If You Can Only Try

Gavin Heaton

Founder
Disruptors Co

Gavin is the Founder of Disruptors Co, one of Australia’s leading independent strategy and innovation companies. Gavin advises firms on strategy, marketing, product development and innovation. He is also a member of the Orbits program, the influencer network of  award winning analyst and advisory firm, Constellation Research. Gavin advises boards and leadership on innovation strategy, marketing, data-driven product development and corporate venturing. Gavin is on the board of Vibewire, a youth-led social enterprise based in Sydney, Australia and on the Technology Advisory Group for Good2Give – the workplace giving platform. ...

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Living, as we do, in a time of rapid change. Of transformation and uncertainty. It can be difficult to see what our long term future holds.

You can see it in the words we use to describe our lives. These words are flat. Uninspired. Transactional. We have entire governments swept to power on the back of the laziest of phrases and political slogans masquerading as thought-through policy agendas.

But we have not arrived in this desolate landscape randomly. It is the end-result of a thousand micro choices that consolidate our misery.

It is as if we have abdicated our personal responsibility for imagination in favour of a strange wariness of close fears. Today, in Australia, it was announced that we now hold the record for economic growth without a recession. We have experienced 26 years without interruption to our prosperity. Twenty six years without a downturn.

We have a generation of people who have known only growth. There have been few labour strikes. Precious few public protests. This perceived prosperity has dulled our senses to our own personal agency. The storytellers who ignite our hearts and passions no longer tread the public boards of our most important debates – they pop up in our Facebook news feeds, talking at TED or singing on “Insert Your Country Here’s” Got Talent.

But this can change. The story is the trick. And if we do want to reclaim our sense of the future, then there’s much to learn from the careful crafting that goes into the stories of digital media’s emerging heroes. Just watch this clip from America’s Got Talent. Think about the one clear message. See how you are drawn in to this story. Understand how and why you respond to what you see and what you hear. And see how the foreground, backstory and framing create the conditions for you to take the story into your heart.

Then think about what you can do to change your sense of what is possible. You only need try.

Introducing Digital Adoption Platforms

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo     , Title: Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

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Introducing Digital Adoption Platforms

> Click here to purchase and download the report <

The portfolio of business software, websites and mobile applications employees use to get their jobs done is growing rapidly. With each tool having a different look and feel, different features and different processes, learning how to effectively use all these tools quickly becomes a big challenge. If these hurdles are not overcome, adoption of the tools suffers, support costs go up, and the value of the tools goes down. On the external side, prospects and customers face similar challenges when navigating the wide variety of websites and social media applications required to engage with their favourite brands. This type of friction reduces customer loyalty, hurts sales and creates a bad reputation for the brand.

To solve these challenges, a new category of software is emerging that can be integrated into applications and websites to help guide people from right within the context of the task they are trying to perform. Constellation Research refers to this category as Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs) and organizations of all sizes are using this new type of software to coach people toward more successful adoption of applications and websites.

This report, which is part of Constellation Research’s Future of Work research theme, defines the business need for Digital Adoption Platforms, discusses their benefits and provides example use cases.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Executive Summary 
- Four User Experience Issues That Impede Software Adoption 
- Trends Contributing To The Emergence Of Digital Adoption Platforms 
- Digital Adoption Platforms: Modernizing Legacy Help Systems 
- Categorizing The Maturity Of Digital Adoption Platforms 
- Getting Started: Focus On Core Use Cases 
- Conclusion

> Click here to purchase and download the report <

Digital Market; Defining Your Enterprise Value Proposition

Andy Mulholland

Vice President and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Andy Mulholland is Vice President and Principal Analyst focusing on cloud business models. Formerly the Global Chief Technology Officer for the Capgemini Group from 2001 to 2011, Mulholland successfully led the organization through a period of mass disruption. Mulholland brings this experience to Constellation’s clients seeking to understand how Digital Business models will be built and deployed in conjunction with existing IT systems. Coverage Areas Consumerization of IT &amp; The New C-Suite: BYOD, Internet of Things, IoT, technology and business use Previous experience: Mulholland co authored four major books that chronicled the change and its impact on Enterprises starting in 2006 with the well-recognised book ‘Mashup Corporations’ with Chris Thomas of Intel. This was followed in…...

