Geoffrey Moore - The Chasm Has Evolved
Summary
TLDRThe speaker traces the evolution of technology adoption models over the last 20 years, emphasizing the shift from traditional enterprise to consumer-driven markets. They discuss the importance of innovation in differentiating products and services, especially in the face of globalization and commoditization. The talk highlights the need for businesses to specialize, outsource efficiently, and leverage consumer technology in the enterprise to maintain profit margins and stay competitive. The speaker also stresses the importance of disciplined innovation, focusing on differentiation, neutralization, and optimization as parallel but distinct strategies.
Takeaways
- 📈 The speaker discusses the evolution of market models over the past 20 years, emphasizing the shift from old models to new opportunities in different markets.
- 🛠 The Technology Adoption Life Cycle model by Everett Rogers is highlighted, detailing the five segments of a community's response to disruptive technology.
- 🌐 The importance of pragmatists in market dynamics is underscored, as their actions can create a 'chasm' between early adopters and the mainstream market.
- 🔄 The speaker identifies different business models (project, solution, product, consumables) and the unique strategies required for success in each.
- 🚀 The significance of innovation is explored, with a focus on how it must be more disciplined and focused to succeed in the current business environment.
- 💡 The concept of 'pragmatists in pain' is introduced as a key strategy for crossing the chasm and gaining mainstream market acceptance.
- 🌍 The impact of globalization and outsourcing on the tech industry is discussed, showing how it has led to a need for greater specialization and differentiation.
- 📱 The rise of consumer technology and its transformative effect on culture is noted, with the challenge of bringing consumer-like capabilities into the enterprise.
- 🔑 The speaker stresses the importance of security, global presence detection, and the ability to interface with existing systems of record for enterprise-ready technologies.
- 💼 The need for middle managers to have tools that facilitate communication, coordination, and collaboration across digital boundaries is identified.
- 🚨 The final takeaway is about the importance of not mixing modes of innovation (differentiation, neutralization, optimization) and ensuring they are pursued in parallel but separately.
Q & A
What is the main purpose of the speaker's discussion on technology adoption models?
-The speaker aims to trace an arc over the last 20 years, grounding the audience in technology adoption models, discussing their evolution, and tying them into new markets that these models can serve going forward.
What does the speaker mean by 'Technology enthusiasts and Visionaries' in the context of technology adoption?
-Technology enthusiasts are individuals who engage with new technology out of interest in its properties, often being the first to adopt. Visionaries are individuals with substantial resources and a clear vision who take significant risks to be pioneers in adopting and implementing new technologies.
What is the 'chasm' in the context of technology adoption models?
-The 'chasm' refers to a gap or lull in the market adoption curve, separating the early market of technology enthusiasts and visionaries from the mainstream market. Pragmatists, who make up the mainstream market, often hesitate to adopt new technologies until they see others doing so successfully.
How does the speaker describe the shift in technology adoption from the early market to the mainstream market?
-The speaker describes this shift as a two-wave adoption process, with an early market consisting of technology enthusiasts and visionaries, followed by a mainstream market of pragmatists. The transition between these two waves can be facilitated by focusing on 'pragmatists in pain' who are more likely to convert sooner due to a pressing problem they need solving.
What are the four distinct business models the speaker discusses for different stages of market development?
-The four business models discussed are the project model for the early market, the solution model for a group of pragmatists sharing a common problem, the product model for capturing the rush of customers in a new category, and the consumables model for mature markets where the real value lies in the ecosystem around the product (e.g., iTunes for iPod).
How does the speaker characterize the impact of the internet and consumer technologies on society?
-The speaker characterizes the impact as transformative, leading to a digitized culture where consumer experiences are digitally mediated. This has resulted in a significant shift in how we interact, conduct business, and engage with the world, making the digital experience a central part of our lives.
What is the 'Millennials' lament' as mentioned by the speaker?
-The 'Millennials' lament' refers to the discrepancy between the power and control consumers feel they have in their digital lives and the lack of that same empowerment in their professional lives as employees. This gap is seen as a driving force for the need to bring consumer capabilities into the enterprise.
What does the speaker suggest as a key strategy for companies to maintain their profit margins in the face of commoditization?
-The speaker suggests that companies need to differentiate their offers significantly from commodity offerings so that customers are willing to pay a premium. This requires specialization and creating unmatchable offers that provide unique value to customers.
How does the speaker define the role of middle managers in the modern business environment?
-The speaker defines middle managers as the connective tissue along a value chain that spans multiple companies. They are responsible for communication, coordination, and collaboration across company and even national boundaries, making them key in navigating the complexities of modern business networks.
What is the speaker's perspective on innovation and its role in business strategy?
-The speaker views innovation as critical for business strategy but also acknowledges a 'dark side' where much innovation results in waste. He emphasizes the importance of focusing innovation efforts on differentiation, neutralization, and optimization to ensure a return on investment and maintain competitive advantage.
What advice does the speaker give regarding the allocation of resources for innovation projects?
-The speaker advises against mixing different modes of innovation within the same project. He suggests that teams should be given clear objectives for differentiation, neutralization, or optimization, and that these objectives should be pursued in parallel without overlap to avoid delays and inefficiencies.
Outlines
📈 Market Dynamics and Technology Adoption Curves
The speaker begins by outlining the trajectory of market models over the past 20 years, focusing on the adoption of disruptive technologies and the predictable patterns of community response. The classic model by Everett Rogers is introduced, segmenting the community into five categories: technology enthusiasts, visionaries, pragmatists, conservatives, and the resistant. The transformative impact of pragmatists is emphasized, highlighting the 'chasm' they create between early adopters and the mainstream market. The talk sets the stage for discussing market expansion and innovation strategies.
🛠 Business Models and Market Transformation
This paragraph delves into the evolution of business models in response to market dynamics. The speaker discusses the transition from project-based early markets to solution-driven models that cater to pragmatists facing common problems. The importance of identifying the right customer segments to bridge the 'chasm' and accelerate market adoption is underscored. The talk also touches on the shift from product models to consumables models as markets mature, reflecting on the different strategies needed for success in various market stages.
