Use A Mirror to Mind Your Own Business First
It seems like nary a week goes by these days without my having an intense and well-intentioned conversation about someone’s fear of his or her business’s bubble being burst by baby-faced disruptors. Most of these talks are initiated by mid-level and middle-aged managers at large firms whose businesses for the moment are usually comfortable incumbents in various large and complicated marketplaces. But they’re running a little scared because they know that new levels of competition and new kinds of competitors are clearly on the horizon.
Their companies typically have yet to be roiled or wholly upended by new entrants wielding the latest cloud-based SAAS solutions to address long-standing and often glaringly obvious industry shortcomings and inefficiencies. It turns out that not every industry is as toxic and easy to topple as the taxis. (See http://www.inc.com/howard-tullman/not-every-industry-can-be-uber-ized.html .) But they have nonetheless been charged by their own managers and bosses with attempting to anticipate and get ahead of the problem as well as their looming competitors by identifying the likely candidates, tracking their progress, and carefully watching their latest actions.
As a result, they spend great gobs of time and energy pouring over product portfolios and new releases; they try to analyze every article and media mention as well as all available tea leaves; and they obsess over alleged lost opportunities even when these are often modest at best and largely immaterial given their scale. But everyone’s read about the innovator’s dilemma and knows that the most devastating types of disruption start at the bottom of the food chain and slowly work their way upwards – often before the incumbents even take notice of their presence.
So it’s always smart to be on the lookout. But I would argue that even the most conscientious scrutiny is much more effective when you’re looking in the right places. You don’t want to be like the drunk looking for his lost keys under the street light – not because that’s where he thinks he lost them – but because the light is better there.
And, as often as not, those places are as likely to be inside your business as outside the four walls. So you might really need a proctoscope to look deeply inside rather than a periscope to look out over the turbulent seas trying to see what you can see. Focusing your attention and efforts on emerging external threats which you basically have little or no control over ignores the much more obvious internal areas of your business where (assuming that you can overcome the inertial resistance to change and the company turf and political issues) you can make changes that can quickly and cost-effectively anticipate new threats and blunt or entirely eliminate them. You can do it to yourself and your organization before someone does it to you.
Looking hard in the mirror is a lot closer to home and a much clearer view than staring out the window and wondering when the sky will start falling. Keep in mind that this is exactly what the little people looking to eat your lunch are doing every day anyway. They are scrutinizing every aspect of your operations looking for weaknesses, gaps, shortcomings, etc. that they can address and exploit. But in this particular examination, you have a huge edge.
Unlike your prospective competitors and others on the outside, you have the advantage in the analysis of having all the facts and figures about your business at your fingertips. The guys on the outside looking in have a fist full of FUD and not much else. But to make this approach really work, you have to act like an outsider yourself at the outset in order to get the right perspective. It’s absolutely critical to avoid taking too many things for granted which can quickly get you into trouble. Everything needs to be on the table and up for grabs or you won’t get anywhere. The good news is that it’s a lot easier than you would think to start with a blank slate and take stock of your business.
The first step in the process is to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and ask yourself: first, how you can materially improve the customer’s experience across each of the following dimensions, and, second, which improvement will have the biggest impact without regard to the cost of implementation. Cost is ultimately important, but in the real world, things that make a great deal of sense tend to pay for themselves pretty quickly in dollars and cents.
The basic dimensions are as follows:
(1) Simplicity and absence of transactional friction;
(2) Speed;
(3) Convenience;
(4) Accessibility; and
(5) Affordability.
Keep in mind that these are the exact same attributes of your business that the competitors are looking at as well and they’re asking exactly the same questions as you. I’m sorry if this seems pretty simple and straightforward, but the truth is that it absolutely is just that easy and yet, very few of us take the time to step back and – starting from scratch – see clearly what we can do better.
There’s very little magic to this process and – as I tell all our big corporate partners and sponsors – apart from a willingness to do the work and to accept and implement the results of the investigation – there’s absolutely no reason why any company – large or small – new or old – can’t do precisely the same thing.
In addition to the “defensive” ammunition which this analysis will help you develop as well as with identifying the actions you will need to take, there’s another upside to the discovery process – the prospect of a great deal of new revenue from changes, channels, customers and other low-hanging fruit and opportunities that were sitting there – unappreciated, undervalued and unexploited – right before your eyes. (See http://www.inc.com/howard-tullman/five-reasons-your-market-is-bigger-than-you-think.html .) It’s a double-edged sword which cuts both ways – adding to the upside and protecting against the downside risks as well.
You’ll note one other important feature of my list. There’s really no reference to new products, services, etc. That’s not an oversight or accidental. You don’t have to invent anything new to pull this off – you just have to figure out how to do what you’re doing a lot better.
And it always starts with taking a hard look at your business. As Michael Jackson used to say: it’s all about the man in the mirror.
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