Last week, over 200 guests packed the auditorium at the NSU Art Museum in downtown Fort Lauderdale, anxiously awaiting South Florida IMA’s very special guest speaker, Terry B. Jones. Jones is best known as the Founder of both Kayak and Travelocity.com, now working on his latest innovation, WayBlazer. WayBlazer will be the world’s first cognitive travel platform – answering the question of not only when you want to travel and where, but why you are traveling there, what you are trying to see, what experience you are looking to get.
South Florida IMA’s June event kicked off with Jones talking about steamships and how the invention of the diesel engine quickly made them disappear, yet caused them to evolve. Jones quickly related the occurrence to the concept that it is not just about what happens in your business, it’s about what happens upstream and downstream from it. It’s not enough to just focus on your business, you have to widen that focus – and that’s exactly what Jones would do for the rest of the night, leading up to his standing ovation.
Jones led South Florida IMA’s crowd through the twists and turns of disruptions in business and marketing evolution, and the ways to overcome them. The following are the key takeaways from the night, all of which you can receive more in-depth information on by checking out the South Florida IMA June event video recap.
- Connectivity – The internet and travel of information is a disruption. Connectivity has changed the landscape of business; turn connectivity into opportunity.
- Big Data – Creates complexity; complexity is an opportunity to simplify.
- Cloud – Convergence of technologies creates innovation.
- I.O.T – The Internet of Things. Beacons like Nest and heart rate monitor implants the size of paperclips that send your information up to the cloud are changing the game.
- Algorithm – Disruption by algorithm; algorithms are implemented in all of the most innovative business models. Install awesome software and you are done!
- Mobility – Mobile has changed the way we live our lives and the ways in which consumers consume.
- Robotics – Robotics will change the future by aiding us in security, health, and technology.
- Drones – Surveillance capabilities create disruption, but are an opportunity to evaluate societal trends and geographical regions. Underdeveloped countries have grown ingenious to evolving without infrastructure.
- Constrained Resources – U.S. Mars mission cost $630 million more than India’s Mars mission – why? – because they didn’t have it. Work on a constrained budget and you can be just as efficient.
- Customers Balance of Power – They tip the balance of power. “They vote with a click, they move to a competitor in a third of a second, they live in a world of complete price transparency, and they are powerful.”
How Can Your Business Innovate? – Owning The Edge In Your Industry:
Businesses must deal with the forces of disruption and remember that technique follows technology. As a business, in order to truly be innovative you must OWN THE EDGE.
So where is the edge? – Being a business on the edge means marketing for those moments when 50% of people in the grocery store are wandering aimlessly on their cell phone. Being a business that knows 50% of consumers are online shopping while lying in bed at night.
Since 90% of data was created in the last three years and 80% of it is unstructured, there is immense opportunity to to make it less complex for consumers. Complexity leaves empty carts, leaves you with 4% conversion rates, and businesses put up with it rather than taking the risk to evolve.
Jones empowered South Florida IMA guests to “take a chainsaw to your maze of a business model and make it easier for the customer…. They are internet powered, tech savvy, time starved, and data rich, socially engaged and always on.”
Business Plans on a Rubik’s Cube:
Take your business and put it’s main functions on a Rubik’s cube – then narrow it down to four components.
What’s your new business model? You could have everything set in place, but maybe your business is still too complex for consumers; maybe, you are not easy. Make your business model and consumer pathways simple!
Take the Risk and Work as a Team:
Your business needs to be able to accept innovative ideas from everyone on the team and everyone in the chain of command, including those at the very bottom. Some of the best ideas come from the bottom because those individuals are looking for simpler ways to get their jobs done, or they are handling customer service and know what the consumer wants. Ideas can’t be a pinball machine in your business. Create a work atmosphere that welcomes a certain level of failure, yet paves the way for creativity and emphasizes innovation.
Tackle disruptions head on and laser target your consumers. Take advantage of algorithm disruptions and transform them into engines for your business.
Take ideas, and with clarity and focus – evolve it into a plan of action. Try it. Many businesses say that change is scary, risk is scary, risk may cause damage to business, but what is scary is to not evolve and die.
See your business disruptions as opportunities and turn them into innovations.
***All thoughts, expressions, and quotes came from Terry B. Jones’ presentation; for more information or to download the presentation slides, please visit www.tbjones.com and fill out the download request form.
To attend South Florida IMA’s July event, please check out Membership Information.