Have you ever tried to get your arms around the über big picture? I mean, what is the end-game for the conversation that goes like this? Client: I want a mobile app. Consultant: Great! What are your requirements? Client: I want a new mobile channel. Consultant: No, I mean what do you want the mobile… Read More »
The mobile digital lifestyle is raising everyone’s expectations about how quickly things get done. It is the “watched pot never boils” phenomenon — if you are look at your phone every 5 minutes things take longer than if you visit the Web, ATM, call center or branch much less frequently. The demand for immediate payments… Read More »
There is good and bad regulations and good and bad deregulation in the financial services industry. Bad regulation (and good deregulation) involves (and removes) rules that benefit banks at the expense of consumers by limiting competition in the banking industry. There is a global trend toward removing these protections in favor of more competitive banks.… Read More »
Google has a multi-sided platform business model where it provides: Its popular Web sites, including its search engine to consumers The ability to bid on keywords via AdWords, resulting and display related advertisements The ability to host advertisements on non-Google Web sites, such as a blog page. Google subsidizes its Search, Web site and AdSense… Read More »
I am a big fan of Lending Club. I started investing some money there about a year ago to learn about it and couldn’t help myself from funding a few new loans each month. It is addictive! Before I know it I had saved a few thousand dollars. So far I have not had any… Read More »
Lulu.com is interesting to me for two reasons. First, bloggers can select content from their blog and publish it. I dream of having time to do this! Maybe after I retire… Secondly, Lulu.com is an example of the Long Tail business model. Mass customization. Sell less of more.
I always talk about industry and technology trends as being an important input to strategy. It seems a bit vague so I have decided to create a new series that catalogs the major trends affecting the banking industry. A key technology trend is utilizing applications, storage and compute power from the cloud. A key word… Read More »
I found an interesting post titled Competing in a World of Software-Defined Everything by Chuck Hollis, a frequent blogger on cloud computing, about a new product cycle named “Learn, code, monetize”. Chuck suggests that going forward organizations will compete primarily based upon know-how. Expertise and the unique understanding of how to apply it to gain… Read More »
According to Wikipedia, Service design is the activity of planning and organizing people, infrastructure, communication and material components of a service in order to improve its quality and the interaction between service provider and customers. www.servicedesigntools.org/ provides an open collection of tools useful in service design. Service design tools are useful in all of the… Read More »
Strategic guiding principles are derived from experience, situational or positional analysis, or from researching best practices and industry or technology trends. For example, an IT strategist for an organization might read in an analyst report that dramatically fewer banks are providing mobile apps for Blackberry devices and create the following guiding principles: Reduce general… Read More »