In June this year I was in the World Trade Centre precinct of New York City when I caught a glimpse of the names inscribed on panel N-18 of the bronze parapets surrounding the north memorial pool. The first name at the top left of that panel is a compound word made up of my name and my son’s name. Our namesake’s American dream ended 22 years ago. My thought at the time: The end of one chapter signals the call to action to start another.
Situation (FOMO)
For those in the business of harnessing information technology to serve customers, whatever their industry, product or service, the timing could not be better. Notwithstanding warnings from some quarters about a dystopian future that will bring about a loss of identity, purpose and control as a consequence of the rise of artificial intelligence, we are actually living in an age of utopian abundance when it comes to the availability of technological tools, professional services, and uninhibited access to free flowing information. The natural response for the ambitious CxO therefore is to seek to understand the transformational power of the latest technology, acquire accurate information on cost and benefit, and accumulate a suite of all the relevant tools, seeking counsel from all manner of professional services, for fear of missing out. The proliferation of technology choices, range of associated capabilities and variety of ownership models makes it imperative to do so to stay in the game or risk losing market share.
Complication (Schwartz Paradox)
This plethora of choice should facilitate desirable outcomes and high levels of satisfaction, but more often than not leads to management confusion, bloated technology budgets and project dissatisfaction. Management want to cover all angles (business impact, lowest cost, reusable architecture, minimise vendor lock-in, and ease of implementation), but end up spending a long time planning and hypothesising, evaluating solutions and almost always sign up the most expensive partners for fear of getting it wrong, and live with raised levels of anxiety implementing complex solutions, all from a desire to avert buyers’ remorse.
Before even considering adopting a technology or data product designed to serve a particular market segment that may or may not differ from the one you are in, are you clear on what customer problem you are trying to solve, and even if you know this, do you know which optimal combination of products and integrated services are needed to resolve the problem? Just a high level list of topics to consider on the technical front might look like this:
Architecture & design principles
Data taxonomy & ontology
Data integration & data warehousing
Business intelligence & reporting
Analytics and modelling
Automation and AI
APIs & application integration
Backup & recovery
Privacy & confidentiality
Security
Outsourcing vs insourcing talent
With each topic expanding into multiple design paradigms and associated tools, bringing the number of permutations and combinations of potential solutions into the thousands, if not millions. A focus on technology adoption over customer impact leads to the paralysis, not the hitherto anticipated liberation implied by the abundance of choice.
Resolution (Flipping the cart before the horse)
From our experience, resolving the gap between the end customer outcome we care about and the actual impact from the products and services we rollout in the hope of attaining that outcome requires clarity across 3 aspects of doing business: Aligned Values, Play Order and Customer Feedback.
Aligned Values
Are you a Gladiator or Missionary? Are you focused on the relentless pursuit of satisfying customer demand driven by the scent of money, without any overriding mission, or are you driven by a purer alignment to a higher purpose, inspired by loftier ideals? Take a look at "AI superpowers - China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order" by Kai-Fu Lee for a fascinating clash of the philosophies of Silicon Valley and its Chinese counterparts.
Thinking beyond solving just the stated problem at hand and seeking alignment in values between your customer promise and the values of the vendor or service provider enables the conversation to move beyond the here and now to a more fundamental level and the formation of a longer term partnership which brings with it a sharper customer focus (are you solving the right problem), an emphasis on the long term (are you being ethical) and the flexibility to shape the solution to optimise customer outcomes (are you able to iterate and evolve the solution).
The values we espouse at Tribana:
Fearless pursuit of the unknown
Powered by perpetual learning
Founded on a culture of radical candour
With humility at the core
Play Order
We believe that starting with visualising the customer outcome (customer announcement) before even considering the viability of the technical solution is a great way to put the horse before the cart. We recommend a 7 step play order to companies looking to get the most out of their technology and data initiatives and enjoy the multiplier effect from having a good foundation that starts with visualising the customer announcement or outcome, exemplified by Amazon’s philosophy. We will cover the 7 steps in next week’s post.
Customer Feedback
Whatever the value system of your company and philosophical position, if you are not solving for a customer need, you will fail. Seek customer feedback, and incorporate that into your design for future iterations, whether or not your approach is incremental innovation or fundamental disruption.
Next week
And that’s it for this week. Next week we will look in more detail at the ‘Cart before the Horse’ problem and outline the 7 steps to tuning your data initiatives to customer outcomes.
References
“The Paradox Of Choice: Why More Is Less” by Barry Schwartz
"AI superpowers - China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order" by Kai-Fu Lee
Comments