Plan To Replace Every System, Every Process and Every Product

The great management guru Peter Drucker said, ‘Every organisation must prepare for the abandonment of everything it does.’  What did he mean?  Think about your company today.  Now think about what it might look like in ten years time.  If it has survived then nearly everything about it will have changed – in particular the products, the services, the methods, the processes and the business model.  That is the inevitable outcome of the march of technology and competition.  So why wait for the future to overtake you?  Anticipate the trend and identify what needs to be replaced.

Most companies do this with their products.  They have a development road map.  It shows how the main sources of product revenue today will be replaced by new products – enhancements, replacements or radical diversions into new areas.  Few companies do this with their systems, methods and work practices.

List all your current systems – in accounting, customer records, planning, marketing, sales, development etc.  Knowing that they will have to be replaced sooner or later ask yourself – which of these can we replace with something that will give us a real competitive advantage?  How can we harness the latest technologies and thinking to leapfrog the competition?

It is silly to replace sound systems just for the sake of change.  But eventually all systems run out of steam.  The objective for which they were originally designed has changed.  They are no longer well suited for the new purposes of the business.  We are patching and adapting them to make do.  Prioritise which systems you are going to change this year and next year.  Keep doing this and you will keep the blade sharpened.  The process of innovation involves abandonment and renewal.  Plan them both.

This is an excerpt from The Innovative Leader by Paul Sloane published by Kogan Page.

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This post was previously published on Destination Innovation.

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