YI Incubator - The Spirit of Innovation

World-class executives contribute to the YI Incubator, mentoring companies and providing subject matter expertise, helping our companies bring products to market faster and position themselves for the next stage of growth.

http://interactive.yodlee.com/programs/yi-incubator/mentors-experts

Omni-Channel Strategies and Online-Offline Integration

Consumers are using multiple devices and channels to make their purchases, but you know this already.

“Tell me something I don't know”, you would say.

There was so much hoo-ha on the topic of ‘omni-channel’ in the retail world in 2014. Big word it is. The words social media and cross-device technology start to surface so often that everyone is talking about it – sounds like Citizen Kane!

Although we have seen fast growth in mobile, programmatic display and video ad spending, the quickest-growing category in digital advertising is actually social and we recognize this treasure trove of demographic data that social provides by leveraging it in our social marketing efforts and other channels as well. Did you notice who and what are we targeting? Target audience! We are hungry to find out consumer behaviour, consumer experience and consumer preferences. Indeed, audience is the name of the game and as we learn how to collect and act on audience data across channels, it opens up exciting new opportunities to test different strategies.

The famous US department store, Macy’s, has been experimenting with iBeacons which is a micro-location technology in mobile app that is transmitted using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). Customers who enter Macy’s with the Shopkick app installed on their iPhones will be alerted about details of location-specific rewards, deals, discounts and how many products they have ‘liked’ in that store without them needing to open the app. When customers pass by any items they had ‘liked’ previously on the app, Shopkick app will remind them as well.

Customers are using mobile and tablets in a number of different ways to supplement and enhance their shopping behaviours whether they are for brand research, social validation prior to purchase or even for transactional purposes. However, the ultimate conversion more often than not happen in-store. Hence, retailers and marketers need to seize this opportunity and take advantage of the crucial moments to connect with customers as they are making decisions.

Another retail and ecommerce store that integrates online and offline is IKEA.

IKEA introduced an AR app to enhance its 2014 catalogue, all the customers need to do is place the 2014 catalogue in any space within their home, activate the app and they can see exactly how a virtual Billy bookcase or Ektorp sofa fits into the real-time environment.

It is crucial that marketers understand the factors or events that influence the consumers to decide on their purchase and to quantify the influence as well. Hence, the importance of attribution model in Marketing. However in the world of digitisation, marketers need to constantly improve their attribution model.

I have to admit improving attribution model is not an easy task and regardless of how sophisticated the model will be, it will never be able to keep pace with increasingly sophisticated customer behavior.

Yet, this step is essential. Algorithmic attribution modeling may or may not be worth the investment but even getting started with a basic version of multi-touch attribution modeling is better than continuing to rely on last-click attribution.

And that’s my 2c.

Delivering DIGITAL Business. Master before being dominated.

      

• How can I be agile and innovative yet maintain my corporate process?
• What about the risks, regulators and the compliance policies and procedures?    
• What about my competitive advantage and intellectual property? What if my competitors will steal my ideas?

In this post, we review how using world class project management frameworks can help you to adapt your business strategy to deliver better results for your digital business initiatives, independently of your company size or business sector – Keep in mind that the definition of digital business is fluid and in constant state of evolution.

We have an avalanche of information that demonstrates how the digital business is changing, creating and destroying some companies (in all sectors), and it is very clear that if you don’t adapt your traditional mindset, strategy, people, operations, process and methods, you may become that MBA case of how a company did not survive one more change in the new business ecosystem.

The digital transformation change can happen in the blink of an eye. Several years ago, the changes and innovations came from the inside to the outside (companies -> customer). When new products were created their movement into the market involved a slow process and the customer input was not considered to be important.

However, now changes and innovation come from the customer to the companies (customer -> companies) in a crowdsourcing is a customer driven model and from creation to launch happens in the blink of an eye.

According to Mr. Peter Sondergaard, Senior Vice President at Gartner and Global Head of Research: “Every Business Unit is a Technology Startup”.

 “38% of total IT spend is outside of IT already, with a disproportionate amount in digital. By 2017, it will be over 50%,” Mr. Sondergaard said. “Digital startups sit inside your own organization, in your marketing department, in HR, in logistics and in sales. Your business units are acting as technology startups.”

