Hurry up, please. It’s time.
Geoffrey Moore
Author, speaker, advisor, best known for Crossing the Chasm, Zone to Win and The Infinite Staircase. Board Member of nLight, WorkFusion, and Phaidra. Chairman Emeritus Chasm Group & Chasm Institute.
We’ve been talking about the disruptive impact of digital forever. Time to stop talking. Here’s why.
As we all know, digital has already reset the social contract with the consumer and end user. Marketing and customer service relationships have migrated from real-time contact with human agents typically at a designated site of the vendor’s choice to asynchronous interactions with a hybrid of digital systems and human agents in a location-less cloud. We call the enabling IT here Systems of Engagement, and everybody gets they are fundamental to modern life.
At the same time, however, we also know that our back office IT, what we call our Systems of Record, are complex applications with high security needs run in private data centers, all of which does not lend itself to interfacing them gracefully with Systems of Engagement. The risk of disrupting something mission-critical here is real, and we have used this as an excuse to move slowly in the name of caution. But here’s the thing. For every alpha risk (the risk of commission) there is a corresponding beta risk (the risk of omission), and in 2015 the lines have crossed. There is now more risk in not acting than in acting.
Your enterprise’s business model is already under attack from digital disrupters. They have spotted the inefficiencies in a marketplace whose processes and infrastructure were deployed in a prior era. They have seen how with digital infrastructure they can do your business in ways better than you can. And they are attacking your customer base right now.
Now, your customers do not really want to change vendors. They want to stay with you—but only if you can adapt. Your proper defense, therefore, is to modernize your operating model by installing next-generation infrastructure of your own. You don’t have to out-innovate the disrupters. You just have to get good enough fast enough so that your customers can remain loyal to you. Yes, there are risks and pains in so doing, but risks are relative. You are already losing your connection to you customer base, and you are about to lose your customers too.
Time to face brutal facts. There are no modern operating models without digital Systems of Engagement. There are no effective Systems of Engagement that do not interface to back office Systems of Record. And there are no easy ways to integrate and deploy the two. But you are out of options, so get over it, and get on with it. Time to bite the bullet, now. No studies, no three-year plans, no spreadsheets laying out the cost benefits. There is no need for ROI justification when you are in an ROE situation (Return on Existence). Step up. It’s Nike time. Just do it.
That’s what I think. What do you think?
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Geoffrey Moore | Zone to Win Book | Geoffrey Moore Twitter | Geoffrey Moore YouTube
Great perspective on current clients wanting to stay with their current vendors - ONLY if they adapt and quickly.
Digital Strategy, Innovation & Business Transformation Leadership | Executive Coaching and Facilitation |INSEAD MBA
7 年It is all very well saying 'just do it' but the reality is that it is very hard to do. Established companies with very large systems of record that probably have multiple levels of integration and customisation can't just throw it all out and start again. (And even if they wanted to, it would be very unlikely to work, given both the enormous failure rate of large IT developments and the huge risk of replacing one lot of legacy with the next generation of monolithic legacy.) What they need to do is establish a programme to unpick elements of functionality from their monolithic systems and replace the these elements with a series of microservices that can form the core of the new digital world. The challenge is finding the right people with the right skills to do the unpicking without bringing the whole system down, as well as having a team with the DevOps talents for developing and maintaining the new microservices. It's tough and brings to mind the thought that if I knew that I wanted to go over there, I wouldn't start from here!
Technologist and Strategic Marketing
7 年Definitely clear that the pragmatists just need to get the right digital skills to adapt or perish.
Sounds like the Mainstream is about to get bulldozed. Pragmatists move over, its the age of the Visionary. I wonder if thats a good thing?
CEO and Founder at Door Space Inc.
7 年The biggest challenge is changing beliefs and mindsets in people who think they can just pay young people for digital work and avoid the investment of time and effort to develop digital literacy skills themselves.