A shortcut to scaling – Lessons from The Voltage Effect by John List

To transform and realise big ambitions you need to be able to scale ideas and initiatives. The cost of pursuing ideas that are not scalable is high in terms of resources spend, time wasted, and opportunities missed, so you need to get it right. However, identifying scalability isn’t always easy or top of mind as […]

Customer experience vs safety – the new reality or a false choice?

In a post lockdown Covid world are companies forced to sacrifice customer experience for safety? This is the question I’ve been asking myself as I’ve been reading various reports of how different the world will look when business reopen. There are plenty of signs that our post lockdown future could really be dystopic, for example: […]

How to innovate your way out of crisis

In the face of a prolonged impact from the Covid 19 crisis the phrase “innovate or die” has never been more pertinent. Rapid innovation and business agility are moving from being buzzwords and vanity projects to being a necessity for business survivial. If you don’t have a robust culture around innovation, it’s not easy to […]

Tele-medicine … how Covid-19 is creating irreversible digital change

I have seen hundreds of articles over the last few weeks about how Covid-19 is accelerating digital transformation in businesses. They are mostly focused on working from home, the rise of digital & delivery services and the effectiveness of virtual events, which are all trends that may be reversed when things go back to “normal”. […]

Urbanisation x Sharing Economy

I find Megatrends to be a valuable guide for exploring disruption or opportunity for organisations. And while there are a lot of megatrend lists out there, one topic that is almost universally agreed is “Rapid Urbanisation”. IKEAs Space 10 Future Lab explores the future of Shared Living as a solution to many of the potential […]

GSK case study for digital transformation

eConsultancy have just published a nicely summarised case study for Digital Transformation in Consumer Health Care (eConsultancy GSK Case Study.) One of the things the GSK team have done really well is succinctly outline what digital transformation means to their business. Each point states an intention to deliver value to the business: 1. Upgrade media […]

Digitising the Human Body

I’ve just read Digital Trends review of the first 3D Body Scanner designed for everyday use at home. Naked Labs‘ scanner, which launched in August, is significant as 3D Body Scanner technologies have the potential transform the health and fashion industries. 3D Body Scanners have the potential to transformation the health industry by offering a […]

Experimentation is easy, but transformation is hard

I’ve just finished reading the World Economic Forum report “The Digital Enterprise: moving from experimentation to transformation” and recommend it to anyone who is involved in leading digital transformation. It’s one of the few reports that accurately reflects the business reality of digital transformation at scale and provides some practical steps to create a path […]

Architectural Innovation: Why Big Companies Fail to Successfully Innovate

I really enjoyed reading this FT article Why big companies squander good ideas. It encapsulates the most difficult challenge I face when leading innovative change in large companies. The article summarizes the key points of a 1990 academic paper which describes the concept of Architectural Innovations and how they cause large companies to fail. An Architectural Innovation is one […]

Corporate Innovation Strategies

I was recently asked by a client to help them with their business innovation strategy. Business Innovation spaces and programmes are now common place in progressive corporates. I’d estimate about 30% of large corporates now have one. Depending on industry this number can reach close to 100% (e.g. Finance, Insurance, Pharma, Retail). After reviewing […]