Enterprise 2.0: A new approach to strategy
Since I'm more of a micro-blogger than a blogger, I'm used to stopping within 140 characters. It feels like a luxury not to have that limit, but I will still aim to keep things simple, short, and hopefully to the point.
Enterprise 2.0 is happening in Boston this week, and I'm intrigued by how businesses are engaging with consumers and enabling employees to collaborate in new ways. We are clearly living through something fundamental, something radical. The question is: how significant, and how can one tell?
In the field of Innovation, it is conventional wisdom that disruptive technologies make and break entire industries, not to mention individual businesses which may once have been leaders but are left behind in times of change. The faster the change and the greater the magnitude, the higher the probability of fundamental reorganisation of industry lines and corporate landscapes. Jim Collins, my professor at Stanford Business School has some brilliant articles on the subject on his site.
At times of disruptive change, most businesses seek a strategy. The first challenge, in my view, is the process of strategy development itself. What are the right strategic tools to use in a world where change is happening so rapidly? How can a business absorb environmental information, make sense of it, and react effectively? What needs to change in order for change to happen?
Generally large enterprises are not associated with being strategically nimble. In industries where change is relatively slow or somewhat predictable, that may not be an issue. With the pace and breadth of disruption arising from the collaboration technologies we're seeing today, it is.
So what should be done? I believe that managing innovation is the key capability which robust enterprises have developed, or will develop. It begins with representation and stewardship at the board level. It is anchored on the CEO agenda. It is led by a Chief Innovation Officer. It is operationalised through a portfolio of investments which explicitly factor risk and uncertainty. It is measured by tangible and intangible value creation, not simply P&L metrics. It is explicitly nurtured as an organisational value. It is recognised as a discipline to be developed through a strategic approach, rather than a tactical response.
How does one do that? The disruptions we are seeing from social and collaborative technologies are doing more than changing industries: they are raising questions about the fundamentals of strategy itself. Now is not the time for a new strategy - it is time to build a new process of strategy, fit for purpose for the times we live in.
