Entrepreneurs haven’t changed but the world they live in has Once upon a time, If you investigate who coined the term Entrepreneur you’ll see Jean- Baptiste Say (1767-1842) widely credited as doing so around 1800. Whilst it’s true he popularised it, he was not the originator. That accolade goes to an Irish economist and financier […]
War for Talent is so yesterday. It’s a war for Intrapreneurs
It doesn’t much matter which stats and odds you look at (and we’ll get to a few in a minute), business longevity is falling. At the same time there is an increasingly attractive world to employees outside our larger institutions, for employment and entrepreneurship. Capital and knowledge have become more accessible in the digital, sharing […]
Shut the door, the Intrapreneurs are leaving
I am not here to tell you it’s a problem when your good employees find a job elsewhere. Or that a great culture helps to retain them. I am not even going to quote the hundred millionth statistic that shows how it costs more to replace than to retain, that productivity is higher when peoples’ […]
Trouble differentiating? Which Innovation approach is for you?
We used to get petrol from Service Stations. We’d pull up, stay in our cars and say “fill‘er up and can you check the oil, water and tyres please”. Not so anymore. Esso, Ampol and Golden Fleece names have disappeared too. The Big Oil Brands worked to differentiate themselves mainly through brand marketing given their […]
Which business models are under attack?
Business Model Innovation CBA has bought a $300,000 robot to put in its innovation lab. That’s a pretty symbolic statement for a company with over 1100 branches. Estimates of the impact of Robotic Process Automation on bank branch jobs vary considerably, potentially ‘saving’ between 20% and 50% of employee’s routine processing. As with driver-less transport, […]
Suffering from Innovation Overload and still no bloody clearer?
Atlassian did it to Enterprise Software Kaggle did it for data-science Netflix did it for movies (3 times) Airly is about to do it for Air Travel in Australia Waddle did it for working capital Kickstarter did it for entrepreneurs Slack did it for projects and Pokemon did it for AR What did […]
A Smack for Professional Services
Well its only gunna be a smack if (A) you love status quo and don’t want to change/improve AND (B) you are NOT already a leading version of your industry. We walk into the doctor’s practice, wait for… now let me think… too bloody long and then have the pleasure of being called from afar, […]
The Pony Express showed us a way to innovation
The Pony Express showed us a way to innovation, but more on that in a minute… Put simply, there are two ways to innovate. (1) Product and Service Innovation (2) Business Model Innovation (new ways of working) Some of the world’s biggest and most successful start-ups have focused on (2) whilst many large incumbents are […]
From sewing machines to 3D printers – the great unwinding of the efficiency and productivity era
The First and Second Industrial revolutions pulled people into factories. The rise of mass production dramatically lowered the cost of goods, which in turn spurred demand. In some cases new markets were created. Many of these goods offered people time savings. The combination of being able to access cheaper and cheaper products that also afforded […]
Why we need to shift our focus from just product innovation to business model innovation.
Organisations often spend a lot of effort on innovating their next product breakthrough but little time innovating the way they work. We need to shift our focus from just product innovation (the WHAT) to HOW our businesses are structured and function. Innovating the Enterprise Model is the imperative, here’s why. Sharp Corporation (Japan) is in […]