🌐 The Impact of Globalization and Technology Life Cycles
The speaker explores the effects of globalization and the outsourcing trends that have reshaped the technology landscape. The discussion centers on how these trends have led to the commodification of goods and the challenges faced by developed economies. The importance of maintaining profit margins and differentiating offers in the face of commoditization is highlighted. The speaker also introduces the concept of secular markets, which undergo a one-time shift, and cyclical markets, which experience ups and downs.
💡 Innovation Strategies in Cyclical Markets
In this section, the speaker discusses the need for different innovation strategies in cyclical markets, where high-risk, disruptive innovation is less viable. The focus shifts to customer intimacy and operational excellence as key strategies for value creation. Examples of value engineering and business model reformulation are given, illustrating how companies can innovate within the constraints of a cyclical market to stay competitive.
🚀 Consumer Technology and Viral Marketing
The speaker contrasts the rapid adoption of consumer technologies with the slower, more challenging enterprise market. The disconnect between the delightful, free experiences of consumer technology and the less dynamic enterprise tools is highlighted as a significant opportunity. The importance of creating viral products and the impact of Apple's product launches on various industries are discussed, emphasizing the need for 'cool' and viral marketing in the consumer space.
🔄 The Millennial Lament and Enterprise Transformation
This paragraph addresses the 'Millennials lament,' the feeling of empowerment as a consumer versus the lack of it as an employee. The speaker identifies the need to bring consumer-like capabilities into the enterprise as a major opportunity for wealth creation in the coming decade. The discussion also touches on the pressures of globalization and the need for enterprises to adapt and innovate to remain competitive.
🤝 The Changing Role of Middle Management
The speaker discusses the transformation of middle management in the new business landscape. Middle managers are now seen as connectors in a value chain that spans multiple companies. The need for effective communication, coordination, and collaboration across company boundaries is emphasized. The talk highlights the gap in tools and systems that support middle managers in their new roles.
🛡️ Securing and Scaling Enterprise Technology
The speaker addresses the challenges of making consumer technology enterprise-ready, focusing on security, data leakage, liability, and system integration. The importance of maintaining usability while ensuring that the technology is reliable, scalable, and maintainable is highlighted. The talk also emphasizes the need for technology to be mobile, global, social, and virtual to meet the demands of modern business.
💼 Innovation for Business Success
In this paragraph, the speaker discusses the importance of innovation in business, differentiating between differentiation, neutralization, and optimization as three distinct paths to achieving a return on innovation. The talk stresses the need to focus on creating unmatchable offers, being a fast neutralizer, and optimizing to self-fund further innovation. The speaker also warns against mixing these modes in innovation efforts.
🚨 Avoiding Waste in Innovation Initiatives
The speaker concludes by emphasizing the need to avoid wasting resources in innovation initiatives. By focusing on creating unmatchable offers, neutralizing competitors effectively, and optimizing processes, companies can self-fund their innovation efforts. The talk encourages identifying and eliminating waste to free up resources for more impactful innovation projects.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Technology Adoption Life Cycle
💡Disruptive Technology
💡Pragmatists
💡Market Expansion
💡Innovation
💡Solution Model
💡Product Model
💡Consumables Model
💡Enterprise IT
💡Consumerization of IT
💡Neutralization
💡Differentiation
💡Optimization
💡Waste in Innovation
Highlights
Tracing an arc over the last 20 years to explore the evolution of technology adoption models and their application in new markets.
Grounding in the 60-year-old Everett Rogers model which segments community responses to disruptive technology into five categories.
Discussion on the transformative response of pragmatists in technology adoption and the concept of the 'chasm' between early and mainstream markets.
The identification of market dynamics through different phases: early market, chasm, tornado, main street, and total assimilation.
Different business models for different market phases: project, solution, product, and consumables models.
The importance of understanding the lifecycle of technology and its impact on corporate strategies and growth.
The shift in the tech industry after the dot-com bust, where tech began to resemble an industrial sector with a focus on the entire lifecycle curve.
The concept of secular and cyclical markets in tech and their implications for growth and innovation strategies.
The emergence of consumer tech and the decoupling of adoption from monetization, leading to new challenges and opportunities.
The need for tech to mature and take responsibility for the entire lifecycle, including dealing with commoditization and differentiation.
The impact of globalization and outsourcing on the tech industry, leading to a need for specialization and innovation to maintain margins.
The transformation of middle managers into connectors across value chains, necessitating new tools for communication, coordination, and collaboration.
The opportunity to bring consumer tech capabilities into the enterprise, creating a new market for enterprise-ready social and mobile technologies.
The importance of innovation in competing in the new world, focusing on differentiation, neutralization, and optimization.
The 'Millennials lament' reflecting the gap between consumer empowerment and employee experience, driving the need for enterprise transformation.
The key learnings on innovation, emphasizing the importance of not mixing modes and focusing on parallel tracks of differentiation, neutralization, and optimization.
The final thoughts on the importance of leveraging waste in innovation budgets to self-fund initiatives without downside.