Gartner estimates that 50% of all technology sales people are actively selling directly to business units, not IT departments. Millions of sales people, and hundreds of thousands of resellers and channel partners are looking for new money flows in the fluid digital world, and they are finding eager buyers. Although most of the information that we read and receive from digital business is focused in two main areas:

1.       Strategy: The model below is one good example of how to drive and build a digital strategy plan by Forrester Research.

2.       Execution Level: Agile methods are not new and agile project management, lean product management and agile software development practices must be applied to drive innovation and constantly renew your business model. The image below represents one example.

From digital strategy to agile execution we must include one important piece; how to manage projects and programs for digital businesses. The key question is how to create the bridge between this TOP (Strategy) -> DOWN (Agile) and maintain the digital transformation initiatives running (projects and product development).

We work in a world of change and reinvention, more so than creation. As digital business demands that professionals and companies adapt quickly, we too should be able to transform our classic ideas and methodologies in order to deliver products and services that will delight our customers.

But how do we deliver digital business projects using the best practices of project management? How do we connect the pieces? STRATEGY -> PLANNING AND CONTROL -> EXECUTION.

Considering the main areas for any project, let’s evaluate some important points for digital business initiatives.

1.       Project Integration Management :

a.       Definition: Processes and activities needed to identify, define, combine, unify, and coordinate the various processes and project management activities within the Project Management Process Groups.

b.      Digital Business Nuances:  Digital business projects demand two key actors; customers and companies that engage in the delivery and provision of continuous feedback. Your integration process should exploit the boundaries of your company. The link between the internal company value chain, digital value chain and your ecosystem is crucial.

2.       Project Scope Management :

a.       Definition: Project Scope Management includes the processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully.

b.      Digital Business Nuances: The goal is to plan and design change continuously and in small cycles by using the adaptive project life cycle, also known as change-driven or agile methods. These concepts are intended to facilitate change, but require a high degree of ongoing stakeholder and customer involvement. The scope priority must be to use a mix of customer value added benefits (not product features), customer journeys, innovation and technology disruption.

3.       Project Time Management :

a.       Definition: Project Time Management includes the processes required to manage the timely completion of the project.

b.      Digital Business Nuances:  It is fundamental to establish small cycles for project completion. Most of the components of your project will not have a clear timeline or a deadline, so define a control mechanism that will identify the next customer interactions based on the feedback.

4.       Project Cost Management :

a.       Definition: Project Cost Management includes the processes involved in planning, estimating, budgeting, financing, funding, managing, and controlling costs so that the project can be completed within the approved budget.

b.      Digital Business Nuances:  The cost is a complex aspect and must be considered in methods of pricing, buying integrated in your project / product. You can have SaaS platform to deliver your project (i.e. slack). On the other hand, PaaS platform is crucial to deliver your product / service. A mix of several pricing and purchasing models must be considered, such as: T&M, Value Added, Fixed Price, Pay Per Use, etc.

5.       Project Quality Management :

a.       Definition: Project Quality Management includes the processes and activities of the performing organization that determine quality policies, objectives, and responsibilities so that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken.

b.      Digital Business Nuances: Quality is the key pillar. Time is negotiable, but quality never is. It is fundamental to define quality with our final customer and expect continuous change in the quality criteria, as soon as your product begins to evolve. It is crucial to be outstanding in your user experience and customer journey in all channels.

6.       Project Human Resource Management :

a.       Definition: Project Human Resource Management includes the processes that organize, manage, and lead the project team.

b.      Digital Business Nuances: In the digital business world, the traditional organizational charts are not enough. Informal and social connections maps play a key role. You have to consider these connections as you develop your project.

7.       Project Communications Management :

a.       Definition: Project Communications Management includes the processes that are required to ensure timely and appropriate planning, collection, creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, management, control, monitoring, and the ultimate disposition of project information.

b.      Digital Business Nuances: Feedback and small cycles of communication should involve visual interactive material rather than e-mails, long presentations (be simple). Tools such as SLACK will help to consolidate all the tools that a digital team will demand for project.

