Agility, Lean Startup, Design Thinking, Customer Development, Open Innovation, Acceleration are today buzzwords that in many cases end up destroying value.
There is a notorious lack of knowledge among consultants and trainers (who use them to sell million-dollar projects) of their practical application, interrelationships and what they are used for. purpose to use them. I discover time and time again that in practice great transformations are promoted that are traumatic, costly and counterproductive.
What scenarios do I encounter when companies call me? I share the case of a client in Asia. They hired a renowned consulting firm for a million-dollar figure to lead the agile transformation. After the analysis, they argued the "need" to move from the physical direct sales format to operating 100% via e-commerce.
The result? Overnight they laid off thousands of employees, formed multiple agile teams, and got started. Your billing fell to $0, where it remained for the next 2 years, without being able to launch the first successful product. What reigned was confusion, lack of communication, power struggles, layoffs, in a confusing format of agility with Gant boards and traditional consulting. By the way, the consultant was also fired.
The new business methodologies start from listening and co-creating value with business actors and focus on the validation of hypothesis through testing.
They replace the illusory certainty of the long-term plan, which responds to the logic of "I plan, I obtain a budget, I execute and I trust the results" with the application of the scientific method to continuous learning in an uncertain world.
They are incremental and promote flexibility by encouraging iterations and pivots in the face of new information or insights. They thus reduce risk and increase the possibility of capitalizing on opportunities quickly.
It is important to distinguish two scenarios, that of repetition and scale (existing business units) and that of exploration and incubation. The new innovation mindset must apply to both, but the new methodologies and tools, which must be analyzed case by case, are developed above all for the second, where traditional management does not find answers.
In the same line of humility, trial, error and learning that distinguishes new methodologies, I recommend not starting with massive transformations, but with permanent training for leaders, working on the mindset and initially applying them to projects.
I propose that the results and learnings make it possible to understand when to use them, generate buy-in and, above all, measure the capacity and knowledge of the consultant or facilitator. The same innovation mindset should apply to your promises, to avoid ending up buying long-term advisory plans.
Some of the benefits of the new methodologies are:
1) they allow us to reduce risks, learn quickly, capitalize insights, ensure that our actions generate value by placing the actors at the center. They thus maximize value capture.
2) they help us find spaces of non-competition, blue oceans with strong growth potential and margins, offering new ways to segment and deepening the understanding and generation of business models.
3) help reduce investment and launch time for new initiatives and products. Innovation is incremental and permanent and does not require long funnels until it is tested in the market.
It is clear: innovation tools and mindset must be acquired by multinationals to survive disruption, but not in any way or at any cost.Corporate innovation is a process of change that involves people and requires experience, knowledge, experimentation and customization.
The same essence of listening, trial, error, learning, must apply to the corporate transformation proposal.
Thank you for following and reading me! For your comments, for recommending and for making Scalabl® possible.
I share with you a free webinar that I gave together with Universidad del CEMA on Corporate Innovation.
I hope it added value! I await your comments. Thank you! Big hug,
Francisco Santolo
How can I help or accompany you outside of the free content? I share with youmy training and mentoring/consulting services.
