Don’t Just Improve Work, Innovate
Continuously
Brad Power
Co-Founder, MAXOS
Management Consultant in Process Innovation
Frequent Contributor to the Harvard Business Review
Partner, FCB Partners
Co-Founder, CXcelerator
Keynoter
Board Advisor
October 2016
1Copyright 2016 – Bradford L. Power
Tectonic Shifts
From To
Competitive
Megatrends
Hardware
Products
Transactions
Software
Services
Lifetime Customer
Value
Performance
Optimization
Operational
Excellence:
Consistency,
Reliability, Low Cost
Adaptability at Scale:
Continuous
Experimentation,
Personalization
Organization,
Architecture
Monolithic, Hierarchy,
Batch, Waterfall,
Intuition
Products, Matrixed
Services Teams,
Microservices, Data
Innovation,
Improvement
Projects, Manual
(People), Stage
Gates
Continuous A/B,
Automated Testing and
Integration (Machines)
2Copyright 2016 – Bradford L. Power
Existential Threats: Software Startups and
“Apex Competitors”
• Continuously upgrade
products and services
• Hoard customer data
• Winner takes all
dynamics
• Scale effortlessly
• Never rest
• Vertically integrate for
adaptability
• Attract top talent
3Copyright 2016 – Bradford L. Power
GE Example: From Industrial Leader to
Software Leader
• Jeff Immelt, “You go to
bed as an industrial
company, and … wake
up as a software
company.”
• “Predix” platform
• Software Center of
Excellence
• Outcomes-based
customer relationships
• +$1 billion revenueSource: https://hbr.org/2015/01/building-a-software-start-up-inside-ge
4Copyright 2016 – Bradford L. Power
Introducing the Software Apex Competitors
• Dominant predators
sitting at the top of the
food chain
• Software examples:
Alphabet/Google,
Amazon, Facebook,
Microsoft
• Top in market cap
5Copyright 2016 – Bradford L. Power
Software Apex Competitors Have Found a
Way to Achieve Adaptability at Scale
• Small semi-
independent
microservices teams,
matrixed to strong
product managers
• Automated testing and
integration, enabling
lots of small
experiments
• No: bimodal IT, Scrum
Masters, QA step, OpsSource: “The Best Digital Companies Are Set up to Never Stop Innovating”, Brad Power, Harvard Business Review, May 17, 2016
6Copyright 2016 – Bradford L. Power
Organize by Products with Matrixed Small
Services Teams: Google Example
Key Characteristics
• Product managers have profit and loss responsibility
• Small teams (3-7) responsible for micro-services
• Product managers guide small teams, but teams can support multiple product managers
• Information systems guide teams and coordinate between teams
7Copyright 2016 – Bradford L. Power
Opportunity: Big Companies Can Win with
Technology like the Apex Competitors
• Instead of incubating
startups at the edge,
build new products from
existing core
components, customer
and supplier
relationships, brand
• Expose new
capabilities to existing
customers
8Copyright 2016 – Bradford L. Power
Problem: Big Organizations Traditionally
Minimize Risk (Not Maximize Adaptability)
• From an era when
failure was expensive
and deliberation a
virtue
• Data hoarded
• Decision-making by the
few
• Hierarchy
• Separation of powers
Slow and
Conservative by
Design
9Copyright 2016 – Bradford L. Power
Legacy Systems and Practices Are Rigid
• Monolithic applications
slow and expensive to
change
• The innovator’s
dilemma: “Technology
debt”
• Fragmented data
• Rigid long-term
contracts with vendors
Source: Roger Camrass
10Copyright 2016 – Bradford L. Power
How ambitious are you?
Levels of Ambition
1. Escape legacy
2. Become a modern
digital enterprise
3. Become an Apex
Competitor
11Copyright 2016 – Bradford L. Power
Happy to Help You on Your Journey
• Does your organization
have aspirations of
becoming an Apex
Competitor?
• Contact: