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MaybeMe : News http://www.maybeme.com/e107_images/Animated_Green_light_bulb.gif / 88 31 Kodak has recently declared bankruptcy.... http://www.maybeme.com/news.php?item.10.4

Usually, when this hits the news it is analyzed by the numbers people who, looking at five years’ worth of financial data, give their quantitative and financial explanation of the failure.

More qualitative types will go back 10 years sometimes, and even go beyond finances to talk about strategy, CEOs, competition, and the like.

Recent well-done Financial Times articles go back even further for Kodak. And yet people still fail to see Kodak’s real problem.

The Kodak problem, on the surface, is that it did not move into the digital world well enough and fast enough. Recent articles dig a bit more and find that there were people who saw the problem coming — people buried in the organization — but the firm did not act when it should have, which is decades ago.

Kodak faced the technological discontinuities challenge, first clearly articulated by my colleague Clay Christensen: a new technology has fierce competitors, low margins and cannibalizes your high margin core business. And Kodak did not take decisive action to combat the inevitable challenges.

Everyone thinks of all this in terms of strategic decisions either avoided or made poorly. What no one seems to do is go back and ask: Why did Kodak make the poor strategic decisions they made?

In 1993 they brought in from the outside a technology expert to be CEO. George Fisher was believed to be almost as good as Jack Welch or Lou Gerstner. Great CEO, people buried in the hierarchy who had all sorts of good ideas, and still poor strategic decisions. Why? Answer: The organization overflowed with complacency.

I saw it, maybe in the late 1980s. Kodak was failing to keep up even before the digital revolution when Fuji started doing a better job with the old technology, the roll-film business.

With the complacency so rock-solid, and no one at the top even devoting their priorities toward turning that problem into a huge urgency around a huge opportunity, of course they went nowhere.

Of course strategy sessions with the BIG CEO went nowhere.

Of course all the people buried in the hierarchy who saw the oncoming problems and had ideas for solutions made no progress.

Their bosses and peers ignored them.

How can CEOs learn from Kodak’s failure? Historically, Kodak was built on a culture of innovation and change. It’s the type of culture that’s full of passionate innovators, already naturally in tune to the urgency surrounding changes in the market and technology.

It’s these people – those excited about new ideas within your own organization – who keep your company moving ahead instead of falling behind.

One key to avoiding complacency is to ensure these innovators have a voice with enough volume to be heard (and listened to) at the top.

It’s these voices that can continue to keep a sense of urgency in your organization.

If they are given the power to lead, they will continue to innovate, help keep a culture of urgency and affect change.

As Kodak became more successful, complacency grew, leaders listened less to these voices, which made complacency grow some more.

It can be a vicious cycle. It certainly was at Kodak. And if you don’t address it first… good luck.

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Usually, when this hits the news it is analyzed by the numbers people who, looking at five years’ worth of financial data, give their quantitative and financial explanation of the failure.

More qualitative types will go back 10 years sometimes, and even go beyond finances to talk about strategy, CEOs, competition, and the like.

Recent well-done Financial Times articles go back even further for Kodak. And yet people still fail to see Kodak’s real problem.

Everyone thinks of all this in terms of strategic decisions either avoided or made poorly. What no one seems to do is go back and ask: Why did Kodak make the poor strategic decisions they made?

I saw it, maybe in the late 1980s. Kodak was failing to keep up even before the digital revolution when Fuji started doing a better job with the old technology, the roll-film business.

With the complacency so rock-solid, and no one at the top even devoting their priorities toward turning that problem into a huge urgency around a huge opportunity, of course they went nowhere.

Of course strategy sessions with the BIG CEO went nowhere.

Of course all the people buried in the hierarchy who saw the oncoming problems and had ideas for solutions made no progress.

Their bosses and peers ignored them.

It’s these people – those excited about new ideas within your own organization – who keep your company moving ahead instead of falling behind.

One key to avoiding complacency is to ensure these innovators have a voice with enough volume to be heard (and listened to) at the top.

It’s these voices that can continue to keep a sense of urgency in your organization.

If they are given the power to lead, they will continue to innovate, help keep a culture of urgency and affect change.

As Kodak became more successful, complacency grew, leaders listened less to these voices, which made complacency grow some more.

It can be a vicious cycle. It certainly was at Kodak. And if you don’t address it first… good luck.

]]> Business Tadek Bacciarelli Thu, 10 May 2012 10:16:41 -0400 http://www.maybeme.com/news.php?item.10.4 Big business is run totally differently than Small and Medium Business... http://www.maybeme.com/news.php?item.8.4

And the way CEO's think is totally different between large and small businesses.