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To exist at all, let alone prosper any Enterprise has to create something of tangible value in the form of a proposition that will match buyers’ requirements. Digital Markets, by definition, are based on new value propositions, mostly around services more than products, a point exploited by new entrants. Recent events have shown how these circumstances are forcing existing enterprises into competitive re-evaluation of their value proposition, and Go To Market strategy.

The maturity of many current Markets has lead to relative low levels of Product innovation, and a stronger focus on finding competitive advantage through automating key processes and cost reduction strategies using IT. Increasingly non-core activities, which are non-differentiating, are being outsourced, a trend often started by IT**(see footnote), but now including Business functions such as Invoicing. The goal is to focus management time, and investment, on the critical business activities to create and sell the Products with maximized competitive differentiation.

The impact of the Internet and the Web, have forced Enterprises to develop and extend their traditional sales and marketing activities to meet changes in the expectations of customers, culture, and market places. Though these may have seemed to be major changes, or even transformations, in almost all cases they are extension of the existing core value proposition and products.

The Digital Economy creates entirely new Market places with new value proposition that result in a transformation to creating value and re-occurring revenues from Services as opposed to the one time invoice of a product. Enterprises must redefine what is the value to be created and from this what are the core activities that must work in an optimized chain of activities.

It used to be popular for Business Schools to refer to the ‘Golden Thread’ to define the coherent chain of critical activities spanning the Enterprise to create unique Business propositions/values. As an example in the case of General Motors the common activity description ‘GM makes cars’ misses defining General Motors Golden Thread. The reality is that GM competes by using its expertise in locating market niches, then designing and marketing a specific car model to compete for the selected customers; see diagram. The manufacturing of cars is carried out by an ecosystem of suppliers, or partners, providing their own specialized expertise to particular elements.

Obviously GM’s Golden Thread has, as for most other established Enterprises, been tied to selling a Product as the outcome. The same technique can be applied to define the activities that are critical to creating a Digital Markets Services outcome. GM has recognizes this and is working to develop new Golden Threads for the entirely different market around Services of the Digital Economy.

GM vision has two publically declared interlocking strategic initiatives to create high business value Services for consumption through the Digital Economy. The investment in Lyft and Driverless cars is to create new ways of providing transportation, whilst AtYourService aims to build long term relationships with ‘drivers’ to provide all their personal, individual transportation needs. Both are ‘pay by use’ subscription Services, and nether looks to sell a car as a product. Every major ‘car’ company has similar initiatives as the Industry Sector faces up to the disruptive pattern of change driven by several factors.

At the heart of this transformation is a rethink and redesign of the Golden Threads that GM must build and connect to deliver these exciting visions. The technologies that enable and deliver these Golden Threads are themselves part of the Digital Market and Services economy; namely CAAST, Clouds, Apps, AI, Services and Things. The new management generation looks to a hybrid skill base of technology and business in order to create its competitive success.

The acquisition by Samsung, known for its entertainment products, of in car entertainment specialist Harmon is a further example of a repositioning from Products to Services. Samsung Digital Services strategy focuses on providing the consumer with the Service of continuous ubiquitous personal entertainment whether in the home of on the move. Whilst Samsung may not be a direct competitor to the automotive companies it is an example of realignment within traditional market sectors introducing new competitors for a slice of the transformed Digital Services market.

The graphic below Publically published by VentureScanner.com shows the extent to which new startups are aiming to take some part of the revenues from the new connected car, or transportation market. The sheer numbers of new innovative value propositions will drive the market transformation as consumers find, and take up, new value choices.

For an established enterprise/brand to continue to its dominance into the new Digital Services Economy it has to move to completely new value proposition that offers a different experience through Services than their current product based offering. Existing customers and experiences should provide the foundation, but it will be the use of innovative technology in a new Golden Thread that is the underlying success factor.

