In his February 2015 keynote at the NASSCOM India Leadership Forum R. Ray Wang author and analyst told the audience of technology luminaries that CDOs – Chief Digital Officers - will only be around for three more years. In doing so, perhaps the author of Disrupting Digital Business: Create An Authentic Experience In The Peer-To-Peer Economy was simply cautioning us not to “Over-C” our path to digital transformation – a too many cooks in the kitchen situation. Author Wang’s provocative comment does point us toward an area every organization needs to pay more attention to. Who is paying attention to how we pay attention to data? What positions, what roles and what skills do we need to create if we are to succeed in a data-driven economy?... Read more

I think we can all agree that our world is becoming increasingly digitized. Most executives will admit that just about everyone expected some bumps along the way. Even Internet pioneers, a breed of cat known for periodic fits of megalomaniacal delusion have been surprised at how digital everything has become. Marc Andreessen, popular culture’s pudgy face of the future admits:

“If you had told me 10 years ago that we would be living in a time when A] the president of the United States apologizes in the Rose Garden for a web site that doesn’t work and cost $600 million; B] that the major Democratic candidate for President is in serious trouble for running her own e-mail server; or C] that a major Japanese-American corporation would be brought to its knees by nation-state hacking…”

Working with the folks at the College of Engineering at THE Ohio State University and the Olin College of Engineering we have teased out nine insights regarding being digital.... Read more

Advisors such as Gustin Partners sometimes find themselves in the role of messenger, conveying to managers beliefs, points of view or assertions their investors, bosses, colleagues or subordinates don’t want to impart directly—or vice versa.

In the moment, rarely does an advisor have the luxury to step back to ask why it’s being asked to play this role when it ostensibly has been hired to render a more concrete service—raise capital, search for talent, develop strategy, position in a market, etc. It just relays the messages in the course of delivering on the assignment, hoping to stay in everyone’s good graces long enough to stay engaged.

Away from it all and assuming the messenger isn’t shot, it becomes obvious to the advisor as to why such emissary work was necessary. Lack of trust, fear of reprisal/repercussions, shortage of time, etc. are the usual suspects. More elusive, however, is what leads to such circumstances?... Read more

Why is formulating a strategy so difficult for companies?

The question comes to mind almost every week day as the likes of FT.com, Business Insider, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomerg.com and The New York Times Business/Dealbook sections extol leaders whose strategies are paying off and damn those without such currency.

And it’s not as if there aren’t any blueprints for strategy development to follow. The wonders of the Internet—not to mention the marketing ambitions of Tier 1 consulting firms—bring one nearly countless treatises on strategy from McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Strategy&—either directly or through faithful conduits like the HBR, Sloan Review or Knowledge@wharton. Courage, or lack thereof, may hold the answer.... Read more

Trend #1: Technology Spending is Bigger and Growing Faster Than Ever Before
The consensus forecast places total global IT spend in 2015 at ~$3.8 trillion. In reality, if you include everything that’s being digitized total global IT spend will~ $20 trillion by 2020. In the years 2000 to 2010 the Compound Average Growth Rate [CAGR] of IT spending ~ -.2%. In marked contrast , CAGR for 2011-2020 is predicted ~ 14+%.

Trend #2: “Shadow IT Will Become “Shallow IT” Will Become R&D
The money being spent outside of IT [i.e., behind IT’s back] is frequently referred to as “Shadow IT.” Historically it was viewed as a bad thing – a reflection that IT was not able to keep up with or deliver fit-for-purpose solutions to the business. Progressive IT shops now view Shadow IT as a demand signal [i.e., the business is holding up their hand and saying this is something I want a technology solution for].

The business is essentially doing pre-enterprise roll out beta testing of possible solution sets. When these experiments surface true user requirements IT can step in and rapidly commercialize risk adjusted, at-scale enterprise systems.... Read more

Searching for leaders, consulting on strategy, positioning in markets and incubating startups—the activities that go on day to day at Gustin Partners and its affiliate GP Capital—most days is maddening: Sort of like juggling a bowling ball, a tennis ball, a ping-pong ball and a BB. All spherical for sure, but all different in most other respects.... Read more

For the longest time sic experts maintained that it was impossible to measure knowledge work. A differentiated belief in what a management team believes is measurable and hence improvable can be a source of competitive advantage. Alfred W. Crosby, professor of history at University of Texas, Austin, believes that the post Renaissance success of Europeans was directly attributable to the mindset they brought to metrics and the act of measurement. [See: Alfred W. Crosby, The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600]. High performance organizations have come to the conclusion that measuring the right things, the right ways is a sustainable source of competitive advantage and a prerequisite for efficient and effective operations. One of the things most in need of measurement today is the efficiency of an organization’s knowledge factory.... Read more

What do we know about the customer of the future? The post-Global Financial Crisis/Great Recession “Customer” is typically described as time poor, always on the go, constantly connected to the internet via mobile, more skeptical, more demanding, more price conscious, better educated, and more knowledgeable about marketing, distribution channels and margins. In a word the customer of the future could be conceived of as a scary monster.... Read more

In 1995 Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the Media Lab at MIT published Being Digital. In that tome we were told that “digital is coming,” that “digital is inevitable” and that “Bits are different from Atoms.” We were not, however told what we were supposed to DO about digital.... Read more

History changes things. One of the things history changes is how we look at a particular point in time. Historians have changed how they look at the critical period of time labelled the Industrial Revolution. So should we. I think the Industrial Revolution holds many lessons that are supremely relevant to leaders operating in these transformative times.... Read more