Transcripts
[Music]
thank you very much thank you very much
okay so so the opportunity what I want
to do here is I want to trace an arc
over the last 20 years I want to kind of
for those of you who haven't maybe seen
these models before I'm just going to do
a quick grounding in them then I want to
kind of talk about where they've gone I
want to tie that into um uh a whole new
set of markets that I think we're going
to serve that we can apply these models
to going forward and when I mean serve I
mean right now and I I mean this
community right now I think there's a a
Market expansion in this decade that's
going to be extremely uh interesting and
important to everybody in uh in this
room and then some some a little bit I
want to close with some things we've
learned about how to play the game in
the in this new world and particularly
how innovation has to get focused in a
way that's more disciplined maybe than
we than we've done in the past so that's
that's kind of where this is
headed so um the old models to follow
okay so let me just kick this thing off
by saying this model here is 60 years
old Everett Rogers came up with this
model in the 1950s and basically what he
said was if you introduce disruptive
technology into any Community anywhere
that Community will self-segregate into
five different responses the first resp
and and and he he his names for these go
across the bottom here and I'm going to
give you the sort of the Silicon Valley
version of those names so the first
people to engage a new technology are
the technology enthusiasts and they do
it largely because they're just
interested in the properties of the
technology they're Geeks and and and you
know they're just dancing geek to geek
is kind of how these things start right
and then the first major thing that
happens with a technology happens when a
Visionary sponsor enters the game this
is a person with a lot of money and and
a and a dream or vision and and they
they take a lot of risks early on and
these they go ahead of the herd they
want to be the first people ever to do
this stuff and and that whole idea of
being the Pioneer they want to be that
Pioneer they're going to they're they're
going to put a lot of distance between
themselves and and everybody else
everybody else tends to get led by this
third strategy which is I'll do it when
I see you do it okay and and and
basically pragma just kind of say look
there's just too many things to evaluate
I can't really be an expert myself so
I'll just kind of check in with
everybody around me and when they go
I'll go and if they're not going I'm not
going to go the conservative strategy is
I just don't even like this stuff at all
so if I cannot do it I will not do it
and if I have to do it I'll wait until
as long as I can and then I'll do
whatever the pragmatist did hopefully
cheaper uh because you know it's it's
it's been in the market longer and then
the final response is you guys are all
instruments of the devil and and and you
know we this just never been never
should have happened okay so this model
has been very very stable but when we
when we applied it to the market
development the thing that we learned
about this model was that only one of
the five responses really was
transformative and that was what did the
pragmatist do because it's like block
voting in an election did the block vote
democrat or republican or did the
liberal Tor I can't remember how you
guys played up here right how the Brits
played anyway the prag the magst are the
key to the Dynamics of the market and so
instead of being this nice curve what we
ended up finding was a curve that had
broken into two pieces and the the the
first piece the piece out to the left we
called the early market and it was made
up of Technology enthusiasts and
Visionaries who both for their own
reasons preferred to go early or first
and engage and they kind of gravitated
toward the Innovation and then there was
this thing we called the chasm and the
chasm sep separated that group from the
rest because the pragmatists looked at
that going on and they they said well
that's interesting and then they turned
to each other and they'd say are you
doing this yet no no no no me neither
good okay okay good so so what would
happen is the market would stop there'd
be this Lull in the market and and when
it was first uh when when the book first
came out people we weren't seeing that
lull we were expecting to go right up
rogers's curve and so it was very
important to see it and that LOL is a
pragmatist group of people saying saying
I won't go unless you go so this is what
we ended up calling the Junior High
dance problem okay so boys on one side
of the gym girls on the other side of
the gym how do we get the dance started
and and and the interesting thing about
this model I'll just skip ahead for a
second is you know at some some few
minutes
later everybody's on the dance floor so
you go from a state of zero adoption to
a state of 100% adoption and it's the
same pragmatist decision respon resp
which is I'm going to do whatever you do
so I'm not I'm not I'm not and then all
of a sudden you do you do you do oh my
God I'm being left behind I'm going to
go do it too okay so tornadoes and
chasms were the exact same response it
was just is is is the switch on or is
the switch off now bowling alley was
this thing in the middle which was could
you as a marketing as a
company accelerate the transition from
Chasm to Tornado by focusing on somebody
who would be a group of people were more
likely to convert sooner rather than
later and we called these people
pragmatists in pain okay so they would
normally not convert but they've got a
problem that was bothering them enough
that if you could come up with a
solution they would do it and so a whole
lot AC crossing the chasm was all about
can you first of all can you get The
Visionaries then you is the Once you and
you use The Visionaries to get the
product to a point where it's it's done
or done enough that you can sell it to
pragmatist and then the question was who
who could you who could you find for
that first Beach head segment to get the
pragmatis community adopting it's almost
like there's two waves of adoption an
early market and then and then a
mainstream market and getting that
second wave of adoption that was the big
lesson uh of of the uh of the early
early 90s and then then things go on to
Main Street and and and and final to
finally total assimilation and so that
was kind of the model we were using for
the 90s and and we were using with
startups a lot and we just kept on
seeing Tech technology after technology
come through the
marketplace what happened next oh and
and the models you learn from this are
if you're in the early Market it's a
project game every customer is a unique
event you're not really selling a
product it's the product isn't even done
yet really so you're selling yourself to
your customer and you're kind of selling
the entire company to do whatever it is
you say your product does because it
doesn't do it yet so you're going to do
the project that will make it do it once
in one for one in one instance for that
customer and that becomes your Flagship
account or the or or your reference
account and it shows the rest of the
world this is possible but it doesn't
create pragmatist adoption to do that
you got to move to another model and
that's the solution model the solution
model is built around a herd of
pragmatists who share a common problem
and who want to see a common solution to
that problem that other pragmatists have
proven that works so once that solution
comes into view if the problem is
universal in that Community the solution
becomes Universal incredibly rapidly the
example we used early on was a company
called documentum and and the folks open
text here know them well so so that was
a $2 million a year $2 million a year $2
million a year three years in a row then
went eight 25 45 and went public on one
pragst community in pain the the the
pharmaceutical companies who were trying
to handle the documents around new drug
approval but that was a solution model
because they had built one for Boeing
and they'd built one for synex and
they'd built one for the a state
government those were three projects
they had to focus in pick one they pick
synex they generalize that into a
solution for the rest of Pharma when you
