Cannibalize your business, because even if you’re ahead you’ll get passed by smarter competition

[SimonThompson]

I’ve had a chance to review many of the post Business Summit interview and was struck by the comments of Jon Voorhees from Bank of America; one of our biggest and brightest financial services clients. He said

“While we may be ahead of most of our competitors, we are so far behind where the technology can provide for us today. And we've got to catch up, because someone's going to pass us in their ability to think better; have better insight; and therefore make better, faster decisions.”

Two things stand out for me about technology, location analytics and business:

1. Any organization is only as good as its ability to apply the business value it gets from technology and
2. You need to continually evaluate how you make decisions and challenge the status quo. 

We’re all accustomed to new feature and changes in software and companies invest in training to learn those features but it strikes me that not enough companies realize that they need to evolve their business thinking too.  As @PhilSimon points out 

“In the Age of the Platform, complacency is just about the worst mistake you can make. If you don't cannibalize your own business, your competition will.”

And that’s the crux, technology will only take you so far. It’s people that matter and how they think. How you empower them to take the company in new directions, to apply novel ideas and use technology in more intelligent smarter ways – that’s what keeps your business fresh and competitive. Esri continues to make our software easier to produce powerful, insightful visualizations and analytics and that’s arming people with new skills and opportunities to apply location analytics to get ahead and keep ahead.

[RichardRoberts]

Thanks for Sharing Simon.  GIS Professionals are in a great position to help their organizations innovate for future growth and sustainability.

[JasonScheirer]

They may not even necessarily be "smarter," just "more aggressive" and "hungrier." Make sure your smart people have a way to stay hungry and avoid complacency.

[Anonymous User]

Agreed, an innovative company is one that supports their employees to try new things and arms them with the studies and technology to make it a success. From trial and error comes hidden gems of success. 

[danielkebbe]

Thanks for Sharing Simon.

Susan Athey, a professor of Economics at Stanford University, said the above in an audience with other panelists on “The Future of Financial Technology,” July 2015. The technology landscape is changing rapidly and it comes with many challenges for business leaders. As technology improves and becomes more mainstream, we are seeing drastic changes in operational efficiencies.

Take a look at how companies like Gamestop are using Big Data. Gamestop is an example of a company that has aggressively implemented Big Data solutions to optimize their own business. Cisco's very own Chuck Robbins is on a mission to automate every process within their departments and their business as a whole. It'll take the hard work of employees across the entire company to bring these automation tools to life.

Being myself a founder of toronto window cleaning company, i make sure my people are tech smart, hungry and innovative