Competitive success lies, as in the past transformations, in Business Process Re-engineering the enterprise to deliver the value proposition. Unlike the internal Back Office process revolution of ERP based client-server technologies, this time it is an external Market place driven revolution built on new technologies that will redesign the Enterprise Business model

** Footnote; The recent example of British Airways Globally visible three day outage of all passenger systems due to an IT failure is a reminder that outsourcing does not remove the requirement for a Board to understand, and retain competencies in core business operational areas.

Microsoft Build: How Developers Can Redefine Productivity

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn:&nbsp;https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo &nbsp; &nbsp; , Title:&nbsp;Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

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At Microsoft Build, their annual developer conference, they emphasized the opportunity that the Microsoft platform (Office 365, Azure, Windows 10, etc.) provides for developers to help redefine personal productivity and team collaboration for hundreds of millions of people.

Here is a quick summary of the key topic areas:

Here is a video where I provide my thoughts, feedback and analysis of the key items from Microsoft Build.
00:00 - 01:30: Introduction
01:30 - 09:14: Microsoft Teams
09:14 - 10:27: Microsoft Graph
10:27 - 13:48: Artificial Intelligence, Microsoft Cognitive Services
13:48 - 15:19: OneDrive Files on Demand
15:19 - 18:21: Mixed Reality, VR/AR, Hololens
18:21 - 19:42: Windows Story Remix
19:42 - 21:45: Intelligent Meetings
21:45 - 24:52: Recap/Conclusion (and Project Emma)

4 Clever Digital Safety and Privacy Quotes

Director of Customer Programs, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Carole oversees&nbsp;the Constellation Executive Network, an executive community for innovative senior leaders who value strategic guidance from trusted advisors who understand the power of disruptive&nbsp;technologies.&nbsp;Carole brings over 15 years of&nbsp;marketing, strategic&nbsp;account management, and operations&nbsp;experience,&nbsp;specializing in high technology and professional services. She holds a BA from Santa Clara University and a MBA from Thunderbird, School of Global Management. &nbsp; &nbsp; ...

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Steve Wilson

Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Steve Wilson is former VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, leading the business theme Digital Safety and Privacy. His coverage includes digital identity, data protection, data privacy, cryptography, and trust. His advisory services to CIOs, CISOs, CPOs and IT architects include identity product strategy, security practice benchmarking, Privacy by Design (PbD), privacy engineering and Privacy [or Data Protection] Impact Assessments (PIA, DPIA). Coverage Areas: - &nbsp;Identity management, frameworks &amp; governance- &nbsp;Digital identity technologies- &nbsp;Privacy by Design -&nbsp; Big Data; “Big Privacy”- &nbsp;Identity &amp; privacy innovation Previous experience: Wilson has worked in ICT innovation, research, development and analysis for over 25 years. With double…...

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Steve Wilson, Constellation Research VP & Principal Analyst, covers digital safety and privacy and is chockful of knowledge about blockchain, security, and more. He's also a quick wit as you'll be able to tell from him quotes. His guidance on blockchain is among our most popular content for our readers. 

We provide weekly thought leadership quotes for anyone interested in non-mainstream, disruptive thinking from our seasoned Constellation analysts. The full archive remains accessible for our Constellation Executive Network members.

DOWNLOAD THESE ANALYST QUOTES

DIGITAL SAFETY & PRIVACY - Steve Wilson |  VP & Principal Analyst | Constellation Research 

"Biometrics don't work like they seem to in the sci fi movies. No security system is 100%."

"Most people are not yet up to speed on blockchain. No one should be shy to ask what blockchain is really all about."

"Computers are like nitroglycerine. They're kind of safe if you're unnaturally careful in the way you handle them."

"The question of whether consumers will pay for privacy protection is vexed."