get into the tornado you got to leave
the solution model behind or or at least
the the model that is most rewarded in a
tornado is just a product model it's
just just
as in you know we're talking uh about HP
earlier this morning HP when the inkjet
printers first came out they had to ship
a million a month out of Vancouver just
ship it right and if they had a defect
that was a very bad moment because
you're just trying to get product out in
the market so the product model is
extremely successful for capturing that
Rush of customers that come into new cat
any any category whether it's an iPhone
an iPod an iPad kind of product that
that kind of stuff that first Rush is
huge The Rim the Blackberry
Etc when you get into a more mature
Market you realize hey it's not the iPod
it's the iTunes that's the real value
here it's not the it's not maybe the
iPad it's going to be the app store
right and so the consum oops the the uh
let me go back here the consumables
model becomes a really important thing
so part of what we learned in the last
half of the 90s is it wasn't just about
tornadoes there was this whole model
that we had to start sorting through and
what we discovered is those four
business models they're very very
different the leaders that are good at
them are different the the the operating
ratios that you have are different the
sales motions are different the partner
relationships are different and so when
when you if you're going through this
model the first time you have this very
very uh peculiar sort of experience of
company adolescence where you know
you're trying to figure out what model
of I supposed to be on and and how how
can we play this game and so for those
of you who are in startups and may go
through this curve this is this an
extremely valuable sort of road map to
have to kind of where where are we now
are we on the right model today and are
we headed toward another model and and
what would we have to do to get ready
for that kind of thing and that was a
lot of the turmoil that came out of the
the late 90s was about just trying to
figure out how do you do this in
particularly in a large company where
One Division might be at one part of the
life cycle and another division at the
another
part and then the and and this basically
drove our life for the '
90s then we had the dot the Y2K and the
dot bubble and then the.com bust and
that sort of said you know what it kind
of when we came back from the.com Bust
Tech looked a lot more like an
industrial than it had ever before which
means yes there's still technology
adoption life cycles and yes those lead
to growth markets and those growth
markets you can be through a technology
adoption life cycle and you can still
grow like a weed uh uh going forward so
there's a in fact if you want to be a
successful executive in a large
corporation you want to join it just as
it's going into the B section and then
leave just as it goes into the c section
right and then you can say well you know
when I was at Oracle we took it from 50
million to 500 million and about 4 years
and yeah that was on my watch and yeah
of course if you had just stood there
doing nothing it would have gone from 50
to 500 but then you don't they don't put
the F on the resume just you know I was
there right so B markets are fabulous
for corporate careers Okay C markets is
where corporate Executives earn their
living C markets are cyclical markets
whereas B markets are what they call
secular a secular Market is a market
that is making a one-time shift from A
to B like media is right now going
through a one-time shift from analog
paper to digital okay once it's done
it's going to be kind of done but in
during the process of doing it there's
an enormous amount of infrastructure
that has to be put in place etc etc so
that's the B markets CA markets are you
got to maintain that
infrastructure do we have a train coming
oh yes we do have a train excuse me okay
um the uh uh I love it the C markets
those are cyclical growth market so they
kind of go up and they go down and they
go up the PC industry probably for the
last 15 years has sort of been a CA
market right and so we had to learn in
Tech about how to manage in a C Market
because we didn't know that and in fact
we then had to start learning about
declining markets we we'd seen the kind
of the minicomputer folks go through
this but we you know you didn't think
the workstation guys were going to go
through it and then our friends at Sun
sort of kind of had a very strong D
experience leading to becoming an O
company right they they were bought by
Oracle uh the other year ago and and and
and then you can even have a end of life
experience sort of like a Kodak moment
where where basically your technology is
done we're done you you you can join the
slide rule in a in a museum somewhere
because we're not we don't do film
anymore right and so for the first time
Tech had to kind of grow up and and sort
of take responsibility for the entire
curve because the Enterprise customers
said to us basically in 2002 we've spent
we think on the order of a trillion
dollars with you guys hope you enjoyed
it we have used maybe one tenth of what
we bought from you and we're not going
to buy much for a while and by the way
all that maintenance we're paying you
well we don't want to pay very much of
that maintenance to you either and you
guys better learn how to act like an
adult
industrial uh sector or or we we'll find
somebody who can okay so that was a big
a big learning for us and in that world
we started saying okay we need to
rethink Innovation and so the book that
David referenced called dealing with
Darwin what it said is it said look
we've had lots of innovation we've known
about this disruptive innovation that's
kind of how you know I was dining out on
that Kay Christensen with the innovators
dilemma doing a lot of work with in
disruptive innovation this solution kind
of innovation you know a product
Innovation platform Innovation platforms
became a very important idea we saw
Windows become a platform we saw Intel
become a platform Oracle became a
platform um big issue and they were all
kind of growth Market ideas and they
were all around product
leadership then you kind of went into
the more cyclical places and the problem
with cyclical markets is that that kind
of innovation it's too expensive and too
high risk to do in a cyclical Market
cyclical markets don't change enough
market share fast enough to reward the
kind of risk that those kinds of
innovation implies and so what you see
in cyclical industrial markets is either
a customer intimacy strategy or an
operational excellence strategy so
customer intimacy and you think of
things like we we have line extensions
we have enhancement or or design
Innovations marketing Innovations uh
experiential Innovations you know think
about markets and and more and more it's
about what is the experience as opposed
to did you do something really
disruptive okay and on the operational
excellence side value engineering
integration Engineering Process
engineering business model reformulation
just again these are the ways in which
cycal Industries can continually find
new ways to create value going forward
they were not familiar to the Tech
Community in Silicon Valley but in
certainly in the last 10 years they've
been huge Mark herd's whole career at HP
was essentially a value an exercise in
value engineering right just essentially
taking out all the fat he could find
probably a lot of the muscle as well
okay so I mean the new CEO Leo apitech
was trying to figure out you know what
he's got left in the cupboard if
anything but the point is you can do
that in a cyclical Market okay you kind
of sell out the future but you make the
present and then and then you also have
to take responsibility for the fact that
some of your portfolio is really is
sliding off the other side of things and
so you're either going to have to do
organic Innovation to replace it or
you're going to have to acquire
companies structural Innovation or you
maybe just Harvest and leave and you
know this is a very very kind of busy
slide but that was the point that was
the whole point of dealing with Darwin
there's lots of forms of innovation it's
not just disruptive in the Tech
Community the only Innovation that we
said was real Innovation was disruptive
