Tag Archives: innovation

How will COVID-19 test your organization’s resilience? Can a pandemic create new business models?

08 Sunday Mar 2020

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I had a great concall this morning (yes, on a Sunday) about how organizations are approaching the possibility of the virus impacting their infrastructure. The tech giants are asking for home working, and the educational institutions are looking for virtual and remote learning.

But there are several business models here that are going to be damaged.

First is the model of insurance. As seen by SXSW this week, the organizers held off cancellation hoping that Austin would ask for it first. This is because the insurance company did not see the virus as an Act of God or natural disaster. As more and more companies will take financial hits going forward, how will insurers be pressured into adapting existing types of policies to cover (or not) pandemics?

The next is the model of conference calling. Many of the mainstream providers (Zoom, Cisco with WebEx, Google) have tried to take advantage to building the business with free 90 day trials during this period. But the uptake of Zoom recently has started to impact the quality and bandwidth provided for calls, as noticed by several users this week. Is there enough infrastructure for everyone to go virtual? I see an opportunity here for other models that exist (virtual universities, virutal events in the form of an electronic open day) to take hold.

The third model is the sick leave model, focusing on the amount of time off that a contracted employee can take. I know I had to take sick days for a family member being ill last week, and have already used up my days for the six month allocation period. Hourly workers, and those who work on freelance contracts, will be badly hit. Will people change what they do for work based on a pandemic? Certain industries will be short of workers if this is the case.

The final model I want to discuss is the retail high street. If we have social distancing, how we shop and how we eat out will change completely. E-commerce models still need fulfillment, and if workers cannot work in warehouses or shipping, we have a fulfillment problem. Will 3D printers be the answer that you can make your own? Will be there be fixed locations to pick up your goods with quarantine information available as to its preparers?

Will we have virtual dinner parties, or be exchanging recipes for self quarantine kitchens? Or will you book a restaurant based on distance from other diners and with a health certificate from the kitchen staff? (Note: already happening with delivered food in China, comes with temperature reading from kitchen preparer as well as delivery person.)

Having stocked up on canned goods and toilet paper, I am not as ready as I would like, but already thinking past this season until next Fall…… Can we turn this into an innovation moment?


A nightmare service model

14 Sunday Jul 2019

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I woke up at midnight from a nightmare, and knew first thing this morning that I had to write this post. The nightmare was caused by a service model I am participating in where I acquire the services of an expert.

Why would an expertise service model give me a nightmare? Let’s first look at the service models we are used to, and then I can show you where this one caused my severe reaction.

We are used to a subscription (utility) model, where we sign up and consume, and then monthly (or other time frames) we are billed for our consumption. If you do not use the service, you are still billed for a basic fee for connectivity.

The next more common model is one of retainer. I use the services of an expert when it is necessary (lawyer, consultant, accountant) and they bill me on billable hours, and I pay when service has been rendered.

I am currently consuming remote expertise with a different model, and this is the one that gave me bad dreams. I pay a monthly fee, and can (per week) ask for visual analysis for up to six events. I submit the events, and then the expert gives their opinion (usually within 24 hours) via a visual medium. But it is my responsibility to provide the data in the right format and form, and to take actions after the expertise. I am also responsible for the monthly payments, as no reminder is sent. This is a small, but lucrative, business where this service is one of the smaller services of the service provider.

Why does this give me bad dreams? Because I have been using the service for 7 months so far, and I always have to remember where I am with the service (what week, what events, what payment is still required) and my subconscious reminded me last night that I have two more weeks and need to get some more events to load. Guilt by taking full advantage of my payment, in other words.

I am seeing a shift from classical service models of subscription and retention to models where the consumer has to take a more active role in the service provisioning. These services are more complex and less mainstream, and cannot actively scale as the subscription model does.

Is service complexity really a growing phenomena? In my business, I see the opposite that more and more information is put in front of a paywall to tempt the potential client (kid, candy store) to enter and to see the level of expertise on offer.

Yet when I consume from other small businesses not in technology, I see increased service complexity and enhanced consumer participation.

What do you see in your business? Reach out to me here or via my Twitter feed (@afairch) and let me know.

Are we no longer device driven?

09 Friday Jan 2015

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Although we hear many reports from CES this week on tech innovation, a telling conversation I had yesterday with a long-time colleague really pointed out where we are in terms of technology innovation at present.

She had just gotten a new laptop computer from her office the day before, and we were trying to connect for a video concall, but I could not hear her as her microphone set-up was not working.   Once we picked up the phone, she explained she had just gotten a new PC and it had a number of problems with it.

And the she made the telling statement that ‘she was very surprised in that her new laptop was not better (faster, more powerful) than her old one’.  And that every time before she had gotten a new system, ‘the new one was better than the old one’.   So why is this happening now?

I believe we all are feeling this right now, which is slowing down the sales of new hardware (laptops, desktops, tablets, smart phones).  The devices on offer are not noticeably “better” in terms of performance. They may have better screen size, but the OS, the lack of design innovation and the horsepower under the hood does not make things better for us.  This is especially since the software is becoming more complex and memory hogging. And the networks are slowing down with traffic and a lack of investment in more bandwidth.

More importantly for me, the technology being designed right now are not for users like me.  I want to do productive work with my system — not watch videos for pleasure, touch screens, play games or take photos.  When I got my new desktop last Spring, I really had to search for a system that met my needs, as the consumer desktops were all fun and games driven.   I am not a user of ‘apps’ — I prefer finished software for multifunctional use.  I despair the next time I have to go desktop shopping, as I already had to hold on to my old keyboard as the new one was not as functional.

Although I appreciate growth in the market is coming from mobile devices, even laptops are become more a commodity item with cheaper quality and lesser functionality IMHO.  This opinion comes from anecdotal evidence from friends and colleagues who have gotten new laptop systems in the last year.

Wait, you say.  Why don’t I change the way I work to meet the new technologies?  I have tried, I do own a tablet for a few years now, but it requires additional add-ons to do keypad entry easily, and I never bothered to go buy more kit for it.  It is my one day travel companion for checking things en-route.  I occasionally ‘talk’ to my mobile phone to search, but half the time it does not hear me properly (like a lot of people I know 😉  )

The nature of work has not changed the need for document creation, which is why I am sitting here at 06:30am writing on my desktop before I hit the morning rush hour.

In summary, if software and services are going to be the drivers for innovation going forward, then the weakest link will be the device we access for that innovation.