All posts tagged digital innovation

  • October 21, 2010

    The Reinvention of Industry

    zuckerbergA point I’ve been harping on within my consulting engagements and during my workshops is the fact that, in my opinion, a deep transformation is taking place before our eyes.  The last few years have witnessed the toppling industries that, as a child, I took for granted as powerful and enduring.  Last year, more than 200 US newspapers went bankrupt, the music industry distribution channel has been reshaped and a good number of banks failed and others would have failed were it not for government help.

    Now, before going to bed, I read that a number of high powered players in tech and the VC industry have created a US $250M fund to invest in companies focused on the “social web.”  Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, one of the investors in the fund, states that “We think every industry is going to get fundamentally rethought and redesigned around people.”  Nothing like validation from the likes of Zuckerberg, Bezos and John Doerr for a guy in faraway Colombia.

    Nevertheless, I actually think that the opportunities are even greater in emerging regions such as Latin America.  This is the reason that I’ve been giving workshops on what I call Digital Innovation in order to get people up to speed on the changes happening and to provide practice (through exercises) in the use of tools to reinvent their business models. If you’re in Colombia, register for the next workshop on December 15th.

    No Comments / English, Strategy /

  • September 23, 2010

    Talking About Digital Innovation in Paipa

    Paipa is small, but beautiful city in Colombia, which is a nice place for companies to hold client events.  Intergrupo, one of the biggest technology firms in the country, invited me to their event here in Paipa to speak with some of their large customers about Digital Innovation.  I had the opportunity to speak to them about how I think one should think about the adoption of digital tools and about success stories of companies taking advantage of cloud computing, social media and other tools.  It was great to hear the audience’s comments and opinions.
    Many in the audience mentioned many challenges here in Colombia (and Latin America) in order to adopt new digital tools in order to create new competitive advantages.  I saw much interest from all of the companies in investigating new ways to analyze, collaborate on and design new business models, the topic of my workshops.
    Mi premise is that, first, a solid strategy needs to be in place for your company to develop or enhance its competitive position (differentiation).  This is by no means a trivial process (and it’s one that I’m passionate about). With this strategy mapped out, then, one can start selecting technology that will help you achieve your objectives.
    This is the topic that I’ll be talking about during my speech on digital innovation during the B2B event that Legis is holding in a few weeks.  I hope to see some of you there!

    PaipaPaipa is small, but beautiful city in Colombia, which is a nice place for companies to hold client events.  Intergrupo, one of the biggest technology firms in the country, invited me to their event here in Paipa to speak with some of their large customers about Digital Innovation.  I had the opportunity to speak to them about how I think one should think about the adoption of digital tools and about success stories of companies taking advantage of cloud computing, social media and other tools.  It was great to hear the audience’s comments and opinions.

    Many in the audience mentioned many challenges here in Colombia (and Latin America) in order to adopt new digital tools in order to create new competitive advantages.  I saw much interest from all of the companies in investigating new ways to analyze, collaborate on and design new business models, the topic of my workshops.

    My premise is that, first, a solid strategy needs to be in place for your company to develop or enhance its competitive position (differentiation).  This is by no means a trivial process (and it’s one that I’m passionate about). With this strategy mapped out, then, one can start selecting technology that will help you achieve your objectives.

    This is the topic that I’ll be talking about during my speech on digital innovation during the B2B event that Legis is holding in a few weeks.  I hope to see some of you there!

    No Comments / English, Strategy /

  • September 19, 2010

    Digital Innovation in Every Industry

    Digital InnovationOn Thursday, I had the good fortune to sit down with a number of startups in a host of industries to analyze their successes up to that point and ascertain, along with five other judges, the viability of these businesses to scale. Each one of these businesses was innovative in its own right by any standards (e.g., global or otherwise).  Nevertheless, what really struck me was that the three business we chose in industries from fashion to education, digital innovation was an integral part of the company’s present and future strategy.

    As I mentioned in a previous post about the workshops I am teaching on Digital Innovation, I believe that the time is ripe to evangelize business men and women from all industries on the possibilities for real differentiation through digital innovation.  The companies we analyzed on Thursday had done an amazing job of marketing, human capital management and bootstrapping, yet they saw even more opportunity ahead thanks to the strategies they were each developing for taking advantage of digital tools.

    This was truly an excellent confirmation of my thinking up till this point.  I needed this “sanity check” because of my immersion in technology these past few years.  During my speeches I certainly exposed the opportunities that I felt were available for organizations willing to make use of these tools, but my experience on Thursday was the confirmation I needed.  Here we were hearing entrepreneurs who had come to that exact same conclusion all on their own.

    During the next year, I will be executing many more digital innovation workshops and evangelizing these concepts even more.  Organizations that don’t take advantage of digital innovation will, more and more, find themselves at a clear disadvantage.

    No Comments / English, Strategy /

  • August 24, 2010

    Paradigm Shift: SaaS/Cloud Computing Workshop

    Taller SaaSLast week, I finished one of my SaaS workshops.  Eight people registered (from four companies) to learn about SaaS models that have worked, different options of revenue streams and use new tools to get to a concrete set of actions to execute and develop a SaaS offering with much more chance of success.

    Some of the quotes from the attendees: “The workshop confirmed to me that my understanding that continuous innovation in business is a reality”, “We now have tools to create a solid SaaS plan”, “We learned a ton!”, “The workshop allowed us to plan everything we need to plan,”the learnings from the workshop will allow us to convert our abstract ideas to concrete plans,”we now have new ideas for SaaS initiatives which we never had planned.”

    In Latin America, Venture Capital is still scarce for startups, so there’s a big chance that the trailblazers will come from existing companies with profitable revenue streams.  Nevertheless, there are already startups (such as JoinCube) that are off and running with their initiatives.  This workshop is designed to get the group learning from each other and provides some conceptual models for team members to exchange ideas in order to, first, develop an original plan and, secondly, to iterate or “pivot” quickly as the project starts to take flight.

    I will be giving this workshop in Colombia and then in other countries.  There are two versions of the workshop.  One is focused on developing SaaS offerings.  The other is for employees of large companies in Latin America interested in taking advantage of digital innovation and understanding how, as John Hagel espouses in his white paper on the “Shift Index”, digital technologies are transforming industries such as banking, retail, tourism and media.  Participants will make use of new tools to develop innovation initiatives for their companies while becoming literate on the “new world” that has come into being through digital technologies.

    4 Comments / English, IT /
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