innovation but that's not true that's
not true Innovation is anything that
creates separation between you and a
competitor that and causes customers to
prefer your offer to theirs every one of
those things can do that okay so that
was that was
now uh up into that this has all been
the Enterprise experience uh of of of of
the last two decades but the thing the
big thing that happened of course was
after the Y2K and the the Enterprise it
kind of went into the tank consumer it
took off and it took off at a speed that
people you know people you know that
nice Jeffrey Mo and his Chasm idea too
bad it's irrelevant now right which felt
a little threatening frankly so so it's
like well what did happen you know what
was going because there was no what casm
Facebook has 600 million subscribers
right it's the second or third largest
country the third largest country in the
World Behind China and India right it's
huge so km schazam dude I mean what are
you talking about so what we what we
realized was that what happened with the
the consumer Tech things in particularly
Google and Facebook and Twitter and and
YouTube and the things that we are
probably most familiar with is adoption
option became
disconnected from
monetization and so it was the adoption
there was no technology disruption for
the adoption it was just there and it
was delightful and when you offer
something that is delightful and free
over broadband that's not expensive
don't be shocked when it gets consumed
until you know the last drop of
broadband has been exhausted right but
what we did realize is that monetization
still was casm problem so these models
definitely work better or well let's be
put this way these model models always
work in my view in a B2B scenario in a b
Toc scenario you can still see the
patterns emerging Facebook didn't wasn't
an overnight success it was first a
success at Harvard so that was its first
Visionary kind of account and then it
spread to the other IV leagues and you
could argue that something akin to
crossing the chasm bowling alley and
then it went went forward but it having
said that it wasn't the kind of tough
Chasm crossings that we've been dealing
with in the '90s it was a much more
viral much more contagious situation and
so if you're going to be successful in
consumer um uh it you have to be a
master of viral creating viral effects
and it's not we call it viral marketing
but the truth is it's actually just a
viral product and our friends at Apple
have shown us three times in one decade
how a spectacularly viral product can
set in entire Industries on their ear I
mean you know the last decade is just
it's it's unbelievable the music
industry the cellular telephony industry
and now the media industry are are are
literally being completely overturned by
the introduction of a single product a
sing single consumer product which then
creates this massive leverage which is
cing all creating all this
reorganization so there's stuff if
you're going to play in the consumer
business you have to be cool you have to
figure out this viral cool thing don't
look at me okay cool is not my strong
suit okay so but I but I can at least
recognize it when I see it sort of like
the Supreme Court with pornography I'm I
can't Define it but I can recognize it
when I see it okay I can recognize cool
but I can't I'm not cool and I couldn't
tell you how to be cool I just know you
have to be cool to make this stuff work
so that that's sort of a kind of a if
you will a sort of a retrospective of
the models and if you're if you're not
familiar with them you probably do need
to internalize these models and and
there's Bunches of books to help you do
that because it's a little bit like
raising kids you know when you raise
little kids you you had the terrible
twos and the trying Threes And The
Fearsome fours and the fabulous fives or
whatever it was those books were
incredibly valuable as a firsttime
parent CU you'd go oh my God my kid
they're okay it's all right that they're
wetting the bed or it's all right that
they're you know teething on their
brother uh you
know or or whatever and similarly these
models are I think are pretty good to
help not just you get oriented but to
help you get your team on the same page
because they help the whole team realize
what forces are acting on us going
forward okay so that's sort of a kind of
a retrospective view of sort of models
thinking uh largely Silicon Valley
Centric kind of growing up a bit over
the last couple of
decades that's all fine you know old
people can talk about it and that that
would be me now but the question really
is what's coming and where are we going
and what is the opportunity for the
startups in the back of this Hall and
the startups that are kind of implicit
in every table in this
room so I think the big thing of this
last decade as I just said because of
the Wu bubble Dynamic Enterprise it for
all of this decade this last decade was
essentially an exercise in optimizing
and economizing largely through
virtualization potentially going to
Cloud but not going to Cloud to grow
going to Cloud to economize right uh
getting you trying to find ways to store
things more cheaply or compute more
cheaply meanwhile while Enterprise it
was on hold of course consumer it was on
fire and and this this transformation I
mean that you could you could do you
know huge presentations about I'll just
I just want to make the point that there
were four technologies that converged in
this past decade any one of which
probably would have been transformative
but when you take the four of them
together it it just it created a world
in which our entire culture excuse me
I'm just our entire
culture has become digitized we there
used to be a time where you could talk
about my digital life it's very hard to
do that now because you we are leading
digitally mediated
lives it's it's and so all and the and
if the the older folks in the room with
me not too digitally mediated but just
you just go down a gradient of age and
you get down to a
14-year-old and the cell phone is the
center of their emotional and physical
and psychological development right and
that's why they have those little funny
little thumbs you know they can do all
that stuff so so so so we we know that
there's been a transformation and of
course you you look at what's going on
in the Middle East right now that's a
direct consequence of these Technologies
in this digitally mediated world we we
meet people uh digitally we fall in love
digitally we make War digitally we
financi we do Finance digitally we do
Commerce digitally everything is
becoming digital so as consumers we have
this unbelievable digital experience and
and and it's just it's well it's
revolutionary in a way that I just don't
think I don't think it's it's it's just
hard to figure out even how to stay this
uh State the scope of that but anyway
that Genie is well and truly out of the
bottle and we're on our way and we don't
know where we're going but it it's it's
a heck of a ride okay so what it's led
to however is this thing we call the
Millennials
lament which is how can I be so powerful
as a consumer
and so lame as an employee I mean Sunday
night the world is at my command and
Monday morning I can't figure out you
know what my latest my best customer
really wants from me okay so what what's
going on and why can't we have this
stuff together and this is the this is
the the forcing function or the the
impedance mismatch that's going to
create an enormous amount of wealth
creation in this coming decade which is
we need to bring
the
consumer um capabilities into the
Enterprise and so if you look at that
and you say well the Enterprise by the
way if you talk to cios about this they
know it's coming but oh man they'd like
it to come on the next guy's watch
because because it's it's just there's
so much you have to do in order to make
this thing actually work so the first
question we ought to ask ourselves as
well you know Jeffrey futurist blah blah
blah you know they always think things
are coming really soon what would make
make it come really this decade why
can't we wait really another decade and
have crappy systems at work we've had
them for years already it's a tradition
you know why why would why couldn't we
just stay with that and I think the
answer is we we started changing the
world the the B2B World in particular
