With all the disruption (digital and otherwise) going on, companies are looking to retain and reward executives who can help them stay ahead of the game. And it is clear that business models, even the very successful ones, do not last as long as they used to. It is about having the courage to challenge the status quo and seeking to fix things that ain’t broken yet, whether the purpose is to take advantage of tech developments, to solve pain-points of existing customers or to target non-customers. Exploring new business models — especially those that might disrupt what is currently a company’s core business— requires a different set of skills, resources and temperament than do innovation efforts to improve the competitiveness of the core business. While business model innovation may not sound as cool, it has been proven that it is as important, perhaps more important, than product or service innovation. And it is a discipline and skill that can be learnt.

Thanks to MIA (special thanks to G. Shanmugam & Jenny Gong), I had the opportunity to conceptualize and deliver a 2-day workshop on “Challenging the Status Quo Business Model” in Kuala Lumpur on 13-14 March 2017.

We looked at case studies from Companies around the world and from Malaysia – those that have embraced disruption and been good at innovating business models vs. those that failed to do so & have fallen by the way-side. I was able to offer my own experience in successfully innovating business models for my employers.

Amongst several things, we worked on

(1) how to think more expansively about value proposition – not just customer but also firm value proposition and partner value proposition – remember Napster had ignored the partner value proposition

(2) how to align business models and organization structure to its core purpose and values 

(3) why it is not enough to be disruptive alone but has to be sustainable as well

(4) why today’s success is often the enemy of tomorrow’s success and what incumbents can/should do to think big and innovate even as they keep executing on current core business

(5) framework and process for business model innovation – how to be ideating, designing, testing, quickly learning (including accepting failures as a learning op) and iterating, and then having a practical focus on executing well.

A special thanks to the participants who stayed engaged through out, asked questions and responded well to the curveballs I threw them from time to time. I learnt from them too.