There is a chicken-egg-interdependency of business- and Intellectual Property strategy. This explains, why IP-strategy discussions without a deep understanding of business makes no sense. Seeking the core of business transformation in digital technology adoption only is not enough. The Intellectual Property Strategy will likely decide who takes control on the whole value chain and the underlying business model - who sits in the front seat and who must find a place on the backbench. Even though that patents represent a part of innovation only, they still indicate where the energy is in a respective geography, industry, or even company. The annual reports of patent offices provide some interesting perspectives worth exploring. The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man, and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.
With the separation of Software from Hardware arriving in automotive industry, a whole set of new proprietary software with respective End User Licensing Agreements (EULA) will be coming down the road. It seems we soon have to familiarize ourselves with the fact that we can´t own a car entirely anymore - primarily not because we all move into the share economy model but driven by the fact that the car manufacturer will no longer own or control the required software IP. Automotive Industry for years pushed towards external innovation and external labor to reduce capital lockup - Software IP will be a game changer for car vendors who want to keep control on their core business. This idea is intriguing us because manufacturers need to go beyond selling physical car assets and must discover us drivers as customers - welcome to next generation Customer Relationship Management and the essence of customer intimacy for an old economy! However, transformation in software industry is going deep as well. What has worked in a traditional productized Sell-To model needs to get complemented by Sell-With and Sell-Through approaches to meet the new customer expectations. Software IP gets embedded in products, cloud-based services become essential part of other products or your current customer may want to join forces with you on innovation. Either way, it´s time to revise value propositions, to reskill the salesforce and to tune the commercial backbone towards new ways of monetization. Digital Transformation, Industry 4.0 and a solid IP Strategy belong together and form the common ground for your business in near future, so let´s prepare for it now. Good news, the cheese may already have moved on but the opportunity maybe bigger than ever and the driver seat is not decided yet!
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No matter where you start doing things differently it will be a journey without final state of perfection. My personal experience in software industry started with empowerment, trust, investment and an innovative environment - all invaluable assets to be successful and certainly something to secure to back your own digital transformation! The New World of Work offers more than saving commute time and a better CO2 footprint for the individual. It´s certainly more than saving office space, reducing travel cost and increasing employer attractiveness scores. Optimizing work and life for more productivity means a fundamental change of habits - professionally and privately. The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem - Do you understand me? Let´s not confuse, the digital transformation of our work- and lifestyle remains a cultural challenge, a social responsibility and it mandates innovation in leadership approaches. What may work on an individual- or team level requires a more systematic effort to organizational structures. Conventional Change Management is not sufficient to address the topic says Barbara Josef, Partner at 5to9. It requires general management attention to orchestrate the cultural transformation and realize the productivity potential. All functions from IT, Finance, HR and the Line Organizations need to be onboard and synchronized. Make sure, you keep it simple and rational in your approach to policies.
"Now that it's definitely not cool anymore, it feels safe for me to start tweeting as well ..." During my career, I had the pleasure to work in mobile workplaces, use flexible- and drop-in offices, collaborate during intense travel, perform in international roles, manage remote teams, lead business in distributed environments and experience diverse cultures. Still, I keep exploring, learning, optimizing and innovating my environment - always aware that there will be no perfect time to try new things. The next big transformation in sales is within reach. Therefore, I dive deep into Artificial Intelligence to further benefit Business Insight and, I look into seamless channel integration to imagine teamwork with our future colleagues, the AI Bots. If sales can add value to customers through well articulated procedures, repetitive activities and standardized offerings, than the combination of new technology with experienced sellers will lead to new exciting ways of customer experience.
Probably it is both, the no fear approach rooted in the own strength and the believe, that innovation should be routine - The inventor produces ideas, the entrepreneur “gets things done” [J. Schumpeter, 1947]. ... There's an angel, with a hand on my head
Closing my pleasant conversation with the gentleman, I directly asked him on his personal fear. He responded that in future quality journalism may commercially not find it´s sustainable place. However, messing with the checks and balances in our democratic societies would get him sleepless nights. Auch der stärkste Mann schaut einmal unters Bett.
Looking back, the focus remained on strengthening the status quo of computing capability towards faster, better, cheaper - neglecting the fact that in a current world of predominantly linear computing requirements the availability of resource no longer remains the limit for businesses - instead, time is the ultimate scarce resource.
Moors law keeps democratizing affordable compute resource and turns blessing into obligation. It´s an obligation to make better use of affordable digital resource within shorter innovation cycles. In a cloud based world, which is trending towards zero marginal cost and global reach (as predicted by Jeremy Rifkin) - the better business model innovator with the fastest implementation wins - The Race is On!
In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.
That doesn't mean that business experts need to become technical experts, but it does mean that business people need to get serious about understanding the core of technologies that they use to run their mission and into the right direction.
How is your own digital fitness level doing and what approach are you taking to lead in the digital era?
When it comes to digital, the only thing worse than standing still is running in the wrong direction. |
Andreas Engelis an experienced business leader working 25+ year in high-tech industry - leading, growing and transforming high-performance sales organizations, balancing short term results with long term strategy to drive new business growth. CATEGORIES
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April 2020
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