Start With Why and Remember It

Start With Why and Remember It

by Tim Empringham, MBANo Comments
Simon Sinek started the Start With Why movement with his incredible TED Talk, "How Great Leaders Inspire Action". Every once in a while I see a great example of why "the why" is so critical. Today I came across one of those examples that I felt compelled to write about in an article "What Happened to the Internet's Favorite T-Shirt Company?" on Racked.com. The article takes a look at the Threadless T-Shirt company, their rise to fame, and their current struggles to remain relevant. Sinek's premise is that most organizations (and individuals) start by defining what they do, then move on to how they do it, and if they have time (infrequently), define why they do it. The what-how-why approach results in an undifferentiated company that has difficulty creating an emotional connection with their customers. Instead, Sinek pushes a why-first approach which connects to the emotional side of the customer by starting from the purpose of the company. Only after the...
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ROI Comes From Customer Value Creation

ROI Comes From Customer Value Creation

by Tim Empringham, MBANo Comments
I read a post the other day looking at the ROI (Return On Investment) in immediate payment systems (banking speak for instant payments) and one particular statement made by the author made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. In fact, the real driver may not be the ROI but just keeping up with customer and regulatory needs. ROI can't come from regulatory needs and cost savings to be successful. It has to come from customer value creation if you want to be sustainable. If the ROI is some sort of fuzzy "feel good" or "customer experience" story without strong numbers most businesses won't invest in these types of problems. In this example, if all of the major banks in a country (such as Britain or Canada) decide that "instant payments" don't have a positive ROI they will all choose to not build that capability since it isn't "worth it". If they do choose to build it it will be...
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Connecting the Value Chain

Connecting the Value Chain

by Tim Empringham, MBANo Comments
Many of the recent Innovation success stories have been about the creation of new ecosystems which have created new customer value in a way that wasn't imagined previously.  The iPod and iTunes created an ecosystem of music which included the simple purchase, organization, and portable playback that previously took several steps and suppliers to achieve.  Square is doing a similar thing by connecting the wallet and payment process with the retail point-of-sale system to build an ecosystem and environment that allows both sides of the payment equation to do things more easily than they have in the past. Much has been made of the "ecosystem" as the business model of the future and a key to Innovation success, but in most of the reading I've done the piece that doesn't get connected is how exactly one should think about innovating a new ecosystem.  Certainly if several people and companies have been successful in building new ecosystems in the past we should...
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