Live from Microsoft Convergence 2008

I am writing this from Microsoft Convergence in Copenhagen. 4000 people are here, learning how Microsoft embraces Web Services, Search and even Cloud computing into its business solutions, as if these concepts had always been part of the strategy.

But even if Microsoft is far from visionary in new technologies,  they are a pioneer in in integrating technologies into workeable and accessible solutions for the broad market….

As Bruno Segers often said: ‘time to market’ is one thing, but ‘time to money’ is what Microsoft is really good at.

So, the future looks bright for Microsoft. I think the only real pain in the ass for Microsoft is G*** … the name of the company that I hardly dare to pronounce or type here (it’s a public PC), as I may be surrounded by Micorsoft employees disguised as normal people.

Blue Ocean Strategy: the best vertical strategy is to go horizontal

Since 10 years, going vertical has been promoted as the golden egg to be successful for companies implementing ERP solutions. At first sight it  seems a logical evolution: in a market characterized by heavy competition, the evident solution is to start differentiating your offering by focusing on always smaller micro-vertical markets.

But the consequence has often been disastrous too: over-segmenting your market leads to a market segment too small, so small that the vertical market doesn’t offer enough market potential to live off. Which happened to a number of Microsoft Dynamics and SAP Partners in the past 10 years, resulting into severe financial troubles by confidently focusing all their resources on one vertical. Conclusion: they realized that they could just not live from a vertical alone, especially not in one small country.

Maybe the background behind this way of viewing things here is that many mistakenly think that to ‘differentiate your offering’ equals ’going vertical’.  What if we look at things the other way around: instead of looking for differences among potential customer segments, you could look for similarities ACROSS potential customer segments ? And address your highly differentiated offering to a much larger ‘horizontal’ market that transgresses the holy NACE or SIC codes?

By the way, I just re-read Blue Ocean Strategy, an excellent book with many more interesting insights.

Search: new rules of business?

I’ve just finished a book which was the most interesting I’ve read in months: The Search: How Google and its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture. It explaines how search technology opens a totally new paradigm – not only on the internet but in our whole lives. Basically, everything is becoming searchable  - not only websites, pictures and music. Imagine a company that could make everything searchable: every book that has ever been published, every object (using RFID and GPS), that could locate every person anywhere on earth…

What the author calls the ‘database of intentions’ is fascinating and scary at the same time: imagine the value of what Google knows about us ; the search keywords we typed in during the past weeks, the links we clicked.  Google has the information about the people who are looking for a new car even BEFORE they have been to the car dealer; about the people who are researching for their next summer holidays before they went for a catalogue in the travel agency. 

This creats a new paradigm for advertising and for business in general: not products, not software, but search history information is what it’s all about. Companies owning thisformation may become the most powerful companies of the 21st century. I know there will be a lot of legal discussions about privacy etc.; but I’m also convinced that governmental regulations cannot stop technological evolution.

The Tipping Point (how little things can make a big difference)

Lemarco is all about smart marketing: addressing a small group of people with much influence, make them talk about your products and service, make the message “sticky” and easy to understand until the tipping point is reached: from then on your fame takes on epidemically proportions. 
The tipping point is the point of success (at least: when talking about business) where your product starts to sell itself with little effort or cost from your side. It’s all about word-of-mouth. 

But how does it work? Malcolm Gladwell has written a book about it in 2000 that has reached its own tipping point in 2001 and is now a worldwide reference book on social epidemics. 
The Tipping Point explains how the almost forgotten Hush Puppies revived when a few hippies in New York started wearing them. How the crime rate in Boston diminished unproportionally fast in the 90’s compared to the rest of the country… and many more social trends that took on huge proportions without a remarkable cause.

The recipe:

The Stickiness factor: make sure that your product, your fame, your reputation will be remembered, will stick in the minds of your customers. Find out what moves them, what they care about. What will impress them. 

The law of the few: Find some remarkable people to start spreading the word.
Get acquainted with some connectors: people with great social qualities, people that know many others, people that are admired.
Get the mavens on your hand: they’re the experts that know the market and once they’re convinced of the price and quality of your product, they will want to tell others all about you.
Then there are salesmen: not those that work in your company, but satisfied customers who believe in you and who’ll gladly convince those who still have doubts.

The power of the context: you can only start an epidemic in a time and place where people are susceptible to it. Is today the day that your product is most likely to find some interested people? Is this country a good place to promote it? Then go spread the disease!