Yesterday, I was excited to attend a workshop on strategy innovation. It’s because this workshop is NOT in my usual San Francisco area. But it’s here locally in San Diego!!
Hosted by the founder and CEO of Blue Mine Group, Michael Lurie presented a 3-hour segment on strategy and business model design. In the first half of the session, Michael discussed why we need a new approach to business models and having an agile strategy and why there was a spike in patent applications from 1990 – 2010. 2 main reasons contributed to the spike.
#1 is technology development mainly digital technology reaching critical mass. Of course, we are talking about the internet/ dot.com.
#2 is available markets more than doubled. Free markets opened up in countries like China, Russia and India.
Being the only creative person in the room and watching the interactions between older VP types was very interesting to me. Most of the events I’ve attended, whether in Vegas or San Fran, were mostly filled with 25 to 35 year olds in jeans with their latte and MacBook Pro, discussing the latest ideas and their startup gigs. Here in San Diego, the scene is quite different. I have only just started attending CONNECT events. Actually I have only been to 2 CONNECT events. Both were filled with VP’s (typically white), in their late 40′s to 50′s.
I can’t help it. I am an designer and an observer. Noticing little details like this is what i do. Watching human interaction: how they feel, who they hang out with, what intrigues them…Anyway, I could write a whole new blog piece based on my observations.
So back to the workshop. A couple of interesting things that Michael talked about:
Agile Strategy – To us creatives, this is what we do DAILY. We may not be aware of this term, but seems like there are thousands of business books written about it for business people. Software peeps often implement the Agile Software Development strategy. The word agile as we know, means organic, having flexibility. Well, that’s what it is. It’s basically building a framework that is flexible and not so rigid, where ideas/ strategies, interchange, taken apart, plugged back into the framework, at any phase. And because it’s a “legit” formal strategy, workers and managers won’t freak out as much when strategies get moved around. I know…it’s fascinating, having a strategy to make us a bit less stringent about strategies!
So according to Michael, there are 2 types of business.
Traits of Zone A type businesses:
They view markets as: Closed, few, large and evolving
Their strategy: PLANNING
* Command and Control
* Market share is key
* Focus on execution
* Disciplined commitment
* Company = Business
Their business types:
* Few, large, slow
* “Good Enough” products
* Established value chains
And there’s the Zone B types:
They view markets as: OPEN, many, small, fluid
Their strategy: AGILE
* Innovation and collaboration
* Market discovery is key
* Focus on design
* Flexible and adaptable
* Company is NOT business
Business types:
* Many, small, fast
* Complete solutions
* Low cost value networks
Obviously, we are the Zone B types working a lot with the peeps in Zone A. And that has always been our biggest challenge!! Michael stressed that companies need to be in Zone B to compete and survive in the 21st century. But of course, many of us know that the Zone A type business have been following this recipe for success for 30-40 years!! Can we train old dogs new tricks?
Yes we can! Look at P&G, with Claudia Kotchka innovating the company by implementing design thinking. Look at Apple, Virgin, Starbucks. Of course it can be done. But I think it has to come from the top! CEO’s, VP’s and their management team have to embrace the new Zone B type strategies. You can’t have ONE team member in the entire organization, fighting this uphill battle. The change has to come from every member of the organization, starting from the top.
So which type are you? Zone A or Zone B?
