Of elephants, dogs & selfies.

Who says elephants can’t dance? Was the title of a best selling book, read by business leaders, management practitioners as well as young B-school students who wanted to know how larger organizations could transform themselves.

Very recently Vijay Govindarajan articulated how an old dog can be taught new tricks, while comparing start-ups and big companies he mentioned that while the start-ups have no past or very little past, big companies have valuable resources and global presence to tackle complex problems, pursuing a point of view that big companies can innovate. Just that the mirroring gets sharper in the presence of lean, innocuous start-ups who hardly take time to market.

Having done a sort of full circle from being a key account manager to a client and now again selling WorkApps Inc. and its solutions to clients, it seems to me that clients don’t need more technology, they don’t need more tools, they certainly don’t need another app – and then a promotion to increase its download, usage etc.

What they do need is simplicity for everyday work. Begins from:-

– can I evaluate this without “tech support” the proverbial elephant in the room?

– does it make sense to me and can my team use it across the board?

– does it require no integration – cloud / apis / open source facilitate a lot of this?

– can I customize it?

– is it simply plug and play?

– will it change the dynamics of work internally and create great experiences for Customers?

Tech says ditto!

The tech teams, I feel too seek for solutions with all the above qualities so that they don’t need to be the ones signing on an item that is put under the “cost ” head. And something that requires constant goading across the organization. Till the time the blessed adoption does not reach a threshold, Democles is lurking. Tech is simply the embedded chip on a say wearable – which is the business face, and quite literally go hand in hand so no reason to decouple. 

“Get the crowd behind you!” 

So here is what we as product manufacturers should do – 

– make products such that the first point of contact on the clients side is business and not technology.  Sell it to the users first. The rest are anyways easier to adapt.

– as an immediate next step (2nd meeting) get an assorted set of people across departments, hierarchies into a room to tell them how and what aspects of everyday work is your team impacting. The end-user is far far away from those who we normally meet – bridge the gap.

– get them to experience the product from inception and not on delivery. Isn’t that the fundamental principle of co-creation?

– if the costs are tender , split into small bites, say a pay-per-use model then there wouldn’t be a need to “tender” your costs. 

The point is in any sport you play a great player thrives on the support of the fans. Get them on your side. The royalty will anyway present the cup to you. 

Pocket. Not Rocket.

What we need are not rocket solutions but pocket solutions. We need safety pins that will not only hold stuff but pluck stubborn chips of wood out of the skin! 

Make it as ubiquitous and simple as that, and, guess what even “the elephant ” will take a #selfie! 

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