Right-Time Experiences: Driving Revenue with Mobile and Big Data

Chapter 2Marching Backwards into the Future

Industry leaders recognize that many of today's products and services don't meet current customer expectations for usability and personalization, but they don't know how to fix these issues. In many cases, doing something requires a substantial change, which is always difficult, and rapid change with an unknown outcome is even more prickly. As a result, many businesses hold on to previous business practices instead of seeking out new ways of doing things. “When faced with a totally new situation, we tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the flavor of the most recent past,” wrote Marshall McLuhan in The Medium Is the Message. “We look at the present through a rear view mirror. We march backwards into the future.”¹

In his book, The End of Business as Usual, Brian Solis called the evolution of consumer behavior, when society and technology evolve faster than the ability to adapt, “digital Darwinism.”² Many businesses are experiencing this phenomenon today. It's not that business leaders are dim-witted and don't recognize that change has transpired. Companies understand that mobile, social, big data, and cloud computing are changing the business landscape. The question is, how can a company profit from these transformations?

In many cases, the required business transition forces a company to cannibalize an existing profitable business in favor of a model that initially offers lower sales or profits, or both. For example, many ...