Digital impacts to your strategy – where to start

You know you need to review strategy regularly due to digital, AI and other innovations. But where to start?

I’ve been thinking about this more than usual, since an interesting chat I had with a stranger at a party. We were standing looking over Sydney Harbour, and we were winding our way through the usual Q&A you do when you meet someone. How do you know the host? What do you do over the holidays? What sort of work do you do?

Turns out the guy runs a medium-sized video production company for the business market. It has been highly successful over a number of years. So I asked him what was he doing about digital and AI. HIs answer was that he was dabbling in AI tools to make the video production more efficient. He had not yet go around to thinking through how AI may displace his business entirely, even though he understood it was inevitable.

It makes me think of Kodak who failed to change their business model from camera film to digital photography. Buggy whips when motor cars were first invented. Mainframes. CDs. Video recorders. Record players (OK they have made a small retro comeback). Home telephones.

It is not unusual for Business As Usual to take precedence over innovation. Sometimes we are so busy with BAU that it is difficult to make time for strategic work. And there are many other reasons companies chose to avoid bad news and risks. Many are documented by the talented late Prof Clayton Christensen (read the Innovators Dilemma if you haven’t).

My tips for this week focus on digital and AI impacts to your strategy – where to start:

1. Absorb what is going on around you. If you’re reading this, you’re already good!
2. Talk to different people outside your company, profession or industry about what you’re doing to test your ideas. Not just your stakeholders. (That is exactly why the Turbocharge membership is aimed at diverse business leaders and change makers).
3. If you think you’re involved in a buggy-whip-type business, start looking at alternatives adjacent to yours.  Adjacent products or services for your customers to solve other related pain points.  Different use cases or customer markets for your products or services.

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PSS Not sure how to get your strategy unstuck, projects powering, and transformation turbocharged? I can help you.

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Written by Lisa Carlin for FutureBuilders: https://www.futurebuildersgroup.com/digital-impacts-to-your-strategy-where-to-start/

About Lisa Carlin

As a strategy execution specialist and scaleup mentor, Lisa works with ambitious digital leaders to turbocharge their transformation and business planning. Lisa’s clients have an independent sounding board and expert advice so they have absolute confidence they WILL ACHIEVE THEIR GOALS. Lisa is Co-Founder and Director of FutureBuilders Group of organisational development specialists, and volunteers as Chair of the University of Cape Town Australia Trust. Her early career was with Accenture (South Africa) and McKinsey (USA).