Startup Lessons for the Established Business
One of the positive outcomes from the startup revolution that is prominent in contemporary business press is the acknowledgement by established firms of their challenges in competing with young dynamic competitors. Recognising the factors that contribute to a relative competitive disadvantage can be a first step to a strategy for success.
Yesterday I ran a session with the senior management group of the Gold Coast Bulletin, a 130 year old company and a part of the multinational conglomerate News Corporation. It is well known that newsprint is a declining industry: indeed News Corp's Australian newspaper revenues were reported to have slumped 8% in February this year. The GC Bulletin is proactively driving diversification in its revenue base, and the methodologies employed by aggressive startups are assisting them in developing new products and services for market.
The process of established firms looking for advice from startups is gaining momentum. On our recent Silicon Valley Study Tour my Bond University MBA students and I saw first hand the ways in which big business is learning from startups. At Rocketspace, the tech startup campus which launched Uber and Spotify, CEO Duncan Logan has developed a Corporate Innovation program which aims to transfer startup skills into corporate capabilities. Over 75 international companies (including AB Inbev, Accenture and British Airways) benefit from this service.
In Sydney Pollenizer runs a similar program, translating "startup science" into big companies. Fairfax Media, Macquarie and Testra have all benefited from the program. Cofounder Phil Morle said the program was developed in response to large organisations "looking to adapt a more agile, startup-style process" to the way in which they innovate.
One such process is the much-touted Lean Startup methodology, made popular through Eric Reis' book and practitioners such as Alexander Oserwalder and Steve Blank. As with all methodologies, the devil is in the detail and one must understand the rationale supporting the process in order to implement it effectively. Earlier this year I ran a webinar (warning - this is not the most engaging means of receiving information!) for the Australian Institute of Commercialisation. The session was designed to assist SMEs in understanding the Lean Startup process: building innovation capabilities in our business sector and encouraging collaboration between industry and education providers such as Bond University. I have reproduced the webinar below for your interest and am happy to elaborate for those who would like to know more.
As product life-cycles shorten and businesses face increasing competition they are forced to innovate or die. Rather than relying on past capabilities, established firms can learn from the skills startups employ to rapidly enter and dominate markets. I challenge all businesses to recognise this opportunity and take advantage the best way they can. The first step is to acknowledge the factors contributing to your relative competitive disadvantage.
Baden - check your emails!! :)
Principal at Spruson & Ferguson | Patent Attorney - Engineering / ICT
9yYou are spot on Baden, many businesses must innovate to move forward in the age of disruption. Professional services is certainly one of them.
Corporate Innovation | Innovation in Education
9yThanks Christian for your great response. CX is a dominant logic of the entrepreneurial method, holding a pivotal place in both the Lean Startup methodology and Effectual Reasoning. AG Laffley made P&G famous for "consumer-driven innovation" in the early 2000s. It is indeed a major challenge for big business.
I help organisations transform and grow.
9yGreat post Baden, it's great to see the SME community in Australia support change in larger organisations. It will be interesting to see how established organisations in industries dominated by high regulation and tradition introduce feedback mechanisms to understand market relevance or lack thereof. I'm also interesting in seeing whether or not they can recognise the value of human-focused design in the customer experience, to inform the ideation stage of the innovation process. Where we find ourselves looking to solve real human problems opposed to just exploiting gaps in the market. Baden, has there been much dialogue in the space of CX design driving innovation in your conversations?