The world has changed. How does one survive in the new jungle?
ENTREPRENEURIAL CHALLENGE
Kaplan Jaroslav
Kaplan Research Company
Founder of the Business IQ project
Kaplan Jaroslav
Kaplan Research Company
Founder of the Business IQ project
The speed of change around us is impressive. We live in an amazing time - in an era when radical changes in technology are taking place before our eyes, and what seemed like science fiction just yesterday is now a reality.
Obviously, with the speed of technology today, the quantity and quality of what might be called human interaction is rapidly changing.
Business owners and their top managers are finding it harder and harder to make the right decisions every year, while whole traditional industries are being destroyed before their eyes: travel agencies have been replaced by booking sites like Booking.com, ordinary cab services by Uber and others, television is giving way to Internet streaming like Netflix, traditional newspapers and journalists are giving way to Internet news portals, etc. More and more often people make their purchases not in traditional stores, but through online stores, making payments not with the help of traditional banks, but with the help of various payment systems such as Paypal and Yandex money.
Numerous surveys show that an overwhelming number of business owners and top managers are aware of the inevitability of the transformation of their industry, but often do not see effective solutions to counteract the destruction of their organizations. Often in this environment, companies go out of their way to strengthen their administrative and technical capacity, spending large budgets on new and complex technical solutions without noticing or paying attention to the obvious and most important factor: creating new value for customers.
Analysis of success stories shows that a strong competitive advantage depends not only and not so much on the technologies used, but on the quality of the strategy that companies develop for their future.
Analysis of defeats shows that out of those who tried to make the necessary changes, nearly 80 percent of companies failed to confront the transformation and disruption in their markets. What did they fail to take into consideration?
Those who failed to implement the necessary changes failed to see that COMPETITION IN THE DIGITAL AGE is increasingly reducing the VALUE of the company and its products to consumers. The same products or services can be purchased in many different locations, even thousands of kilometers away from the customer. Consumers win, companies lose. Products and services quickly become obsolete and fade into history (not always with a happy ending).
We all find ourselves in a new economy. The computing power of today's smartphone is many thousands of times greater than the computing power of the computer that landed man on the moon in 1969. Today, phones have connected most of our planet's population, and this technology is still only a decade old.
However, if you look at the principles and approaches we use in our business today, how different are they from the same principles we used 5 or 10 years ago?
We continue to confuse and fail to understand the difference between growth and development.
Growth means an increase in quantity or size. Development is an increase in competence. Growth and development do not necessarily occur together. For example, standards of living are an indicator of growth. Quality of life is an indicator of development. For example, piles of garbage can grow, but they cannot develop. Growth does not always involve increasing value, but DEVELOPMENT ALWAYS involves creating VALUE. A company can grow (and many companies do grow) without increasing value, but it cannot grow without creating and increasing VALUE.
Obviously, with the speed of technology today, the quantity and quality of what might be called human interaction is rapidly changing.
Business owners and their top managers are finding it harder and harder to make the right decisions every year, while whole traditional industries are being destroyed before their eyes: travel agencies have been replaced by booking sites like Booking.com, ordinary cab services by Uber and others, television is giving way to Internet streaming like Netflix, traditional newspapers and journalists are giving way to Internet news portals, etc. More and more often people make their purchases not in traditional stores, but through online stores, making payments not with the help of traditional banks, but with the help of various payment systems such as Paypal and Yandex money.
Numerous surveys show that an overwhelming number of business owners and top managers are aware of the inevitability of the transformation of their industry, but often do not see effective solutions to counteract the destruction of their organizations. Often in this environment, companies go out of their way to strengthen their administrative and technical capacity, spending large budgets on new and complex technical solutions without noticing or paying attention to the obvious and most important factor: creating new value for customers.
Analysis of success stories shows that a strong competitive advantage depends not only and not so much on the technologies used, but on the quality of the strategy that companies develop for their future.
Analysis of defeats shows that out of those who tried to make the necessary changes, nearly 80 percent of companies failed to confront the transformation and disruption in their markets. What did they fail to take into consideration?
Those who failed to implement the necessary changes failed to see that COMPETITION IN THE DIGITAL AGE is increasingly reducing the VALUE of the company and its products to consumers. The same products or services can be purchased in many different locations, even thousands of kilometers away from the customer. Consumers win, companies lose. Products and services quickly become obsolete and fade into history (not always with a happy ending).
We all find ourselves in a new economy. The computing power of today's smartphone is many thousands of times greater than the computing power of the computer that landed man on the moon in 1969. Today, phones have connected most of our planet's population, and this technology is still only a decade old.
However, if you look at the principles and approaches we use in our business today, how different are they from the same principles we used 5 or 10 years ago?
We continue to confuse and fail to understand the difference between growth and development.
Growth means an increase in quantity or size. Development is an increase in competence. Growth and development do not necessarily occur together. For example, standards of living are an indicator of growth. Quality of life is an indicator of development. For example, piles of garbage can grow, but they cannot develop. Growth does not always involve increasing value, but DEVELOPMENT ALWAYS involves creating VALUE. A company can grow (and many companies do grow) without increasing value, but it cannot grow without creating and increasing VALUE.
WHEN WE TALK ABOUT GROWING A COMPANY, WE ARE FIRST AND FOREMOST TALKING ABOUT THE VALUE IT CREATES FOR ITS CUSTOMERS.
Jaroslav Kaplan
Author of the book "Business Incognita. How to push the boundaries of entrepreneurial thinking". Expert in the field of sustainable development of organizations and discovering new sources of growth. Developer of the methodology of contextual market research. Member of the International Association of Strategic and Competitive Intellect Professionals SCIP (USA).
Blog: https://www.kaplanresearch.pro/eng
In this light (yet profound) business fable a very magical and sincerely nice goldfish, Goshio, navigates her aquarium and the seas of the Paraquarian world beyond. The heroine's journey is an allegory of the entrepreneurial world (and of life) – based on the author's own research journey to circumnavigate the fascinating World of Entrepreneurship. www.goshio.com
Contact:
E-mail: work@kaplan4research.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jaroslavs-kaplans-11255b
Author of the book "Business Incognita. How to push the boundaries of entrepreneurial thinking". Expert in the field of sustainable development of organizations and discovering new sources of growth. Developer of the methodology of contextual market research. Member of the International Association of Strategic and Competitive Intellect Professionals SCIP (USA).
Blog: https://www.kaplanresearch.pro/eng
In this light (yet profound) business fable a very magical and sincerely nice goldfish, Goshio, navigates her aquarium and the seas of the Paraquarian world beyond. The heroine's journey is an allegory of the entrepreneurial world (and of life) – based on the author's own research journey to circumnavigate the fascinating World of Entrepreneurship. www.goshio.com
Contact:
E-mail: work@kaplan4research.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jaroslavs-kaplans-11255b
