Wreaking Havoc And Creating Chaos

Dear readers,

This is Art van Bodegraven's last blog post. Since he passed away June 18, 2017, we've faithfully run his collection of unpublished blog posts each week. Thank you for taking the time to enjoy the thoughts and musings of our friend, supporter, and long-time contributor. If you’ve been a fan of The Art of Art blog and haven't had a chance to check out our tribute, please click here.

 

OK, how, buffeted as we are by transformative disruption, do we turn the steaming hot mess into competitive advantage. Not by wringing our hands and rending our sackcloth into rags, that's for sure.

But, that's our usual response—crying "wolf"and whimpering how disruption has distorted our sales and successes. Business bodies litter the battlefields of failed charges; maimed and mangled, dead as a hopeful (and hopeless comedian) at a third-tier night club. The storied events are the stuff of legend.

Kodak invented digital photography; then Fuji captured the market. IBM lost the PC market when it blinded itself as Intel and Microsoft shifted gears in value creation. Nokia was asleep at the switch as Ericsson elected to not provide supply chain backup.  Digital watchmaking technology was a Swiss invention that went unshared with the world as Audemars Piguet continued to operate its workshop.  

In the general, Ford, VW, GM, Honda, Toyota, and Honda have all failed to recognize the seismic shift in value creation away from OEMs and toward technology providers who will dominate the field—and soon. Generations have shown that it is vital to new market changes to have an energized supply chain during industry transitions.

Staff from MIT and Vienna University have named three types of development that can—and are willing to—trigger new development of business models

• Core Business Commoditization. How, then, can a company differentiate?
• Customer Preference Changes. Hello, Siri. Anyone there? And so, iPhone stole market share from Nokia a decade ago.
• Innovation. It's all about speed and scale—and supply chain management meets, when effectively led, the needs, including the agility one, in which turning on a dime is vital.

Needs and responsibilities include: paralysis, partial integration and partnering, full integration and transformation, diversity based on capability, where are the weak spots—how can you be disrupted? How can you disrupt your competitors (and your industry), what would like to get done, who is your customer set.

How would you classify your products and services; how would you redesign your supply chain to support disruption? What capabilities and competences do you need to disrupt the efforts of others?

And, critically, when would you/should you take action? One, timing is everything; two, this is why we have leaders. Without genuine authentic leaders, all this disruption and competitive advantage is so much blah, blah, blah, and an expense without return.