Disruptive Innovation: The Solution and the Challenge
As the 2016 GE Global Innovation Barometer illustrates, there is general agreement (90%), among business executives and citizens that the most innovative companies not only launch new products and services but also create a new market that didn’t previously exist. Yet, what if technology evolves faster than businesses can adapt?
Optimism about the power of innovation prevails, but 81% of business executives are mindful of “Digital Darwinism” and fear becoming obsolete.
Read on for thoughts from Jake Schwartz (General Assembly), Aaron Levie (Box) and Yvonne Wassenaar (New Relic) on surviving Digital Darwinism, moving into the digital future and capitalizing on digital opportunity.
Talent is the Key to Surviving Digital Darwinism
The fear of “Digital Darwinism” is palpable around the world, with 81 percent of executives surveyed by the GE Innovation Barometer mindful of a fear of becoming obsolete. While tying survival to innovation is a valid mentality, the global race for talent should be top of mind. The greatest thing companies can do to stay competitive in today’s evolving digital landscape is to focus on talent — the top factor cited by executives in the Barometer for innovating successfully. Talent is the building block of an organization, and the current moment represents an opportunity to build real advantage through their teams. This means bringing in new talent that is fluent with the trends and relevant 21st century skills, but it also means truly investing in the development of the teams already in place. Employees value their growth and development above all else, and in that they are 100 percent aligned with the imperatives of the contemporary business environment of continuous change. Valuing people and investing in their skills will fuel a positive and consistently relevant corporate culture — and will help avoid the risk of becoming obsolete.
Don’t Be Timid Moving Into the Digital Future
The big question facing Fortune 500 companies is: as we move into a digital future, how do we remain as relevant as possible to customers?
Companies in nearly every industry are facing dramatic transformation brought on by new digital experiences. With the emergence of new products that blur the boundaries of the physical and virtual — like Airbnb, Uber, Netflix, 23andMe — the Fortune 500 is waking up to how much change is ahead.
These new startups are derived from completely different technology platforms and corporate cultures than the incumbents in these markets. Internally, fast-moving cultures, collaboration and agility define the work styles of these new disruptors; externally, their products and customer experience are on-demand, light-weight, data-driven and at times magical. Incumbents, by comparison, are often hobbled by decades of heavy process, regulation, bureaucracy and legacy systems that have come to define their operating style and products.
The best big businesses have recognized how transformational this shift to digital is and are ensuring digital becomes an accelerant to their business as opposed to a headwind. Nearly all companies — whether 1 year old or 100 — have ways of serving their customers more directly and more completely by leveraging technology.
Incumbents that succeed will employ a mix of tech acquisitions, investments in startups, building out talent and operations in Silicon Valley, developing digital capabilities themselves and driving partnerships to transform their companies. While “checking a few of these boxes” will be how most incumbents respond, companies won’t thrive by doing muted versions of any of these. They can’t be timid in their approach. If they wait to see how this digital era plays out, they will be left behind.
Where Software Companies Rule
In today’s marketplace, companies must become digital businesses to effectively capitalize on market opportunity or risk extinction. Consequently, regardless of size or industry, the leaders of tomorrow are transforming their companies into software companies today.
Enabling this transformation is the migration from traditional IT infrastructure environments to the cloud. Moving to a cloud-first environment frees up valuable company resources to focus on innovation and differentiation versus management of often costly and complex IT infrastructure. Cloud-driven companies can ultimately become more agile and scalable.
But the cloud is only as good as the software you run in it. In an increasingly competitive marketplace for software talent, maximizing the value that talent can deliver is critical. One element of value is the insight and innovation of the software built; the other element is the efficiency and ease with which the software runs. Companies built around well-running software are better able to tackle tech curveballs and innovate their product without major hiccups.
More Businesses are Experiencing #FOBO
Disruptive innovation was the gold standard for executives surveyed as part of the GE Global Innovation Barometer. But it’s a challenging goal to implement. Check out the below Tableau Public chart to compare and contrast data.
Explore the findings of the GE Global Innovation Barometer here: www.gereports.com/innovation-barometer
Originally published at www.gereports.com on January 19, 2016.
