Category: Innovation

Strategy, Architecture & Problem-Solving

Gibson Guitar

Gibson, where is the strategy?

As news increases of looming bankruptcy for Gibson, the guitar manufacture, I’m left to wonder what happened. How did such an iconic brand end up in such a situation. Gibson is iconic. Ask anyone to name a brand of guitar and it’ll be the answer roughly 50% of the time. I’m reminded of Harley Davidson…
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Innovation?

Patents, MVA or GDP: None of them indicate innovation

In “When is it innovation?“, I introduced the idea of a sector’s familiarity with an concept. I’ve just read Bloomberg’s Innovation Index and I find a few of the variables used to be old-school to say the least. It made me wonder what the index should actually include to be relevant to innovation.  Issue 1:…
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Fax Machine

The Parallels Between RPA and Fax Automation

There are times when the cheap and nasty solution is so economically efficient that it can preclude doing it properly later on. Background – The Fax Just under a decade ago, I was working with a local authority client and their NHS hospital partner. The interpretation of the law at that time was that email was…
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high-heeled-shoes

High-heels, guitars and cultural expectations

Expectations can run deeper than you may at first think, especially if those expectations are based on decades of cultural information/misinformation. This may affect attitudes towards quality or acceptance of new ideas, including industry innovations. If we’re aiming to make changes in an organisation, we should look out for the deep-rooted expectations of what’s acceptable.…
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ecommerce

The Value Affix – Xtech and Why I’m Fed Up with Tech part 2

I wrote in the previous article that we don’t need a separate xtech for any given sector x. Abstracting further, the focus should be on the customer, not the technology. We see healthtech, fintech and insuretech which indicate the use of new technologies to improve existing or introduce new business models. But technology is just…
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server

xTech – Part 1 – Why I’m fed up with tech

xtech for Sector x Fintech is challenging the Finance sector Insurtech is challenging the Insurance sector Healthtech is challenging the Health sector Will we see Techtech challenging the Tech sector? And since new technology is developed every month and every year, would we be looking at a Techtechtech sector in a decade? It’s seems ludicrous…
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ticket

Charging Admission as an Example of Changing Strategy

We should all look at the thinking behind this article in Business Of Fashion; there’s a lot we can take away from it. It shows a level of innovation and shines light on so many values that we take for granted.   The Premise The author writes about the shift of a fashion store to charging…
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The Kano model can operate in reverse: exploring the travel industry

You may have come across the Kano model before. It’s an analytical technique for understanding what your customers want and, importantly, what they’ve come to expect as required. Exploration I was travelling on a local train last week with a largely empty carriage. I had the choice of seats. I am familiar enough with these…
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Sheep

Black sheep or Shepherd?

As a business architect, I feel like I’m sometimes the black sheep and sometimes the shepherd of the Enterprise Architecture function.   The Black Sheep 1: Uncovering the rationale I feel like the black sheep because I find myself regularly asking why. Why did you make that decision? Why did you choose that approach? Why…
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Revised Revenue Vs Confidence 4 box model

4 box model for deciding on the future – part 2

I finished the previous part of this article with a four box model that had two quadrants with the same outcome. With that article, I’d stated that the outcome you may want to choose would probably depend on the lifestyle you want to lead. That still applies, but I want to show what I do…
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