8.       Project Risk Management :

a.       Definition: Project Risk Management includes the processes of conducting risk management planning, identification, analysis, response planning, and controlling risk on a project.

b.      Digital Business Nuances:  Risk must be evaluated from the perspective of an opportunity, lesson or at least a possibility. Create risk cycles to reevaluate the project, deliveries and products. You must integrate the risk of the customer expectations.

9.       Project Procurement Management :

a.       Definition: Project Procurement Management includes the processes necessary to purchase or acquire products, services, or results needed from outside the project team

b.      Digital Business Nuances: The procurement process must be incremental and defined in small cycles according to what you are planning to deliver. You could have mixed models such as: SAAS, premises, startup and revenue share.

10.   Project Stakeholders Management :

a.       Definition: Project Stakeholder Management includes the processes required to identify all people or organizations impacted by the project, analyzing stakeholder expectations and impact on the project, and developing appropriate management strategies for effectively engaging stakeholders in project decisions and execution.

b.      Digital Business Nuances:  Includes one-on-one interviews and focus groups with a company's external stakeholders, with a goal of understanding external stakeholders behaviors, needs, goals and perceptions of the company and their industry both in the broadest business context as well as specifically online. In addition to standard marketing strategy methodologies and questions, external stakeholder interviews for Digital Strategy may include usability testing, an analysis of how effectively external stakeholders can use the online assets developed by a company for their intended purposes. In digital strategy this is used to uncover usability barriers that may prevent the online vision being achieved.

In the past we created methods, procedures and control processes to govern and mitigate the risk of big company projects and operations. The digital business is not intended to crash these methods, but the companies and professionals will be challenged to adapt faster these models in increasingly smaller periods of time, so we must build new communication processes and frameworks that are tailored to change at a speed of a chameleon, not in speed of a snail.

Adapt or die? or Die fast and learn?

 "Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see."

 Rene Magritte.

I will enjoy hearing from the LinkedIn community about their digital business initiatives.

It is an enormous pleasure to have you read our post and provide some feedback. Please feel free to connect.

 [Photos and References: Forrester, Gartner, The Dictator, ThoughtWorks]

It was an honor to create this event and be part of this team. Thank you MIT, Thank you panelists.

Millennial executives and Fortune 500 leaders share the same forward-looking views on disruptive technologies. They also agree that the capability to adapt to change quickly is a key to edging out competitors.



No Generation Gap Here: Business Leaders of All Ages in Sync on Tech

http://www.cio.com/article/2849319/leadership-management/no-generation-gap-here-business-leaders-of-all-ages-in-sync-on-tech.html

The digital business fight club – Startups and M&A

One of the main topics of the moment is the digital transformation, which according to Wikipedia is:

“Digital transformation refers to the changes associated with the application of digital technology in all aspects of human society. Digital transformation may be thought of as the third stage of embracing digital technologies: digital competence → digital literacy → digital transformation. The latter stage means that digital usages inherently enable new types of innovation and creativity in a particular domain, rather than simply enhance and support the traditional methods and how companies should.”

This digital transformation is taking us into another movement of entrepreneurs. According to the Kaufman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity (KIEA), the entrepreneurial rate in the U.S. is already well above the dot.com bubble of 15 years ago.

Although we have slipped a bit this year from the high point of 320 new entrepreneurs out of 100,000 adults in 2011, it still adds up to over 20 million entrepreneurial businesses out there today, with more starting every day. It is also important to mention the new start-up ventures are coming more from “Opportunity” than from “Necessity” (see graph below).

On the other hand according to the Delloite’s M&A trends report 2014: “Over the past 18 months, merger and acquisition (M&A) activity has accelerated meaningfully in the U.S. That trend is poised to continue, if not accelerate, in many industries, among public and private firms and for both corporations and private equity firms, large and small, according to the survey findings included in the first annual Deloitte M&A trends report. Of the 2,500 corporate and private equity respondents, 84 percent of corporate executives anticipate a sustained, if not accelerated, pace of M&A activity in the next 24 months. Similarly, the vast majority of private equity executives (89 percent) are expecting average to high deal activity going forward.”

Digital transformation is making the number of new start-ups and M&A increase exponentially every year and sometimes you can ask yourself whether it is going to be the business ecosystem of the future? The clear trend that we saw as the traditional concept of business ecosystem as defined by James F. Moore “An economic community supported by a foundation of interacting organizations and individuals—the organisms of the business world. The economic community produces goods and services of value to customers, who are themselves members of the ecosystem. The member organisms also include suppliers, lead producers, competitors, and other stakeholders. Over time, they co-evolve their capabilities and roles, and tend to align themselves with the directions set by one or more central companies. Those companies holding leadership roles may change over time, but the function of ecosystem leader is valued by the community because it enables members to move toward shared visions to align their investments, and to find mutually supportive roles.” This concept has to evolve to a different level.

In the future, what will define the boundaries of a company in the future? Will this boom of startups and entrepreneurial spirit guide us to business ecosystem rather than just a company?

If we consider the population projected for 2050, according to the UN Report it will be 9.6 billion people, we can ask ourselves whether we are moving to a world of 9.6 billion companies or to the opposite extreme view of a world of 1 Company. If we consider the M&A trends and the elimination of boundaries between sector competitions, in the near future we will be drinking water from Google? The fact is that the traditional business model where the concern was to compete only within the company’s business sector is dead. The new business model is horizontal.

In the past if you were a car manufacture or a financial institution you had to compete and be concerned as a competitor in companies of the same industry, but the new business ecosystem is horizontal and crosses several sectors. For example: today, Audi and BMW have to compete with Tesla. The banks have to compete against other payment systems, such as Apple pay and Paypal.

The way we define management, strategy, leadership, process improvement, innovation and organizational charts must evolve outside the boundaries of the company. Business schools and executives of the future must be able to lead, manage and guide several agents in the business ecosystem (start-ups, small companies, universities, open innovation, etc. ) and many of them will be out of your companies’ boundaries and title.


“Gentleman's welcome to the NEW business fight club”


#1 The first rule of Fight Club is: you ALWAYS talk about Fight Club.
The new digital business ecosystem demands open innovation, crowd-sourcing, external communication, networking, leadership and management skills outside the borders of your company.

#2 The second rule of Fight Club is: you MUST ALWAYS talk about Fight Club!
In your company, do you spend more time thinking about how to protect information than talking about it and sharing innovation? The bigger and older the company the more “STOCKS” they have, which makes it difficult to change.

#3 Third rule of Fight Club: if someone yells “stop!”, goes limp, or taps out, the fight is JUST BEGINNING.
Most of the top executives are risk-averse. Everyone says stop and let’s evaluate the risks. Yes, these things are fundamental, but this is not a reason to stop thinking outside of your company’s daily operation. Your daily operation is just 50% of what you should be doing.

#4 Fourth rule: IT IS NEVER two companies to fight.
Forget the traditional sectors competition. The new digital business ecosystem is disruptive horizontally. You are competing with all companies in all sectors. All of them could be future threats to your business.

#5 Fifth rule: SEVERAL fights at a time, fellas.
Yes, you are competing not only against your main competitors. Look at how Apple Pay and Square are disrupting the payment industry.

#6 Sixth rule: the fights are NOT bare knuckle. Everything will be used as a weapon.
Take a look at the example of how Tesla Motors’ innovation from the IT sector to deliver and redefine the traditional car manufacturing industry.

#7 Seventh rule: fights will go on as long as they have to.
Maybe you are lucky and the fight will be like a Cola War (Pepsi vs Coke), with just 2 competitors, but in the digital business model you will have more than only one competitor and the fights for survival will happen every day.


#8 The eighth and final rule: if this is your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight to survive.”
Please don’t say: They are not our competitors; our strategy, business model and clients are different.


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I’d enjoy hearing from the LinkedIn community about how the digital business is changing the business ecosystem.

It is an enormous pleasure to have you read my post and provide some feedback. Here, at LinkedIn, I regularly write about IT, Innovation, Leadership and Management with a personal touch. Please feel free to connect.

[Photos: Fight Club]

[Data: Deloitte, Wikipedia, Kaufman]