Balancing the orthodox and unorthodox in strategic concepts

I'm on a bit of a journey right now, the objective of which is to systematise my process for devising strategic concepts to suit all of the situations my clients find them in. To that end, I'm going to share one of the ideas in the book: that we can classify concepts using a matrix of purpose/ intent against nature of response. Like so:

Purpose (or intent) is the principal axis of this matrix because it articulates the sentiment behind the organisation’s goals

Defensive purpose is most common in that it represents a defence of the oligarchy in order to continue to extract increasing profits from falling utility
Offensive purpose is more attractive but also riskier because it represents the taking of value from other sources in the economy through acquisition or aggressive entry into other geographic markets

In both purposes one can choose to be orthodox (as stated in the above examples) or unorthodox; for example:

To defend by extending ubiquity and thus utility of the underlying commodity by developing novel business models and technology e.g. extending the power grid with batteries or allowing bi-directional sharing
To create entirely new markets on the offensive through pure R&D activities (e.g. Xerox PARC, Skunk Works, Space X)

A strategic concept is necessarily a balance and a blend of these four competing concepts. Few, if any, mature companies are able to rest with one as all organisations have a core defend and a future to prepare for. More on this to come as my thinking develops - aside from leadership, this is one of my primary lines of thought right now.

Impacts of a handset leasing model on mobile telcos

Following yesterday's post, here's some related thinking on the impacts on operators of handset leasing. Handset sales represent around 25% of operator revenues in a typical European market, but generate only around 5% of margin. It may therefore be the case that the scenario described would lead operators to a more profitable structural model than exists today. Oil companies are consistently and acceptably profitable, despite being (literally in some cases) the ‘dumb pipe’ that operators are so desperate to avoid becoming. One of the reasons for the oil majors sustained profitability is clear focus on their role in the value chain – to supply the fuel that enables transportation, relying primarily on location, then brand and finally product innovation to compete. BP or Shell do not need to subsidise the purchase of a car in order to drive consumption of fuel because consumers are ‘hooked’ on it (it gets them from place to place) and there are many credible car manufacturers an...

Differences between Industrial and Digital businesses

Since I'm stuck on a Eurostar crawling through western France I thought I'd use the downtime to share this table I've made on the differences between Industrial and Digital companies across the main business functions. A strange insight into how my mind works... but hopeful a useful summary!

Value drivers for telecoms retail

I've been doing a really large number of driver trees recently - we've taken to using them on every project to get really into the guts of value creation for businesses and thus decide where to focus initiative development (How To Win, if you're keeping score). Anyhow, I had to pause for thought recently to work out how to represent the subscription aspect of telecoms retail for a client. Since it took me a minute, I thought I'd share... its lack of elegance suggests that its not quite right, although it was enough to demonstrate that there was a certain lack of coverage in the initiatives that my client was pursuing and thus spark a debate. Enjoy.

Versatile Amphibian

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