about 20 years ago with this Outsourcing
of manufacturing to China followed very
quickly by Outsourcing of a lot of
services to India and the effect of that
Outsourcing was just remarkable I mean
we as was the most effective foreign aid
program in the history of the planet I
mean just by far by wildly I mean it's
for somebody growing up in my generation
to have to witness China being the
number two economy in the world you say
how is that possible right and it's
because of this and so there's lots and
lots of good things that have happened
from that it's been hard on the
developed economy why is it been so hard
on us well because the goods that come
back from that globalized world into our
economy are priced at a very very
different point now that's great for
consumers but for those of us who make a
living in a developed economy and have
to support the infrastructure and the
wage scale and the cost of living of a
developed economy commoditization is a
very very scary enemy because it does
not go away and and and you can try to
protect yourself from it for a while and
some some some countries have been very
protectionist but sooner or later you
have you have to pay the piper and most
people believe I don't believe in just
in just ripping off the skin and
immediately exposing yourself to the
worst of everything but you have we have
to have a systematic way for coping with
this and you say well how do you do that
you say well we we have to create offers
that are sufficiently differentiated
from the commodity offer that people
will pay me the the difference so I can
keep my the thing you have to keep
constant is your margin model this is
true of a company this is true of a
country you have to maintain M your
profit margins at whatever that's the
constant in your business you can change
categories you can change people you can
change customers you can change offers
you can't change your margin model so
that means we have to differentiate to a
level to sustain our our margin model
well how do you do that and and the
answer is actually pretty clear you have
to specialize we no longer can be the
general purpose everybody does
everything kind of company that my
father grew up in and that frankly I
entered when I was first coming into the
workforce where companies essentially
did you know everything so so you know
you you you built the Chip And you built
the storage device and you built the
software and you built the hardware and
you did the services and and the whole
thing and and in Tech obviously we've
completely deconstructed that so that we
can specialize Cisco builds networking
equipment now it's moving up now but for
a long time that was all it did right
EMC for a long time all it did was
storage you know uh Microsoft just
software operating systems then then
applications that kind of stuff so you
specialize well when you specialize what
you have to say is well where do I get
the resources to specialize well I've
got to economize and the economizing
increasingly says I'm going to do it for
cheaper and then eventually you go you
know the problem is if I try to do it
too cheaply I'll do it badly I'm
probably better off if I give this to
another company we Outsource it so that
leads to more Outsourcing and now you
start seeing that this thing is a cycle
right and it's just not going to stop
it's you keep going around and around
this circle
and and and and the globalization
stronger the commoditization stronger so
we have to differentiate even more this
is a kind of a a darwinian rat race and
this world is getting flatter and
flatter okay now that's just not for us
that's for everybody in every developed
economy so now how why would
it make a difference in this world okay
because it is one of the few assets we
have in the developed world where we're
much better at it than the developing
World much better so if we can figure
out a way to leverage this it's a great
idea idea so if you start looking at
this world from the point of view of the
developed economies here's what's going
on the the structure business has
changed we've gone from the old middle
managers were the people that stood
between top management and bottom and
the bottom of the pyramid to Middle
managers are the people that live and
they're the connective tissue along a
value chain that goes across three four
five six different companies in order to
deliver the final result to the Final
End customer so all of a sudden there's
a a need to negotiate a whole lot of
things across company boundaries across
country boundaries language barriers
culture barriers that we never had
before and the middle manager instead of
being a cog in a great corporate machine
has become sort of the middle linebacker
or or the you the midfielder in soccer
they have to run all over the field and
they have to perform at high speed so
you look at that thing and you say what
are they doing with this stuff and and
and and the the business networks are
are saying look we need to communicate
we need to coordinate we need to we need
to collaborate we didn't have to do that
as much anymore and so how do we get
that stuff done how do we build these
relationships and they have got to be
built virtually digitally across the
world and so how do we engage with peers
to solve problems and the problem is
it's not in the Erp system the answers
are not there there are some facts in
the Erp system we need like where is the
shipment or what was the order amount or
how much did we release on allocation or
what was the you know the the the uh uh
the lot number of the contaminated lot
there's information in there but you
can't turn to the system to get the
answer much of the answer is in people's
heads and it has to be negotiated out so
this is where I think the opportunity is
is going to hit it's going to hit the
middle management the interesting thing
about middle management is we've never
invested in it for the middle of our
organizations we invested in huge
amounts of Erp but that was primarily to
automate the front line and then we
invested in huge amounts of business
intelligence we used to call it decision
support executive information systems
and that was to make our Executive Suite
smarter but if you were somebody in the
middle there only really two things we
ever did for anybody in the middle we
got him a laptop and then we got him a
Blackberry that was it that was it I
mean after that it's like you no manager
in the world says hey I've got a tough
problem I want to log on to
sap is just not what happens okay so so
the issue then becomes so so so so what
do we want to do well what we want to do
is we want to take these design
principles and these power principles
that we've seen unfold in the consumer
world and we want to bring them into the
Enterprise
world and when you look at that you say
well what would that really be the
answer is you you don't have to look
very far because many of the facilities
we want already exist in the consumer
world but they don't have the word
Enterprise in front of them and and and
and putting the word Enterprise ready in
front of these things is something that
none of these companies will do
themselves there is no chance that
Facebook will make an Enterprise ready
Facebook or Google and Enterprise ready
Google or YouTube or Twitter it won't
happen because the bit the way the
business models work the way the margin
models work the way the partnership
models work they're just antithetical
it's not going to happen so they'll have
divisions that'll sort of try to nod
nicely toward the Enterprise but that's
that's about as far as it's going to go
which means there's a huge vacuum to be
filled because this stuff if if you buy
in this argument about the the way in
which the world is is going if we we
have to arm our middle managers if we're
going to be able to maintain our margin
models this stuff would do it let me let
me show the kind of things that we have
in mind you know you could say look you
know uh Facebook well I need to know
somebody you know I'm filling a project
in China right or or uh on demand
conferencing let's get everybody
together right now global presence
detection I need to talk to Harry where
is Harry Harry Harry may not even know
where Harry is but his cell phone knows
where Harry is right so we can find
Harry you know can can you take YouTube