Corporate Executives of big, stable, well-established companies expect to be grow their business mainly by pillaging some other company within months, but if you are a small business manager, you need to plan 5, even 10 years out - because you'll probably be managing exactly the same business as today..

Likewise most small business information systems weren't planned - they just got plugged in to do specific jobs - but in today's increasingly competitive markets, that just isn't enough. A planned information strategy is critical when your competition is worldwide.

I understand the trends already in full swing in the USA and familiar to technology specialists, but far from obvious to most small to medium business managers. I can explain them to you in plain english on a whiteboard so that you too can take advantage of these trends.

We need to assess your particular business, your SWOT, and then come up with a strategic plan to grow your business....

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]]> Business Tadek Bacciarelli Thu, 10 May 2012 10:02:06 -0400 http://www.maybeme.com/news.php?item.8.4 If you're not pissing someone off, you're probably not an innovator http://www.maybeme.com/news.php?item.9.4

"So, what is innovation anyhow? How would you..."? (eyebrows usually furrow here) "... define it?"

Since I don't particularly enjoy debating definitions, I usually respond by saying: "That's a difficult question. But one thing is for sure: If you're not pissing someone off, it's probably not innovation."

I like this response because, if it doesn't end the conversation, it usually shifts it from definitions to dynamics — which is what innovation is all about, after all.

But I also like it because it captures one fundamental obstacle to innovation that all would-be disruptors must be prepared to face: the potentially hostile response of incumbents who don't want to see their market advantages threatened.

There's nothing new here. We all know that Joseph Schumpeter talked about creative destruction decades ago. And he was well aware of the likelihood of vigorous pushback from threatened incumbents:

To undertake such new things is difficult and constitutes a distinct economic function, first because they lie outside the routine tasks which everyone understands and, secondly, because the environment resists in many ways that will vary, according to social conditions, from simple refusal either to finance or buy a new thing, to physical attack on the man who tries to produce it.

Since you, the disruptive entrepreneur, can count on incumbent resistance (if not necessarily physical attack) down the road once you're successful, the question is: What can you do early on to be prepared for the onslaught? The famed "Attack of the Doughboy" offers one good answer.

It was 1987. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield had just successfully completed Vermont's first in-state public stock offering for shares in their new company. Sales were taking off, and Ben & Jerry's ice cream was competing head-to-head with the vaunted Häagen-Dazs.

Then Häagen-Dazs was acquired by Pillsbury. One day, says Cohen, a Ben & Jerry's distributor contacted the two young entrepreneurs:

We found a dark corner of some restaurant at Logan Airport, and the distributor informed us that the salespeople from Pillsbury threatened to stop selling Häagen-Dazs to him if he continued to sell Ben & Jerry's. The distributor clearly liked us, but we were the newcomers, the upstarts, and the distributor made more money off Häagen-Dazs than anything else on his truck. He couldn't afford to leave his customers without it, so he had no choice but to drop our product.

Ben & Jerry's response was a definitive moment for the company. Pillsbury clearly was in violation of Federal Trade Commission regulations against the restraint of interstate commerce. But pursuing legal action would bankrupt their company even if they ultimately won.

So the partners turned to a more dependable source of enforcement: their customers.

They launched the "What's the Doughboy Afraid of?" campaign, with their customers in the lead. "A lot of letters started pouring in to the chairman of the board of Pillsbury," Cohen recalls, "and some major articles appeared.

Finally the Doughboy got such a black eye that Pillsbury relented and allowed our distributor to continue to offer our ice cream."

Richard Branson tells very similar stories about epic battles between Virgin Airways and British Airways (a win for Virgin) and between Virgin Cola and Coca-Cola (a loss for Virgin). Where he succeeded, it was because his customers were loyal to the point of being willing to advocate on Virgin's behalf. Here's the point.

The more disruptive your innovation, the more your success needs to look like the creation of a political movement.

If you're really creating change, it is quite likely you will reach a point when you'll ask your customers to do more to support your work than just buy your product.

They will need to stand up for your business, your product, your very right to exist in the marketplace.

You're going to be asking for their time. Depending on where you're working and what you're selling, you may be asking for their courage.

To make such requests, you're going to need to have built a hell of a personal bond.

"Ethics aren't just important in business," Branson says. "They are the whole point of business."

This isn't just happy talk from a guy who's already made it. It's sound advice on how to succeed as a business innovator in the 21st century. (from HarvardBusinessReview)