It’s not about You-It’s about your customer
Technology when used correctly can disrupt traditional businesses and enable forward looking organizations to create
blue oceans instead of competing in the ever crowded, existing red ocean. When IT is used as innovation enabler,
organizations can create new and uncontested market spaces, thereby creating huge differentiation and engendering
significant brand value.
Netflix used technology to disrupt Blockbuster- Wikipedia did the same to Encyclopedia Britannica, Craigslist did that to
Classified Ads. Cirque De Soleil, used technology to create a blue ocean where it combined elements of a circus, dance,
theatre, music, lighting, magic and high-end live entertainment to create a winning value proposition. It fulfilled a need,
traditional service providers never knew existed- perhaps, the end consumer never knew it either as an identified and
quantifiable "gap or pain".
Build it and they will come, is one management philosophy that has been debated for many years-by focusing on your
customers and your customers' needs and at times unstated and/or un-structured/invisible wants, organizations can
leverage technology for self-funded business transformation and wildly successful innovation, that gets rewarded not only
by Wall Street but by Main Street as well.
CIO's need to transform from being Information Managers to becoming Innovation leaders. By focusing on your
customers' needs, more of the IT budget needs to be spent on Growing the Business (GTB) rather than Running the
Business (RTB)- Today, 70-80% of corporate IT budgets are spent on keeping the lights on- patching, QA, support,
maintenance, customizations, hardware, networks, applications etc. CIO's need to evolve from being back office systems
managers, to creating new business models and revenue streams for the organization and becoming strategic advisors to
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