I want to do a demo I don't want to get
in another plane search you know it just
it goes on and on and okay so so it's
not that there aren't use cases for all
of these things in the Enterprise
because there are plenty of use cases
for the problem is that it's just really
really hard to make consumer technology
Enterprise ready you know look at the
kinds of stuff that that you know that
you you you got to worry about so so the
first thing is the great thing the the
asset you have is don't
redesign the capability Mark Benny when
he designed the first salesforce.com he
had asked himself the question why isn't
enterprise software as easy to use as
amazon.com so when he wrote the first
salesforce.com app and he did the
interface he copied Amazon
exactly when two years ago he wanted to
say why can't we have Twitter Enterprise
Twitter he said Enterprise chatter like
Facebook he copied the Facebook
interface exactly why did he do that if
you copy Facebook exactly you don't need
a manual right you don't need training
you don't need support people do it see
as soon as you make a change to make it
quote better you screw everything up
okay so and this is Engineers like
famous for doing this right I can do it
smarter yes you can shoot that man
right because because they'll completely
disrupt the entire point of the process
which is we want to leverage a a a a
complete cultural phenomenon already
exists but here's the heavy lifting
right so it's got to be secure we have
to worry about data leakage we have to
worry about liability we have to worry
about discoverability because especially
not maybe so much on your side of the
Border but we have more lawyers than we
have football player we have more
lawyers than anything on our side of the
border and discoverability is a big
issue for it and the interfaces to the
systems of record because none of this
stuff works if you can't talk to sap
it's not that sap is irrelevant it's
just just the sap has to be on demand
not on a pull basis not on a push basis
right and it's got to be very ad hoc in
the moment very mobile global social
virtual all that kind of stuff
reliability scalability maintainability
all the stuff that people worry about
and so I think the great thing about
being here is Rim this is this is a
Playbook that Rim taught the world about
okay when you when you talk to Jim Bley
and those and those guys when I was
talking with him at at the world
economic those years that we were going
there together You' you'd see the the
thought processes that that Rim put into
well how does the service provider's
business model got to work and what has
to happen there okay now what do the CIO
got to do and how does the Blackberry
you know Bez server have to work with
that and then what does the end user
want and and and where where can we go
from there and you know you guys are
going to have a raffle for a torch I
have a torch by the way this is a hell
of a product okay and and and it's a
business product and and it's been a
very successful business product so it's
not that this this is not a magic Art
and it's certainly not a magic Art for
this community but it's a lot of work
now the good news is that creates
barriers to entry and it also creates
margin model right because this is
extremely valuable work so I really want
to encourage you to figure out a way to
tap into this capability if it's if it's
in the environment of your business
model so I just want to close with with
one last set of thoughts and it's just
four or five slides it's around this
notion of how do you innovate to compete
in this new world and you know Silicon
Valley gets a lot of credit for
Innovation and the thing that that that
uh we began to sort out is we we began
to feel there's kind of a kind of
there's kind of a dark side to to
Innovation which is probably most
Innovation is
waste and that was a we challenged
ourselves to figure out where do you get
the return on Innovation and how does
that work and we learned we learned a
key lesson which I want to close with
okay so the the key the lesson starts by
saying look if you look at Innovation
there's three ways you can make money if
you spend a dollar on Innovation you can
differentiate which will mean you'll
you'll get the you know a better margin
you'll get more sales because customers
prefer your offer to the other guys you
can neutralize which means you can catch
up to an innovation that a competitor
made and so therefore kind of get back
into the game and you can optimize and
in in optimizing requires Innovation and
you if you can take money take cost out
of your system and that also improves
your margin model so if you look at
those three things you know your claim
to fame and and then you know take table
stakes and and making money let me kind
of walk you through the key things we've
learned on each one of those and then
and then the final lesson about keeping
them separate so this is the
differentiation idea now every company
has a set of competitors the customers
put you in that set the analysts put you
in that set and the idea is those
companies are all different their offers
are all differentiated from each other
but they're inside a yellow circle
because at the margin the customer is
not willing to pay an extraordinary
premium for any one of those offers so
they have a preference but it's within
an envelope where best price is going to
have quite a lot of influence if you can
differentiate in a way that takes you
outside the yellow circle you're able to
we call this creating an unmatchable
offer okay you create enormous power
enormous bargaining power that's what
that's why everybody's talking about
Apple for the last decade and by the way
it's why people are learning to hate
Apple now because what with enormous
power typically comes abuse of enormous
power right and you're just watching
Apple starting down the tra the the the
trail of abuse uh you watched it with
their media negotiations you're seeing
it in the App Stores you you're going to
and it's going to generate a reaction
the same way that that Microsoft created
a reaction the same way that Google
created a reaction the same way that
Facebook creates a reaction but but the
point about it is it's because they have
enormous power and why do they have
enormous power because they have an
unmatchable offer okay and and and and
that unmatchable offer is something you
should aspire to now we shouldn't aspire
to be Global revolutionaries at every
table because there's only one globe and
there's like 25 tables here but but what
we can do is say but in our target
market we can do this in our Target
market and we just you you focus the
market to where the market has to be big
enough to matter to your company and
small enough for you to dominate so you
have to sort of figure out where you are
but you can do this okay if you don't do
it by the way it's not you're out of
business it's just that you don't have
this kind of bargaining power so your
margin model is continually being
threatened by commoditization and and
you're going to experience a
deterioration in your margin model which
is not not pleasant so kind of cools to
doing this stuff goals to be keys to
differentiate goals to be uh unmatchable
that means you have to make a very
asymmetrical bat you end up taking one
of your offers or one dimension of your
offers and wildly over resourcing it and
then kind of figuring out how to make do
every everywhere else okay and it's a
it's a big betat so I mean you know we
talk about the iPad anybody remember the
Newton right the Macintosh the Lisa
right so so these there I me there are
some spectacular sort of pancake Falls
uh around this play the the razor was
great but it was followed by the craer
right many of you probably don't
remember the Crazer okay but Motorola
does they remember both products
okay in innovating for neutralization is
the opposite problem somebody got
outside the yellow circle the yellow
circle's catching up to it you got to
get back inside the yellow circle what
you what you're trying to do now is all
you're trying to do is get something
that's good enough so that you can take
the other guys un supposedly unmatchable
capability and say no no no no no we
have one of those two
okay now nobody thinks yours is better
than theirs but it's good enough okay
this is what Nokia has failed to do okay
this is what Google did with Android and