Constellation's Business Trends AstroChart for The New C-Suite, Q2 2017

Dion Hinchcliffe

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Title:&nbsp;About Dion Hinchcliffe Dion Hinchcliffe is an internationally recognized business strategist, bestselling author, enterprise architect, industry analyst, and noted keynote speaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in digital strategy, the future of work, and enterprise IT. He works with the leadership teams of large enterprises as well as software vendors to raise the bar for the art-of-the-possible in their digital capabilities. He is currently Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research. Dion is also currently an executive fellow at the Tuck School of Business Center for Digital Strategies.&nbsp;He is a globally recognized industry expert on the topics of digital transformation, digital workplace, enterprise collaboration, API…...

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Introducing the AstroChartâ„¢ of Business Trends for The New C-Suite

Aimed directly at executives, leadership, and key decision makers, Constellation’s brand new AstroChartâ„¢ of Business Trends for The New C-Suite provides an accessible visual guide to the highest order business trends and their journey of adoption in the digital enterprise.  The vertical axis rates adoption from mainstream to early adopters to bleeding edge.  The horizontal axis estimates the impact on an organization’s business model, from incremental to transformational to exponential. A key objective of an AstroChart is to move beyond the hype and constraints of the traditional two-dimensional rating grid.

Curated from hundreds of data points from conversations and interviews with and surveys of CXOs and board members over the last year, Constellation has assembled an actionable and highly-impactful AstroChart of how current business trends in the digital enterprise -- specifically at boardroom and C-Suite level -- are evolving and maturing. As is typical for an AstroChart, these trends will be updated approximately every 180 days and will reflect what’s placed into our Futurist Framework and PESTEL model as well as industry inquiries and our primary research.

The New C-Suite Will Build the Future Organization

As a concept and coverage area for Constellation, The New C-Suite represents a leadership-centered focus on the business and technology issues most impacting the digital enterprise today at the most strategic level. This view is tailored especially for CIOs, CDOs, CMOs, CEO, CHROs and other C-level roles. Consequentely, the topics included on this AstroChart either have a) broad applicability to the majority of organizations in the near-term or are b) more cutting-edge yet our analysis shows will become a major priority soon enough.

In terms of inclusion, the Business Trends AstroChart for the New C-Suite covers strategic business topics that are either deeply affected by the modern digital revolution or are actually being created and/or made by possible by it. CXOs are encouraged to become familiar with and fluent in these topics as they will drive both top-level opportunity and disruption today for most organizations in the vast majority of industries and geographies.

As an aid and planning guide for CXOs, the New C-Suite Business Trends AstroChart will have some occasional overlap with other Constellation AstroCharts, such as the overall Business Trends AstroChart, though the topics themselves may have updated positions, depending on the maturity and impact the trends have at a leadership level. We believe this guide will cut through the noise by outlining what matters to the most senior digital leaders.

Figure 1. Constellation’s AstroChart of Business Trends for The New C-Suite

The Business Trends C-Suite Astrochart Shows Broad Impact of Digital on Today's Rapidly Evolving Enterprise

Analysis of the nine categories in The New C-Suite AstroChart provides guidance and source material for strategic planning of market leading organizations as well as those organizations intending to improve their strategic digital posture or maintain a fast follower position.  The nine categories include:

1. Bleeding edge – Exponential. Still on the emerging edge for the enterprise, new startups and a few traditional organizations are using rethinking supply and demand in completely new digital terms that will redefine economic models of what's possible for decades.
2. Bleeding edge – Transformational.  The pervasive reality of digital in everything organizations do, including how they collaborate, communicate, and work is enabling vast new possibilities in how we manage, organize, and operate them. New digital management theories are beginning to emerge, methods to harness change agents at scale have developed, next-gen corporate growth strategy/hacking are now vital enterprise imperatives, and data has become the center of how both strategic and tactical decision making is accomplished.
3. Bleeding edge – Incremental.  A new view of employee that is much more personal, nurturing, and work/life balanced is starting to be realized. How companies are recombining and realigning through mergers and acquisitions is also being transformed by digital. Smart infrastructure, from smart cities and buildings to autonomous vehicles, are providing a new competitive edge for manufacturing to logistics, to name just two major industries being remade.
4. Early adopter – Exponential. Digital transformation programs are now top of mind, leading to new life-affirming digital business models that will sustain organizations into the future. Digital ecosystems, enabled by the steadily growing API economy and demonstrated in the world-beating digital value chains of Apple and Amazon, are now the ultimate strategic objective for most organizations today.
5. Early adopter – Transformational.  The primacy of the digital customer is the reality today and companies are designing their product and service experiences entirely around the customer experience. Digital leadership is evolving with critical roles such as the Chief Digital Officer (though now increasingly a title added to the CIO, for key evolutionary reasons), just as companies begin to use digital to tackle the long-term issue of employee engagement using digital-enabled programs. Industry 4.0 is now a leading strategic blueprint for organizations as well.
6. Early adopter – Incremental.  Many leading digital enterprise trends are not in the most transformative areas, but are critical for modernization, including being a true unified digital brand experience inside/outside of the organization, dealing with increasingly complex digital regulation and compliance, protecting the privacy of customers, accelerating digital delivery through increased agility, consolidating the silos of tech that have emerged along the way towards enterprise-wide digital transformation, and getting IT to arrive to point of value generation much more quickly than in the past.
7. Mainstream – Exponential.  While having been conducted through consortia and NGOs for decades, cross-enterprise collaboration at scale has now become a disruptive force, while employing digital networks to share costs and innovation for competitive advantage has begun to be used in many tactical forms as well. Digital leaders must look well beyond the scale of corporate initiatives to achieve their goals now and in the future.
8. Mainstream – Transformational.  Cultivating the talent of the future, while rethinking staffing and talent sourcing with the growth of the gig economy and related trends has become a major obstacle to fuel the growth of the Fortune 500 and Global 2000. Smart manufacturing is enabling entire robot factories while innnovation management, a staid mainstay of R&D and product development even today in many organizations, is being energized, rethought, outsourced, and co-created in the digital age.
9. Mainstream – Incremental.  Dealing with cloud vendors and the challenges they bring to the table as they end up sourcing most or nearly all of IT in the future, while coping effectively and repeatable with digital crises are critical topics to get right the first time, even if they're not necessarily transformational issues for The New C-Suite. The Center of Excellence, while still performing as a concept, is reaching the end of it's lifecycle but still has legs, and cybersecurity of course, has become one of the hottest topics in the boardroom, requiring focus and leadership like never before, and now must even become part of your brand.

Plan Your Corporate Strategy With The Constellation’s AstroChart for Business Trends for The New C-Suite

Digital leaders can stay abreast of strategic business trends by adoption rates and business model impact using Constellation’s AstroCharts. Use the AstroChart to develop your overall boardroom strategy and to benchmark your organization’s adoption. Constellation notes the following:

Organizations should take an assessment of their board room priorities and use the AstroChart to determine portfolio management.

• Market leaders tend to bet 50% of their portfolio on disruptive projects
• Market leaders tend to bet 30% of their portfolio on bleeding edge projects
• Fast followers tend to bet 80% of their portfolio on early adopter projects
• Exponential – bleeding edge bets require a very informed or founder driven board, innovation fund, or startup partners(s)

Become The New C-Suite

Would you like to take advantage of the Constellation’s AstroCharts for The New C-Suite? How have you built out your strategic investment map? Have you prioritized and fully resources your digital efforts? Learn how organizations can apply this business trends roadmap and Constellation's unique frameworks to disrupt digital businesses.

Note: This chart, as well as the pending Tech Trends for The New C-Suite are part of a forthcoming research report that details how these trends must form the foundation of the next generation of your organization.

Please add your comments, suggestions, notes on additions/omissions, and other commentary below. You can also reach me via email: dion (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or @dhinchcliffe on Twitter.

Finally, please let us know if you need help with your digital business and transformation efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

• Developing your digital business strategy
• Connecting with other digital leaders
• Accessing the latest digital best practices
• Understanding the vendor space
• Identify options for implementation partners
• Validating roadmaps and playbooks
• Providing advisory and education to CXOs and boards

Additional Reading

Constellation's AstroChart For Business Trends, Q4 2016

CEN Member Chat: Trends for 2017 - Using the AstroCharts for Strategic Planning