before they are disrupted. They sell before they are worthless. They recognize that existing success is increasingly driven by out-dated beliefs, a once-profitable niche that has now become the mainstream, a previous innovation that has been widely imitated, an economy of scale that has become irrelevant, a temporary monopoly that is no more.
As we explore the shifts and trends, the white spaces and technological breakthroughs, the new attitudes and behaviours, we need to learn to think in a different way.
The change is exponential. So we need to jump on whilst we can. Catch the new wave, or better still, learn to ride with the successive, and ever more frequent, waves of change.
When we look around us at the companies who are challenging established positions, shaking up conventions and waking up tired consumers, they are not the big companies but the small ones. They are the speed boats, fast and flexible, rather than supertankers, steady and stable.
The challenge is extreme. It demands that we rethink where we're going, and how to get there, rather than hanging on to what made us great before.
In a fast and connected world, complex and uncertain, a winning business cannot hope to keep doing what it does and do better. It has to do more, or different.
WE ARE ALL IN THE IDEAS BUSINESS
In Hong Kong there is a great 100 year-old business that explains our future potential. For much of the last century Li and Fung was focused on low-cost manufacturing of textiles. That was until salary levels grew, and places like Indonesia were able to achieve much lower cost bases. The business reinvented itself as a virtual resource network, helping brands to find the right partners for the business, in terms of expertize, quality and price.
Walk into a Li and Fung office in Sao Paulo or Istanbul, Barcelona or Toronto – or any one of their 300 offices in over 50 countries – and the small team of sourcing experts will help you find the best designers, manufacturers and distributors for your brand. Every pair of Levi jeans you buy is made with the help of Li and Fung, and around 40 % of the world's textiles. If you need finance, they'll find you an investor, and if you need merchandising, processing or customer service they can find the right partner for that too. Their business model can be based on fees, on commissions, or on an agreed mix.
Actually, all you need is a good idea. Take it to Li and Fung and they can make it happen with you.
Those ideas are not the product of years of experience, of big organizations with thousands of employees, of rigorous ‘big data' analysis and scientific labs. Those things can help, but they can also hinder. Fresh perspectives beat conventional wisdom, youthful insights connect with millennial markets, right brain intuition is an equal to left brain intelligence, and collaboration can achieve this even better.
And we haven't even started on Steve Jobs. From the revolutionary Apple Mac that transformed computing. The iPod, the iPhone, the iPad. Not just incredible products with beautiful designs, but new business models creating entirely new markets, changing the world.
Or James Dyson, with his bagless vacuum cleaner. Ratan Tata, with his dramatically affordable Nano car. Amancio Ortega with his ready baked Zara clothes. Or further back in time … Henry Ford, Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, Pablo Picasso, The Beatles, Nicolas Hayek, Ted Turner and many more.
Great ideas are the result of better thinking.
We need to think – to see things differently, and do different things – to open our minds to new possibilities, to outthink the new competition.
• Think bigger.. redefine the markets we are in, reframe our brands in more useful contexts, recreate the strategies for success.
• Think smarter.. refocus on the best customers and categories, reinvent every aspect of our business, realigning with new partners.
• Think faster.. reenergize people with new ideas, resonate with customers' new priorities and aspirations, and achieve more together.
Beyond the connectivity and applications, the social networks and artificial intelligence, we now live in a world that is more equal and accessible, where people are more knowledgeable and capable, than ever before.
It really is a world limited only by our imaginations.
Back at the moonshot factory of Google X, they have a mantra which says ‘Why try to be only 10 % better, when you could be 10 times better?'
Ten times better provides much more than a temporary competitive advantage, it has sufficient capacity to change the game. The effort required to think in a bigger frame, to innovate things more radically, to deliver them faster, is relatively small compared to the benefits.
But that requires one more thing. To think different.
Apple, or rather its ad agency Chiat Day, conjured up that phrase, but it matters more than ever. The best companies today don't just play the game, they think bigger and better, smarter and faster, in order to change the game.
2
CHANGE.. CHANGE THE GAME
WORLD-CHANGING, GAME-CHANGING
WORLD CHANGING
The future is not an extension of today, it is wild and unpredictable, diverse and discontinuous. Business cannot extrapolate the success of today, and hope to win tomorrow. Even if you did, you would be swamped by a world of imitating competition all seeking to play the same game.
Just like the world changes at an incredible pace, in fantastic and unexpected ways, so too must businesses learn to change – to play the new game, or better still to play their own game. To shape markets in their own vision, to create business models that suit them, to engage and enable customers to achieve more. This is what it means to change the game.
The turmoil of financial markets, collapsing banks and defaulting nations, are the dying cries of a changing world; a reordering of markets and power that we are slowly recognizing. Amidst the shake-up there are new winners and losers. In 2014, China's real GDP grew by 7.1 % compared to 0.9 % in Europe. Markets from Colombia to Indonesia are thriving.
As Samsung launches its smart watch, Beijing is recognized as the world's leading city for renewable energies, Shenzen becomes the new Wall Street, the best web designers are in Hyderabad and fashion designers in Buenos Aires, we realize that the best ideas in business are shifting rapidly too. No longer are these fast growth markets the source of low-cost supplies and low-budget consumers. They have youth and education, investment and disposable income – and most of all ambition – on their side too.
Every market is driven by change, fundamental power shifts and global trends, heightened expectations of customers and new sources of competition. The shifts in power are economic and political, but also demographic and cultural. In a connected world, trends and expectations cross boundaries instantly. Even the most local or traditional markets are not immune. African children want the latest computer game just as much as those in California, Arabic consumers want global fashions and ready meals, whilst local market stalls in Europe focus on fresh, organic and exotic produce.
Technologies fuel and embrace this change. Computing power continues to grow exponentially,
