innovation playground Idris Mootee

Random Thoughts On Maturing Companies and Start-Ups. When Do You Need A Reset?

In an interesting conversation with clients this week and discussions were around the question: “should companies plan for the distant future (10 years and beyond) and what is needed to get out of a death spiral where a slow death is in the making?”

There is a big difference between growing with age and growing old. With age, it sometimes comes with wisdom. With more than a dozen of C-suite execs that I have worked with or coached, for most of them, the wisdom came one day after they had passed the age of 50. Growing comes with age, which sometimes take away the energy and urge to make radical change. Ask yourself or your organization, the last 5 years your company or yourself should be referred to as a “growth experience” or “aging experience”.

A CEO’s job is to make sure the company is growing with experience” and not “aging with experience”. Company needs constant renewal, the leadership team is expected to generate enough energy to motivate the entire company. You need a strategy to energize and motivate. Not empty speech and propaganda video and banners. Time doesn’t mean we gain more experience. Reinvention, renewal and resetting are mantras for growing experiences. We shape what we become. When companies are stuck in a stagnant mode or worse in a downward spiral, it is because of the experience they have. Not because the new things that they try. They are usually too old (state of mind), conservative, naive and irrelevant and that managerial mindset is holding the company back for serious reinvention.

A look back at many failing leaders’ biggest attempts to bring their companies back for the past 10 years reveals an embarrassing series of missteps, mistakes, and flat-out bad products, culminating in a flurry of poorly-executed uncommitted attempt to create and own a distinct market positioning. Most of the time, the product failed before they are being introduced. No one can do anything at that time. Think about the following:

• We have been very good in making this and we should be fine.
• We always do things this way. It is too risky for us to change.
• Let’s watch where the market is going first. We can wait.
• We need to do what Apple, Nike, Amazon and Starbucks do.
• We should hedge our bets and try different things too.
• Let’s give the market what they want and make sure we have a competitively cheaper offer.

If you do one or a few of the above, you will most likely be somewhere along the downward spiral. For companies to end the spiral of death, it takes more than cost-cutting and requires an orchestrated effort for everyone involved to imagine and see the possibility forward. It is about applying a practical future-oriented foresight to drive strategy and unleashing the company from legacy people, thinking and even management board. There is no place for the “old" in the world of constant resets.

Disruption Is Less About Technology. It's About Customer Experience. Disruptive CX Strategy Needs To Get Emotional.

Why do some companies make so much profit and command price premiums while some continually  struggle to make minimum margin and gain market share despite spending good money on advertising, buying channel presence with some even having a better designed product?

The secret is very simple. Though these different high performance companies operate in very different industries and face different challenges, the major reason for their success comes down to one thing. They understand it is all about the customer experience. And they don’t even have to do it for everyone. At least not initially.

They are putting their customers at the center of their universe; they also understand that not every company can do that (including their competitors who are many times bigger and with big marketing budget) because it will be difficult or too expensive for them to make that work for everyone.

The secret is that you should start with ‘not everyone’ and identify those ‘someone who cares’. Those someones who appreciate the extra things that you do and will ultimate tell everyone about it and essentially those become the most tangible evidence of your brand promise. The declining effectiveness of advertising is well evidenced and many marketers are still doing that despite their value propositions which are unclear, and customer experience is underwhelming. And instead of spending time and resources on the latter, they take the easy path and buy more display advertising, it is not going to work.

Smart companies understand that success depends most fundamentally on a few core customers and if you can tailor your customer value propositions to them and then design the experiences just for them, you’re on the right track and can achieve a new level of performance and differentiation. These customer experiences are not about a $50 rebate, or a free something or many thank you emails. These are things that consumers take for granted and believe you’re doing it to get their business as the cost of doing business.

Customer experience needs to get emotional. This is how our brains are wired and this is when design thinking comes into play. You need to map the customer journeys and engineer happy accidents. Not a business process exercise at all and don’t mix them up. Walk their shoes in their everyday life and constantly invent new ways to apply the best value propositions on minimal scale. Remember customer experience is not about being well said, it is about being well done and it is not a published rule book. It is embedded in your culture and how your brand dictates your behavior.

Millennials Are Disrupting Media Again. Media Companies Now Need To Play Catch-up.

Digital disruption to the media began early in the days of the Internet throwing every media company into a crisis mode. Now this is happening again - this time, even homepage viewership is on the decline. I am not saying this is the death of the webpage, having a webpage or content site is simply not enough.  Content is now distributed and stories are best shared and read through new platforms such as Facebook’s Instant Articles, Apple News, Buzzfeed, the Starbucks mobile app or through Reddit, a bulletin board platform that doesn’t sound like something new since the early days of the Internet. It is an entertainment, social network, and news website where registered community members can submit content, such as text posts or direct links, making it essentially a crowd sourced news channel.

Today all Millennials are gravitating to social networks and news media sites and assume everything is free. This generation, (confident, always connected, ramen-eating, ultra short attention span, impecunious, underemployed, some over-educated, gaming obsessed, and so forth) millennials are not only the largest generation in US and world history, they’re on the cusp of commanding the largest influence and voice of our consumer culture. They expect technology to work and simply-work and if it doesn’t, you will have a big problem. They are tech-loving consumers but have unrealistic expectations that technology needs to be seamless (thanks to Apple) with a new standard of intuitiveness. They align themselves with the latest technology and will try anything new and cool and quick to critic and quick to find workaround. Computers don't crash and smart phones should be able to handle everything.

Millennials don’t watch TV (and others are following) and they sleep with their cell phones next to them perhaps 9 out of 10. Probably 10 out of 10 have no landlines and no interest in watching TV. Smartphone is the most important tool in their lives and when people are saying the smartphone is becoming a commodity. It is not. How can it be when it is the most important tool or digital companion? Smartphones are not doing well because the expectation is rising and Smartphones have replaced the cigarette (good thing) as things to do in those odd moments, lonely moments or simply filling up every minute of downtime. It is replacing newspaper, cigarette, chewing gum, calculator, wallet and many other tools…. hookups, meet-ups or start-ups. 

There is no online or offline, social is social and other opinions matter. They get along well with their parents and even have friendship with parents, which didn’t happen in the older generation.  They actually influence what products their parents buy, what apps their parents use and where to travel. They have a  “we can fix it together” mindset and “we can change it all” attitude. That’s why they love working for start-ups and game changing companies with a purpose.

More millennials than non-millennials integrate their beliefs and causes into their choice of companies to support, their purchases, and their day-to-day interactions. They put the money where the mouth is. Millennials also care about what’s genuine and authentic. They are looking for somewhere between a retro aesthetic and a search for honesty and authenticity.  Something advertisers are still struggling with. For many millennials, they prefer to climb the Himalayas then corporate ladder. They are raised to believe they can do whatever they want and they are hitting the realities as they enter the society.  Millennials are hard to catch. Media companies are not getting it. You need to work harder.