Alchemy

Today at the zoom-sent class, we talked about how different companies collect ideas, analyze them and possibly adopt an idea to make a project out of it. That is an interesting topic. I have been working at smaller companies for many years, and dropping an idea at a smaller company is often nothing formal. But over the years, the realization that that is not always an advantage has hit me. The person receiving the idea has to be interested enough to take the time to listen, have an attentionspan to go with it and have the capability to understand the suggestion and its implications. This has become even more hard with digitalization in my opinion.

The digitalization of society and companies has lead to a, in many cases, more complex reality. Data has become part of the value between customers and a supplier, it is said to be the “new gold” after all. Data is the basis for new product ideas which is one of the reasons it has become increasingly important to keep safe.

The “smarter” a product becomes, integrating sensors and monitoring etc, the more likely it is for a company to not be able pull of the making of new product by itself. The need for partnerships arises. Security also becomes important, both internally in companies and between companies when they open up for partnerships. So security of data is one challenge when it comes to digital business development.

Another of the challenges is a lack of skills or capability. More IT-trained people, more interdisciplinary skills are needed to connect companies and technologies. Of course, knowledge in digital business development is needed to know how to compete in a market today with the digital possibilities and what pitfalls there are.

These challenges makes it harder to pitch an idea to a company. The person pitching the idea, no matter size of the company or the method of doing it, has to be able to truly depict the idea to the receiver in order to be properly understood. And the receiver/receivers has to have a complex and broad understanding of it business as well as digital possibilities and be willing to “fill in the gaps” in a positive way if the idea is merely a frame.

I think that when it comes to the possibilities of digital transformation, we have only begun to scratch the surface when it comes to reinventing or thinking completely differently in order to be able to deliver new products or services. There are enormous opportunities still out there. Keep panning for gold!