What’s
keeping the CEOs awake at night, these days? You guessed it right. Leaders
across the geographies and industries are overwhelmed by the profound changes
in technology, cost structures, next-gen services, business models, markets and
customer behavior. They are under intense pressure, struggling to keep pace
with change, defend their vulnerable business models and market share while
pursuing new growth opportunities.
Perplexing
it is, as, each moment, someone somewhere is quietly working on intuitive and
real time innovations that can virtually create new markets by discovering new
categories of customers. Harnessing new technologies, developing new business
models and exploiting old technologies in new ways, they are toppling the
market leaders.
This
is significant, as the topple rate, a degree of how rapidly companies lose
their leadership position, has increased by almost 40 percent in last few
decades. Besides, the average job tenure for the CEO of a Fortune 500 company
has halved from ten years in 2000 to less than five years today. Likewise, the
tenure of companies on the S&P 500 was 61 years in 1958; it’s now 18 years.
Disruptive
start-ups are driving corporate reinvention. No industry is immune to this.
Some of the notable category disruptors include: classified ads (Craigslist),
long distance calls (Skype), record stores (iTunes), research libraries
(Google), local stores (eBay), taxis (Uber) and newspapers (Twitter).
Faced
with the innovator’s paradox, the industry leading incumbents are finding it
tough to choose between holding onto an existing market or to capturing new
markets. Many of the world's largest corporations are scrambling to transform
and reinvent their businesses as lean disruptors are tapping into shared
business models, efficient cloud, analytics, predictive insights and socially
influenced consumers to create new value and client experiences.
The
good news is progressive leaders are reinventing the way they engage more
intimately with customers and make their products and services more accessible
and available through all channels of interaction. Continually challenged to
disrupt, innovate and respond to an ever-changing set of business dynamics and
economic conditions, forward thinking C-suite leaders are scouting for
strategic partners to manage disruption, innovate and meet change head on.
For
instance, when it comes to the future of work they are focused on adapting to
the changes which are impacting the way we work and live. Emergence of
new social technologies, a shift to the cloud, rise of millennials as the
majority workforce and increased mobility of work is driving the same.
The
result is increased employee engagement, a more collaborative innovation
culture for staff to explore and accelerate the client value rooted in rapid
design thinking and fluid work spaces for a cross pollinating ideas from a
diverse workforce driven by a solution centric, user centric approach. Many
smart organizations are already pushing the boundaries in design thinking,
flattening hierarchies, rapid prototyping, productivity efficiency, and user
satisfaction to accelerate their innovation journey.
In the disruptive
age we are in, the gospel of thinking is no longer business as usual. To
succeed and thrive, we need to collectively think out of the box as
differentiation rules. And differentiation comes from the way people think.
And, only the right talent will ensure that you are always on the right side of
the change.
The
power to transform one’s business and stay ahead of the game lies inherent.
IT’s
all about people, you see. And, more importantly, it’s the ability to think
different. Such creativity is not a genetic predisposition, but is an active
endeavour with strong cognitive trait of association, passionate questioning,
intense observing, diverse networking, and continual experimenting.
To
sail smart in today’s turbulent times, leaders must vie for revolution in
thinking: experimenting with a steady stream of disruptive strategies and
game-changing solutions to stay ahead of the game, making bold moves,
consistently differentiating, even at the very peak of their success, even
when, they are not pushed into a corner. Shunning complacency, they need to
stay hungry for change, and challenge the status quo, wherever they are, and whatever
they do, to add value to clients, business and society.
At
some time, someone somewhere is going to disrupt your entire industry. There is
no reason why it shouldn’t be you? Who knows the next Steve Jobs could be your
grass-root employee, silently working with your customer.
Are
we ready to tap the exponential value?
The Blogger is Kiran Kumar Yellupula: The views expressed here are purely personal. Please share your feedback at mediavalue@yahoo.com
