Innovations in digital technologies, lightweight materials, sustainable energy sources, and social trends like carsharing and ridesharing are converging to create an unprecedented level of connected and, eventually, autonomous mobility solutions that will revolutionize personal transportation. This innovation is ushering in a new ecosystem of mobility experiences, which will potentially play a much bigger role than brands when it comes to determining who wins the race to dominate mobility markets. Digitalization offers a seamless platform of services to provide mobility on demand, such as Uber. Vehicle manufacturers like Ford, Tesla, and Mercedes-Benz are adding smart product functionality to their cars while seeking business models that turn their smart products into services. The future of mobility depends on a congruence of technology and digitalization on a platform, seamlessly integrating safety, energy, data processing, decision making, and real-time cloud connectivity with infrastructure and on-demand services. Success in launching digital mobility experiences requires integrating digital mobility products and services; capturing and analyzing personal data using digital replicas (twins); getting data privacy and data governance right; and the balancing of personalization and the centralization of the value proposition to create economies of scale. Challenges include policy and technology uncertainty, value chain complexity, infrastructure needs, and regulatory standards and acceptance.
Beyond Wireless (BW) is an IoT remote temperature monitoring equipment and services company headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa. At the time of writing the case, Ian Lester, BW's CEO, is exploring approaches to growing the organization. The case demonstrates the strategic, operational, cultural, and technological challenges with scaling IoT businesses, particularly in low and middle-income countries. The case specifically examines: 1. The benefits and challenges of leveraging existing technology infrastructure to grow a business beyond a single offering 2. The expansion of IoT services to multiple industry verticals 3. The design of digital platforms to achieve demand-side economies of scale The case asks students to suggest strategies for growing BW considering the state of the company and its technologies, competitive challenges, and opportunities to transforming its business model and serving new market segments.
Companies face increasing pressure to compete in the practice of analytics and strive for analytics maturity to sustain their competitive advantage. A single-minded, narrow focus on gaining analytics maturity, however, leads to analytics maturity myopia. Based on our studies of analytical capabilities and numerous conversations with executives and managers, we offer a scorecard for organizations to identify the presence of analytics maturity myopia and propose a framework for organizations to correct this issue. The proposed framework partially explains the mixed and conflicting results regarding the relationship between analytics maturity and business value found in the literature. Specifically, we recommend that companies focus on three factors that are critical to realizing value from analytics initiatives: (1) a balanced view of value to different stakeholders, (2) a continuous expansion of the business ecosystem beyond current stakeholders to identify and pursue new opportunities, and (3) use of an emergent strategy to take advantage of unexpected opportunities and develop organizational agility.
Sunny Bee is a real-world example of a recent business student putting his learning to work to build a successful social venture in his home country of India. The case includes: -A base case that provides background on the material and addresses the entrepreneurial process. This case should be assigned first. -Four follow-on cases that can be taught in any order: -A lean supply chain case -A sustainability case -A business analytics case -A digital innovation case
Most companies already have plenty of creativity and technology. What they don’t have is the managerial skill to convert that creativity and technology into earth-shattering innovation. So how do they harness innovation? The first step is to understand what they need—the managerial skills, abilities, and traits that enable digital innovation. We need to not only acknowledge digital innovators, but promote their role as creators of economic and social value. In this article, S. Somasegar, a former senior executive at Microsoft, and Michael Volpe, former chief marketing officer at HubSpot, discuss the ideal digital innovator’s profile. Key excerpts, arranged under six major themes, deal with what an industry expert looks for in a potential digital innovator: 1) a playful attitude toward technology; 2) agile experimentation (including the use of minimum viable products); 3) mastery of the digital domain; 4) technological innovativeness; 5) a strong online identity; and 6) reliance on an extensive social network for expertise and advice. Entrepreneurs have historically taken one of two approaches to defining IT: it’s either a necessary evil or the product itself. Today there is a third approach, one that will become the dominant path for most innovators and entrepreneurs, especially those building information products.