Fail Faster, Fail Cheaper – Part 1 of 3 - Innovate or Be Disrupted

What if you know that you can now create a system that you can use to prove or disprove your business assumptions, models, pricing variations and many  scenarios through data-driven insights that you can incorporate them into the decision making process within your organization. And every disproved assumption or failed one in this process helps you save a lot of time, money and labor while every proven assumption has potential to leap frog your business. Would you be interested in this system? Indulge me for few minutes to share my experiences with ‘Fail Faster, Fail Cheaper’ phenomenon, why do we need it, what is it and why is it catching on?

 “40% of companies will be dead within the next 10 years. Every company is going to become technology company.” – John Chambers, 2015

This quote by John Chambers (CEO, Cisco) truly captures the market shift that is being experienced by many organizations today. The need for failing faster, failing cheaper to innovate or be disrupted has never been greater.

As IoT systems, Big Data Analytics start to permeate many industries, it’s imperative that innovative disruptions are inevitable across the board from farming to factories, from hospitals to aviation no industry is spared from being disrupted. Most leaders are now taking the time to question the fundamental business assumptions they have been operating on for years, business systems & processes that were created based on the assumptions from pre-digital era that aren’t applicable anymore.

 I like to look at the innovation in an organization in three categories:

     1. Do same things – the old way – status quo – no innovation    

     2. Do same things – the new way – incremental innovation

      3. Do new things – the new way – transformational innovation

While most IoT, Analytics initiatives start with collecting operational data & insights to gain efficiencies that delivers incremental innovation, some of these same initiatives are leading towards transformational innovation in the subsequent steps moving from cost reduction to revenue generation with new insights.

In the digital age, the only thing that remains constant is that the speed of change will continue to grow, in other words the occurrence of disruptive innovations is radically increased with the advancement of digital technologies. One of the questions I am asked most frequently these days from customers is about the speed of disruption, to be more specific on how to insulate themselves from these disruptions while creating meaningful experiences for customers thereby driving growth and market share.

I don’t think there is a silver bullet that can future proof any business from being disrupted and not doing anything is a sure way to lose that battle. There are few things you can do to prevent from being disrupted, one of the top most thing among this list is institutionalizing a program to drive Innovation-as-a-Service by combining multiple perspectives such as business knowledge, market trends, customer behaviors, technologies and decision science, gaining insights from this knowledge would become an invaluable resource for any organization to tap into for new ideas. This practice has many names such as ‘Innovation Continuum’, 'Idea Lab', 'Innovation Lab', ‘Data Smart Program’, some bold customers went with ‘Rapid Failure Framework (RFF)’, ‘FF-FC-IS’ (Fail Fast, Fail Cheap, Innovate & Scale) but all of them are driving towards the common goal of driving innovation into the culture of the organization also setting the stage that failure is the necessary ingredient on the continuum of innovation. Companies that have successfully implemented a program like this have seen ‘aha’ moments come from all corners of the organization.

I am a basketball fan, so here comes the analogy. Think of this program as trying to shoot a basketball with a moving hoop. How do you get good at that (unless of course you are Steph Curry or Dude Perfect)? Well there are two ways to make the basketball into the moving hoop more often. You are better at shooting from the start or lower the cost of shooting the balls so you take more shots. Getting better at shooting from the beginning is not feasible as it takes years to hone in that skill but if you lower the cost of shooting, you have higher chance of making the basket. Every assumption you are trying to prove or disprove is like shooting the basketball, as long as you reduce the cost of validating the assumption, your probability of realizing incremental or transformational innovation is much higher as you are now able to take many shots.

To sum it up, in the continuum of innovation both incremental and transformational types are necessary from being disrupted. 

I will share the challenges and benefits of implementing the ‘Fail Fast, Fail Cheap, Innovate or Be Disrupted’ in a separate article.

I would love to hear your thoughts on what you are doing to future proof your business against disruptive innovation. Feel free to email me at: spagidyala at gmail dot com.

You can also join the LinkedIn group ‘Game Changers’ in IoT, Big Data Analytics, BI & Digital Transformation to interact with other thought leaders, disruptors & innovators by clicking the link below.

Game Changers - IoT, Big Data Analytics, BI & Digital Transformation