Page 97 - MYM 2016

solution”). And that is how the iPod was born! It’s all about solving customer headaches.
Make the Most of big data
Today, thanks to big data, it is easier than it used to be to scienti cally identify trends and
spot new consumer behavior. Using big data is
how Mediq saw that it could predict the exact day when patients with chronic diseases would need a particular drug, saving money for everyone – the customer, the health insurance company, and the government (but at the expense of the intermedi- ary). Big data has been at the core of web marketing and the success of most modern day disruptors. It also enables marketers to identify and prioritize customer headaches. e challenge of whether cus- tomers could trust a particular restaurant or hotel was the headache at the source of the growth of Trip Advisor and other travel app creators.
rethink industry boundaries from “inside-out” to “outside-in”
Many of today’s disruptors have redrawn entire industry boundaries by focusing on consumer insights. In Amazon’s early days, thanks to its vast o er of books and its ability to use big data, the company could reliably provide users with recom- mendations on what else they might be interested in buying. But nowadays its industry is almost impos- sible to de ne: is it an online retailer? A logistics company? Something else? Is Google an internet search company or a future transportation company?
In parallel, old industries are being rede ned by new competitors. e health industry used to
be centered mainly on pharmaceutical companies. As Cyril Bouquet mentioned at an IMD Business School presentation in May 2015, now players
as diverse as Nestlé (wellness), Nike and Disney (healthy lifestyles), AXA Insurance (a ordable healthcare), DSM (life sciences), IBM (analytics), Oracle (so ware), and many others have broad- ened the de nition of their own businesses, as well as transforming their entire industry to capture a share of the growing pie. Rede ning the industry you want to be in is not an entirely new idea. Back in the 1960s and ’80s, Peter Drucker and Ted Levitt were already suggesting it (Levitt, 2006). However, today big data enables us to see the consumer world through di erent lenses, from the “outside-in” rather than the “inside-out.”
Most companies I know claim to be custom- er-focused. But a closer look o en leads me to conclude that many are more product-driven than customer-driven. ey create new products and then look for clients who will buy them – a typical inside-out business model. “Now that we have a great product, how do we convince customers to buy it?” Few corporations take consumer insights to heart (outside-in) and deliver extra value at lower cost. Stelios Haji-Ioannou broke the mold in the airline industry by founding EasyJet and focusing on only one customer segment – those who pay for their ticket out of their own pocket (Kumar, 2000). Traditional players competed for both private and business customers in three categories: economy seats as well as business and rst class.
Companies such
as Net ix, Airbnb, easyJet, Tesla and Uber have set themselves apart
as disruptors due
to their ability
to rede ne their respective industries.
DisrUPtioN & iNNoVatioN
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