Digital terrifies legacy companies. Digital terrifies new companies.
The story of Kodak is well known. Kodak was a market leader, an innovator and the pioneer in camera and consumerization before we coined the term 40 years ago. Kodak invented the 1st digital camera in 1975. The first digital Kodak camera, could take photos a 10,000 pixels, or 0.01 megapixels, which is about a hundredth of the resolution that low end camera phones have today. Kodak shelved their innovation, it didn’t sell. It wasn’t until 1995 when their digital camera was re-introduced into the market (Pachel, 2012).
Kodak was a market first in photo sharing with the 1st Wi-Fi enabled camera in 2005. The staples of photo sharing today were not invented. SnapChat was founded in mid-2014, FlipBoard in 2010 and Instagram in 2010. After the 2005 Kodak photo sharing camera launch was not successful, too bulky with a user interface that was difficult to navigate, Kodak canceled this product. Photo sharing would later become the largest social engagement market in the world. How did Kodak lose this potential market? Were they ever a contender?
Kodak looked at digital photo frames next. If you have seen a demo of these early photo frames, they were not pretty. The Kodak technology barely worked and the photo frames were tightly coupled to their in store photo services. Kodak also lost this market.
Kodak, a pioneer created the environment for innovation. Kodak innovated products years before competitors. What went dreadfully wrong? Kodak was unable to build engagement of their vision. They thought digital was going somewhere, but didn’t believe enough to commit to their vision. Strategy and execution are the same! Without execution you have no strategy.
The Connecticut Health Insurance Exchange took a different approach. Leadership believed in mobile enrollment for health coverage. We believed this could change lives for the better and transform the entire healthcare industry! We didn’t think this was the case, we truly 100% believed this would happen. We wanted to have a leading part in helping consumers get the healthcare they deserve and desperately need, at their convenience.
One month after Open Enrollment 2014 (Oct, 1, 2013), we started building the vision of full enrollment in healthcare coverage through a mobile device. To say this was not well received would be a gross understatement. There was not a single healthcare payer (private or public) that was offering a fully healthcare enrollment using a mobile device. That’s correct, not a single organization. As of this post the Connecticut Exchange is still the only organization that provides the ability to enroll in a health plan 100% on a mobile phone.
We knew our brand was defined as an integrated customer experience. Today, 90% of all American adults have a cell phone, 58% of adults have a smartphone and 42% of American adults own a tablet computer. Looking only at the 19-29 age group over 83% have a smartphone and 49% have smartphones ages 50-64. Those numbers 3 years ago were in the 20’s and 30% (PRC, 2014). We believed and aligned our teams for success.
Innovation drives a seamless customer experience and a seamless customer experience builds loyal customers. Be agile and move into the gaps where others aren’t serving customers. Don’t be afraid to commit and take smart risks. Looking at the history of disruptions there is no safety: Sony Walkman to iPod, Blockbuster to Netflix, VCRs to TiVo (DVRs), BlackBerry to iPhone, and Primary Care Physicians to CVS MinuteClinics. As a leader you have duty to innovate for your company and your organization. Not innovating means putting the future of your employees and their families at risk. Never ask permission to innovate.
Playing it safe–isn’t safe and even then you still need to believe in your vision.
References:
Pachal, P. (2012). How kodak squandered every single digital opportunity it had. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2012/01/20/kodak-digital-missteps/
Pew Research Center (PRC). (2014). Mobile technology fact sheet. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/mobile-technology-fact-sheet/