTOVATE is a mindset
To ADAPT is to become suitable to new conditions or purpose. Adaptation is how we became humans and not monkeys. To INNOVATE stems from the Latin word innovare which means to renew, or alter. So, to any individual, to
So, no matter who you are, to ADAPTOVATE is a mindset in which you:
Change the situation by renewing something about yourself, especially the way you think and act.
ADAPTOVATE is a way to stay in business, with disruption on the horizon
In the tough business world today, the ability to rapidly and successfully ADAPT your business model to new market conditions is the difference between success or failure. Kodak, Borders, and Blockbuster all failed because they were not prepared to rethink how their businesses make money as the market conditions shifted.
But it’s no surprise: changing how your business generates value is a massive call and a calculated bet on how the market is changing. But this ability to smartly and swiftly ADAPT is absolutely crucial as businesses tackle what is called DISRUPTION.
The oft-quoted example is Netflix — a business founded in 1997, long before the streaming revolution. But what this California giant caught onto was how rapidly the market was moving in terms of how people wanted to watch their movies. Netflix abandoned its successful DVD postal business model — including almost all of the business’ revenue. What it chose instead was to brilliantly ADAPT to the changing market conditions and focus all efforts on a new business model that would ultimately revolutionise how we “Netflix and chill” on a Friday night.
Without this inspired decision to ADAPT, there would have been no time or space to enable the business and its resources to change tack and catch that hefty new gust of wind. It’s the perfect example of just how crucial that initial big decision is — without it, your business will not adapt and be ready to thrive in the future.
Business types also talk a lot about INNOVATION. You’ll hear them go on about moving from zero to one; about inventing something new, unique, isolated. But I still prefer the word’s Latin origins — to renew and alter. Where innovation’s business value really delivers is in how customers or users clearly understand (and can relate to) the value being delivered. And this most easily happens when they can compare the innovation with the tired, old thing that is being altered or renewed. Basically:
‘I love <new thing> because it is just so much better than <old thing>’
It is often much more difficult to get anyone to spot the value in something that is completely new (except perhaps when true innovation creates something that is actually unique). But if yours is a business that is worried about disruption, you definitely need to learn how to ADAPTOVATE — and fast!
ADAPTOVATE is a new type of consulting firm
After two decades of transforming corporate business models, and starting and working with successful start-ups, I bumped into a couple of great people in 2017 and we started a firm called (you guessed it!) ADAPTOVATE. Together with Alex and Paul, we’re based in Sydney and Melbourne, not to mention Singapore and our new offices opening up in Europe and North America.
Not only are we fast growing, we really have something important to say about how start-ups and large enterprises can, should and must adapt, innovate and scale.
Like other great consulting firms, our focus on the value in your business is tenacious. But we stand out from the crowd because we don’t focus on value by solving hard problems behind closed doors like a strategy firm. And we don’t get you to outsource innovation to us like a digital or design firm.
Because our clients are all different, and because we embrace and celebrate these differences, you won’t catch us taking a cookie-cutter approach to your problems. Rather, we collaborate with you, your people and your teams in a treasure hunt-style search for new ways to adapt and innovate across every part of your business. We’ll then help you design and test those new ways of working on a small scale before scaling it up — not forgetting to build in the internal mechanism for further adaptation and innovation simply as a key component or your new operating model. By the team we leave, your people and teams will be armed to keep adapting and innovating in our absence. In other words, we’ll deliver what we at ADAPTOVATE advertise right on the tin … Success Sustained. Getting in touch with us is the first step to getting there.