Feature Discussion: Business Model Innovation Killers

Every one to two weeks we will feature a new major business model discussion on the Hub. Hopefully we can mobilize all the brainpower, experience, and knowledge of the Hub members to have a high-quality discussion that helps us all advance.

We will kick-off the forum with a first question:

What are the most prominent business model killers in established organizations AND start-ups that you have experienced? What is holding business model innovation back?

Pls bring in examples from your own career or existing case studies to make the discussion as tangible as possible and not only opinion-based.

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Permalink Reply by Larry McManis on March 16, 2010 at 9:32pm
Interesting observations, Ron. I'm not sure of the percentages (it tends to follow a normal distribution/bell curve), but my experience has been that there is a continuum in organizations just like with consumers. That is, there are those on the cutting edge of change followed closely by early adopters, then the mass in the middle, then late adopters, and finally those that never change. Seems like the trick is to not only find the leadership to sponsor the change (and deal with those that never change), it's to find the cutting edge and early adopters (as in your pilot events) and use them to move the masses.
Permalink Reply by Ronald (Ron) Dale McFarland on March 17, 2010 at 9:49am
Larry,

Interestingly, if you have a successful prototype program (test market, whatever) behind you and can paint a pretty visual picture how the project can spread, this "mass in the middle" seem to like to tag along. Also, the "never change" people as least will stop being disruptive.

In any case, it is fun to see how the projects play out.

Ron
Permalink Reply by Omar Salama on December 2, 2010 at 11:53am
Excellent point! Thanks for clarifying this FACT!
Permalink Reply by Ralf Lippold on March 16, 2010 at 10:04pm
People in organizations often don't react as they are put in the place of pure mechanical followers of what is said by management and bosses. Why should you open your mouth when it is shut right away by others?

It is always a threat to challenge a world view - not only in organizations, also in a more broader sense.

So changing the structure & rules is what will change people's behavior. Step by step ;-)

Does that make sense?
Permalink Reply by Larry McManis on March 16, 2010 at 10:18pm
Yes, that makes sense. I use a behavior-based change management (Aubrey Daniels, Ned Morse) approach. When "structures and rules" are changed, they drive new behaviors which when properly reinforced actually drive a change faster in organizations than traditional change management approaches. The traditional approach is: Mindset --> Behavior --> Results but actually Behavior --> Results --> Mindset works much faster.
Permalink Reply by Thorsten Faltings on April 19, 2010 at 3:40pm
This phenomenon is what I call the status-quo coma. For all the reasons mentioned in this posts people have various reasons to stick with the well known.

I compare it with Geoffrey Moore's 'technology adoption lifecycle' pattern. As already mentioned there are some early adopters but most of the clients - no matter if established company or start-up (!) - are acting like the typical mainstream clients.

Plus people regularly are more used to improve internal processes where they have full control rather than sales, marketing and alike with too many unknowns like markets, clients and competition. There are apparently more business engineers than architects.

What probably should be discussed is to define a 'marked development strategy' to overcome the chasm and to get inside the tornado ;-).
Permalink Reply by Ronald (Ron) Dale McFarland on May 3, 2010 at 9:49am
Good thoughts. If a set of questions can be formulated and asked that turn a company in a new (different) direction than everyone else it would be very helpful. Looking again at "The Business Model Canvas" can be a great tool to bring out that differentiation (whether internal or external). The important point is to keep probing and asking.
Permalink Reply by Marc Sniukas on May 3, 2010 at 8:58am
- The fear of not knowing how to do BMI. --> needs a clear process.
- The fear of not knowing what happens to your existing business. --> needs a clear process.

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