I have a hypothesis that sometimes a company running a marathon – as Avaya was doing – gets fatigued and simply gives up. In a real marathon, somewhere along the half-way point, the glycogen stores run out and the mind starts telling you to slow down or stop. If you haven’t prepared for this energy depletion event, it’s very hard to go on. Avaya’s decision to go private is their way of gracefully giving up…
Archive for the 'organizational design' Category
Avaya Quits Halfway Through Its Transformation Marathon
Published by June 10th, 2007 in organizational design. 0 CommentsNews Corp. Bets on In-market Incubation
Published by April 28th, 2007 in organizational design and new-media industry. 1 CommentNews Corp.’s decision to finance a Chinese startup rather than import its hugely successful MySpace.com unit is part of a larger trend. In-market incubation will generate the next wave of growth in emerging markets.
Bill Campbell Talks About Empowered Engineers
Published by March 27th, 2007 in organizational design. 3 CommentsBill Campbell, Chairman of Intuit, is interviewed in McKinsey Quarterly. He talks of the primacy of engineers in a product company, the role of product managers and range of topics…
The New Business Case for Gender Diversity
Published by March 9th, 2007 in organizational design and leadership. 7 CommentsThe business case for diversity was initially about talent shortage. Then it was defined in market-based terms. It was about understanding diverse and multicultural customers. Now the business case is about giving the firm the capability to have an adaptive strategy posture so that it can succeed in times of increasing uncertainty. This argument calls for gender diversity not just in the workforce but also in the top management teams. Making that happen is not easy.
A Different Startup Mantra
Published by March 3rd, 2007 in investing, entrepreneurship and organizational design. 3 CommentsThere are two startup worlds out there. One is about comparative selling and the other one is about displacement selling. One is about leveraging disruptive technology and the other is about leveraging exogenous effects. One is about mastery over disintermediation, commoditization, or offshoring to reduce time-to-market; the other is about using it help the customer do legacy stuff for less. These subtle but significant differences in the startup mantra have big implications for entrepreneurs and VCs.
Hope Vodafone Has Learnt Its Lessons (about Globalization Models)
Published by February 12th, 2007 in offshoring, organizational design and mobile industry. 0 CommentsAlthough Vodafone was the first to recognize the potential of horizontal consolidation, it didn’t execute the integration very well. Telefonica did a better job. Getting the globalization model right is critically important. This requires striking the right balance between global integration and local responsiveness. Not only is this not easy, this is often ignored. Probably the least understood area today is R&D globalization…
Musings about Role of Partnerships in Startups
Published by February 5th, 2007 in investing, entrepreneurship and organizational design. 3 CommentsThere are two types of opportunities for startups – one arising from new consumption and the other from value chain transformation. The startup firm evolution is different for these two kinds of opportunities. In the first case, thought leadership goes into creating an offering power that is then leveraged to acquire customers followed by partners. In the second case, thought leadership goes first in building a category power which then underpins strategic partnering and customer acquisition. Read on…
Why CIOs Have a Shot at Becoming Chief Innovation Officers
Published by January 25th, 2007 in organizational design, offshoring, software industry and adaptable infrastucture. 0 CommentsUtility infrastructure model is coming. There is no escaping this trend. This trend will reshape CIOs job significantly. CIOs will either become practically redundant or will become Chief Innovation Officers. I think it will be the latter and here is why…
How Cognizant Broke Out of the Pack
Published by January 2nd, 2007 in software industry and organizational design. 3 CommentsToday’s Economic Times reports that Francisco D’Souza has taken over as Cognizant’s CEO from Lakshmi Narayanan. By itself this isn’t special as this transition was announced a few months back. Yet the fact is, Cognizant is one of the few mid-sized firms that has broken out of the pack in the competitive IT services space… I believe that their organizational model has given them the edge…
Growth Anatomy: Taking Inspiration from Ultra Low Cost Cellphone
Published by December 6th, 2006 in innovation, organizational design, mobile industry and bottom-of-the-pyramid. 0 CommentsWe saw from the OLPC example that radical value engineering requires confronting incumbent product architectures. This is one of the reasons why upstarts have an advantage. Another reason why this is so difficult for incumbents is because you have to confront the current way of doing things inside the firm. Occasionally market leaders succeed in doing an orbit shift in their way of doing things. Texas Instruments is an example of that in the cellphone chipset market.
Growth Anatomy: Can’t Escape In-Market Incubation Any Longer
Published by December 1st, 2006 in organizational design, innovation, software industry and bottom-of-the-pyramid. 0 CommentsIn my last post in this series I had suggested that the enterprise software industry is being forced to embrace the “lean” model requiring two separate strategy responses. The first is a reflexive response of consolidation and preservation. The second is a considered response of leveraging the lean model to build out a new business at the bottom-of-the-pyramid. This second strategy response is hard to do. And the IT industry is not doing it.
Anatomy of New Growth in India
Published by November 28th, 2006 in organizational design, innovation, software industry and bottom-of-the-pyramid. 1 CommentIn a new article, Anatomy of New Growth in India, posted at SandHill.com, I argue three things. First, take emerging markets like India seriously because they punch above their weight-class. Second, go after the bottom-of-pyramid opportunities. Third, think beyond talent/cost arbitrage and build in-market capability to incubate new products and business models. This is the first article in a series called India DNA Talk where I will discuss the burgeoning growth in India and its implications for the software industry at large.
The Quiet Leadership Revolution
Published by November 27th, 2006 in organizational design and leadership. 2 CommentsInnovation drives commoditization. It forces companies to reinvent themselves, to go through periodic orbit change. But times are changing. Now one needs a different leadership model to bring about radical organizational change… Old school thinking about confronting legacy mindsets won’t do anymore.
When I arrived at VERITAS Software in 2004, two of my peer VP positions were setup as a two-in-a-box. Before the year was out both those positions had unwound. What went wrong? Was it the people, the concept or the company culture?
Limits of the MNC Hub-and-Spoke Model
Published by November 13th, 2006 in offshoring and organizational design. 3 CommentsA friend who joined IBM Global Services (IGS) in Bangalore five days back shared his joining experience with me. His desk wasn’t ready… His case could be an exception but I doubt this is the case… I am surprised that so many MNCs have failed to get their India leadership structures right…
