How to see markets beyond the curve, catch weak signals, and anticipate turnarounds to leverage change and disruptions
Hot Takes
Business models are always difficult to grasp. The core difficulty that I’ve been relentless at trying to understand myself and then explain to others for about 15 years is that often; the product is not that important. Take Starbucks; how would you define their business? It’s not coffee
While I’m on a semi-summer break, I wanted to answer a request I often have (not only from my MBA students but also from my corporate customers): “Philippe, what kind of books would you recommend to boost our innovation mindset?”. Glad you asked! Here are five of the most
Third time in the past three months, I have been interviewed for a podcast or video-cast promoting women’s voices and women’s stories. You will find the latest one, Women’s Dialogues, by Dr. Shashi Goel below with time codes. I’ve realized that this is actually a new
Recently Lidia Lopez interviewed me for the podcast she runs with Maria Planes, “How I Met My Mentor.” Each weekly episode is an interview of a woman who shares about herself, her experiences, her expertise to benefit and inspire other women. You can find my episode on Spotify, as an
The principle of technology disruption, or what I prefer to describe more explicitly as death by Moore’s law, is not just catchy headlines. It’s real, it’s ongoing, and it’s still vastly misunderstood. In 2017, I was teasing executives attending my trainings or keynotes on innovation with
For years you’ve been hearing all sorts of injunctions about what your organization should do. And while most of them make sense, they do not necessarily give any concrete ways to go about bringing the change they suggest. Let me address just a few of them in this series
Nobody really talks about the pains of transformation. When speaking about change, leaders have a tendency to dangle the carrot of potential vague future benefits. We need to acknowledge the pains of transformation whether they are at the individual, team or organizational level, so that we can gather the courage
Most businesses are feeling the current impact of the Covid-19 crisis as a sales and cash-flow problem. It’s more than fair. Yet, there is an underlying impact that is probably misunderstood or not fully anticipated. You see, in normal times, there is a kind of thermodynamic equilibrium to innovation
I was writing yesterday on how « Tech » became a buzzword while the underlying innovation reality has evolved drastically. The way tech investment is managed is also in this in-between state. Some players like SoftBank have been built around the sole idea of leveraging digital network effects. They fund massive investments
Weak Signals
I already discussed already a few times how bad it is that ads are still the default monetization mode [https://www.icopilots.com/why-ad-monetization-is-wrong-really] digital media. In term of business model, they still use the same playbook as soap operas in the sixties. Not only this stifles innovation in this
Since 2011, Nigeria has decided to fuel entrepreneurship by distributing public funding. Nothing surprising, but their strategy: lowering the barrier of entry as much as possible by distributing funding to anyone with a small business and a « readable » business plan. With all due caution to the transferability of such a