this is why Steven elop who just came
from Microsoft and went to Nokia shot
the Symbian operating system and said
we're going with Microsoft which is
clearly an inferior choice to either
Android or iOS but the problem was you
say why couldn't Nokia in three 4 and A2
years 2007 let's give them three benefit
that four years from 2007 2011 why
couldn't they come up with something
that neutralized the Apple iPhone answer
they were too
proud the engineers at Nokia would not
do neutralization they wanted to out
differentiate and so they spent three
and a half years trying to out
differentiate this is a this is a huge
huge cause of grief in high-tech this is
why Carol Barts had to sell the search
business at Yahoo to Microsoft because
the search business at Yahoo could not
let go of trying to out differentiate
Google because Google had taken their
search business from them there are
times in where you just have to cut your
losses and get back into the game the
best company who's ever been at
neutralization by far Microsoft right
Microsoft if you think about it invented
very little but neutralized and then
caught up and then went went ahead so it
neutralized Lotus 123 it neutralized
ashant Tate it neutralized wordstar and
then word perfect okay it neutralized
Noel okay it neutralized
Netscape it's trying to neutralize
Google may not get there this time
they're not as Nimble but but that was
an unbelievable performance around
neutralization so
neutralization is probably a scarcer
skill in Tech than
differentiation and being a fast
neutralizer is a critical part you need
to have this capability in your company
if you're going forward so it just it's
about being good enough
fast fast Microsoft would got that first
Internet Explorer into the Market within
a year of Netscape Navigator it sucked
right it wasn't really good enough but
it was a placeholder for good enough and
Internet Explorer too still wasn't
probably good enough but Internet
Explorer 3 was better than Navigator
okay so that's how they played that game
and and so emulate Microsoft when it
comes to neutralization and then finally
this issue around optimization you know
we're talking about all this price
deflation and what's going on and again
if you don't optimize you you you you
can't get the the the profits necessary
to to fund The Innovation going forward
so we tend to think about innovators and
optimizers because psychologically
they're very different but it's all part
of one ecosystem you got to optimize on
one end of the life cycle in order to
invest in Innovation and neutralization
earlier in the life cycle so this
optimization stuff it's it's really
important okay and again the goal is to
self fund now the thing that's
interesting about this self-funding
thing is well let me let me let me I'll
make that the last point I want to make
one point before I go there so those are
the three forms of getting a return on
Innovation and the thing we've learned
about them is they're very very
different the the the the values that
we're trying to uh do are different and
the way you kind of the question you
challenge yourself with is different and
here's the key learning don't mix
modes if you set up a team to do a
project or a program or an initiative
you give them one of these three
challenges and you take the other two
off the table if you have a problem that
you say well Jeffrey I'm sorry this this
a we have this product line and we
definitely have to differentiate but we
also have to neutralize fine break the
release in two do not have the
neutralization effort held captive by
the differentiation effort because
you'll delay the release for three and a
half years right you've got to get the
neutralization on a fast track and let
the differentiation because
differentiation isn't done until it's
done but neutralization needs to be done
now or before Christmas right that kind
of stuff so each one of these has it has
has its own Rhythm its own leadership
its own Cadence when you design
initiatives and you're you're running
your company make sure you separate them
out now the final thing I just want to
close with is where do you get the money
for this stuff and the answer is you've
already got the
money most of the money that people
spend on Innovation and on making their
company made uh better is wasted now
that's a I mean and not just at other
people's
companies okay Ian obviously other
people are not as smart as you are but
even at your company okay you say well
how is that possible because honest to
God I really don't believe this is true
I really don't believe this so you say
okay here here's where it comes from if
you initiate a project to really be
differentiation this is this is going to
be our claim to fame this is our better
than better better than best kind of
thing and you bring it to Market and
it's good and people give you lots of
credit for it it's even maybe best in
class but it's still inside the yellow
circle you're not going to get the
payback customers do not pay much more
for best-in class than for good enough
they'll pay a little bit more but not a
lot more okay you have to be Beyond
class to to get that return so all the
R&D about being better not good that's
waste you either are going to be
unmatchable or good enough and between
good enough and unmatchable there is a
huge huge spectrum of possibilities most
of which are well all of which are
seriously under rewarded good enough is
gets a huge reward because you're you're
in the game and and Beyond class gets a
huge reward because you're dictating
terms but everything in between no so
that's the first place the waste com so
you're probably spending too much money
on differentiation particularly if
you're funding differentiation in many
different products in many different
states of the life cycle most of them
probably shouldn't get funded okay you
should say no I'm sorry you're you're in
a neutralization phase of your life
we're going to differentiate with only a
few of our products the next one is um
excuse me um the next one's
neutralization that doesn't that that
tries to differentiate at the same time
that and therefore goes too slowly is
way too expensive and isn't fast enough
this is the this is the disease that
that yahu and Nokia both suffered from
and they're going to try to get
themselves out of sorry and then the
third one is optimization that really
doesn't go after the tough stuff doesn't
really try to get the real resources
freed up in your company so good news
about waste you already have the money
in your budget right if you stop wasting
it there is no downside trust me if you
spend it someplace else there is an
upside so frankly what the hell are you
waiting for right that's sort of I
really I mean it's just like come on
people this is right here this is fuel
go get the fuel right so the recap here
just to kind of close and I want to turn
it back over to uh to Ian and team is um
the models that I shared with you at the
beginning of the talk still apply
they're they need to be continually
updated and matured as the industry
matures but they still create Frameworks
and their purpose is really to create a
framework for you and your colleagues to
uh to to have tough conversations around
what's going on around you the new
markets to serve you know this last
decade was not a particularly good
decade for to be a B2B technology
company unless you were VMware or in
that kind of optimization world this
coming decade with this consumerization
of Enterprise it and all of the
implications of that means it's a huge
decade you this is absolutely where you
want to be for the coming decade going
forward
and then this new RAC is to run as
you're playing this new game this
business about differentiate neutralize
and optimize and how important those
three tracks are and they have to be
done in parallel they're not serial you
can't say well I'll optimize this year
and I'll neutralize next year and I'll
differentiate the next year no no no you
got to do all three in parallel right
but the key thing is don't try to Mel
them they they they do not mix well with
each other so that I want to say thank
you very much I'm going to have a chance
to be on a panel a bit later today see
you at lunch also but thanks a lot
appreciate
[Applause]
[Music]
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