This week I got to speak to a CEO of a company that was started more than 50 years old. The business grew for many years but the last decade has been stagnant and flat. The CEO has slowly realized that they needed a digital transformation. Instead of living in the past, They realized they had to move beyond their old school business model and reinvent themselves. If they started their business today, they would see things very differently and their approach wouldn’t be the old school model that had them stuck.
We talked for hours about needing to transform to a digital worldview.
Digital Transformation
New businesses think like digital natives.
Elon Musk wasn’t interested in starting a car company. He wanted to start a company where software or a unique power system comes with the car. Tesla flipped the model and thought about car manufacturing in the year 2016, not in the age of Henry Ford. The drivers to growth for Musk are very different from General Motors and most other car businesses. He even financed a new car model with a kickstarter-type approach to funding.
Light industrial businesses need to think of their customers as networks. They have to consider reaching customers in entirely different ways from how you would reach customers 25 years ago. They need to use data to drive decisions. In order to transform the business, they need to hit the refresh button on everything from how they go to market to how they tell their story.
The company I spoke to was like a company making the yellow pages today. Only older consumers know what a land line is or a phone book. Is your business still stuck in an old school business model? What would you do differently if your were starting your business today without any of the people or processes in place?
Today’s Buzzword: Transformation
Businesses have to rethink their value proposition to achieve transformation.
Places like museums are rethinking how they can move into the digital age. Leaders like Sree Sreenivasan became the Chief Digital Officer for The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. Although he has since left, he was charged with rethinking the experience of a museum and the role of culture and aesthetics in the twenty-first century.
Instead of waiting to see the new painting that was acquired, Sree and his team told stories, showed videos and helped engage the community about the behind the scenes experience of a painting coming into the collection. By rethinking his audience from those who could physically come into the building to the billions of those online, he was challenging the addressable market opportunity.
If your business started today, what would you be doing differently?
What’s stopping you from making that digital transformation right now?
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Need help transforming from the 1980’s business model? Text me at 919 720 0995 to start a conversation.
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gleonhard/16474476590 Creative Commons License
