What is the illusive holy grail of business success? That long sought after mythological object that has transformative powers. Today’s tasty ‘game changing’ tech, may be tomorrows stale bread.
Normal gullibility or artificial intelligence?
On the business stage, leading ladies acting their part to rapturous applause come and go.
Today the leading light, thought to be the game changer is artificial intelligence (AI), bringing possibilities touted to transform business performance.
Problem with AI in its current configuration is that it is like a ‘self-licking lollipop’, consuming the information and data that is already out there, putting it in a nicely wrapped package.
It’s like a sharp co-worker with an encyclopaedia - like knowledge, who is able to structure mountains of information and data, but is only able to serve up more as a checklist of the points to consider.
As the ‘historian of the future’ Yuval Harari points out, what will start to get scary is when AI starts to think and invent for itself, beyond the bounds of human control...Thankfully, todays AI applications, despite being impressive are more at the level of a ‘glorified Google search’ and not threatening human existence [for the moment].
Expect the unexpected
One rule of business is “expect the unexpected”. ‘Unexpected, unexpected’ emerges from the knowledge in the unseen category of ‘did not know, we did not know’. These are Black Swan history changing events, discoveries and products that just popped up surprising everyone.
Is hard work enough?
Work hard. For many, working long hours, has to be one of the (not so secret) secrets of business success. “Work - life balance” has become a popular notion in the last 30 years, creating a rather odd distinction between work and life.
Aren’t they all the same thing, surely work is part of a vibrant healthy life? Guess the complaint is that when work becomes all-consuming that it throws the other aspects of life, family, home, relationships out of a sense of equilibrium.
One can’t discount the importance of hard work. But what really matters, a step ahead of hard work is – What you do, what you focus on. Where, and most importantly who you do it with.
Value > Price = Sale on a platform business model
When the perceived value of a product is greater than its price, voila, you have a sale -- on both online digital markets, and the bustling Monday market day at Wangige. Both are platforms.
Today almost 60 percent of the largest companies globally are based on a platform business model. Thanks to technology, a platform has none of the traditional bricks and mortar presence that businesses used to require, plus they have no expensive inventory. A platform simply brings the buyer and seller together, thanks to a digital footprint.
“Besides huge market capitalisation Alibaba, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Tencent all have another thing in common: heavily populated platform business models,” notes McKinsey.
These world beating platforms have a number of things in common.
They are all software-based digital environments with open infrastructures, matchmakers linking people, organisations, and resources... In a word: innovative.
Digital platforms approach is right out of the pages of The Innovator’s Dilemma, Clayton Christensen classic on how innovation really happens, first published in 1997, [three years before scaled up internet access came to Kenya].
As Christensen points out, disruptive innovators, almost always come from the most unexpected places, very rarely from large dominant corporate players.
For the small imaginative Kenyan entrepreneur, this may be their holy grail equivalent.
Today, thanks to digital tech creating more of a level playing field, competition is asymmetric, the tiny, ignored disruptor can upset the corporate giant’s fortunes who although they have the financial and operational resources, and staff with the knowledge and skills, they are too busy focusing on their already profitable markets, and with pressure from their shareholders to produce even greater profits, keep doing, what they have always been doing.
The dilemma is that by following 'taught good management practice' they are missing opportunities.
David J. Abbott is a director at aCatalyst Consulting. [email protected]
