Abracadabra" - is this enough to make a digital transformation?

For „One Thousand and One Nights”, Scheherazade told her husband, Sultan Shahriar, a story every night to avoid being executed. At first, the sultan didn't want to listen to the stories, but he liked them so much that he came to his wife every night to hear a tale. Wise Scheherazade would tell it until dawn, but she would finish the story at the most crucial moment to encourage her husband to visit her chamber the next day. This text may seem to be about how the market constantly keeps our curiosity alive, kindles hope, allows us to dream of great adventures, and possible achievements, and causes businesses to identify with the hero who, despite failures, achieves success despite adversity. And it could be, because every success story essentially has the same script. What's more, as I read articles about the history of brands or the achievements of our times, the pattern is the same. But this text will not be about that. It will be about the tools that the heroes of these stories possess. Or, more precisely, about one magical tool - knowledge. If we delve into the volumes of the „One Thousand and One Nights” tales, its characters, unaware of anything, discover a magical spell - "abracadabra", "open sesame", or accidentally rub a lamp from which a Genie emerges to fulfill the lamp owner's wishes. Then miracles happen - thanks to the knowledge and great power, the lamp's owner becomes rich, the one who knew the secret password to the treasury is wealthy and happy, and of course, in the end, marries the princess. In today's stories about innovative companies that achieve success, two essential threads are visible. How reminiscent these are of Scheherazade's wonderful stories.

1. The first is the discovery of a secret, magical knowledge, hidden in data. We have plenty of it, and it is rapidly increasing. For over 10 years, people have been talking about Big Data and its potential for increasing productivity or generating new revenue. And it's true. Only a few companies can convert data into information, and then into knowledge that gives a competitive advantage or simply generates income. These magical transformations using artificial intelligence (both advanced analytics and machine learning) are becoming the basis of the growing trend called data monetization. I spoke about this potential a few years ago and described it in my book "SPEED no limits in the digital era."
2. The second thread is introducing a new business model in place of the old one or fundamentally modifying it. Examples of companies transforming from failing or at least stagnating businesses into sector sharks are multiplying. They have crushed the traditional way of doing business and introduced disruptive changes to business models - they no longer sell tapes, they sell access to platforms. Instead of focusing on the product, they focus on the customer and their needs.

And here is where the knowledge from the tales of the 10th century comes to our aid. Indeed, we speak of success when we simultaneously implement technology (in our case, data monetization) and change the business model. Aladdin finds the lamp alone does nothing for him. Only when he rubs it and summons the genie who fulfills his wishes does it change his situation and bring him wealth and happiness. I meet many clients who ask for the implementation of modern technologies. They ask how to monetize data. However, few of them, if any, see the full picture and, most importantly, are capable of changing the model of operation or revolutionizing it. One might think it obvious that when talking about transformation, we mean the introduction of technological changes and business changes. But that's not the case. Many transformations fail because there's a lack of changes in the organization's culture (or these changes were not considered when creating the strategy), the difficulty of changing the values upon which the organization is based was underestimated - and I'm not talking about ethical values here, but business ones. After all, who would want to change a model where one sold their product for a million dollars once, and now we encourage to earn one dollar from two million transactions? We must remember that just like in the „One Thousand and One Nights” tales, the "enemy" changes before a transforming organization. Over all these years, we got to know him well and knew how to control and fight him. And now a super character, cunning and unknown, appears. It takes on various forms, is cunning and has powerful abilities. This is like competition in these dynamic times. The customer is not loyal, the regulator can be surprised, and in the end, a crisis and inflation appear. Scheherazade didn't finish her stories, causing her husband to be curious about what would happen the next night. Did you know that one of the strongest mechanisms of successful data monetization and new business models in the digital world is dynamic asymmetry of information? But more on that in the next story.Good night.