Systems of Advantage

We all know of systems of record. Geoffrey Moore coined the term Systems of Engagement a few years ago to reflect growing social applications. It’s time to recognize systems of competitive/strategic advantage.

I wrote this in the Preface to The New Technology Elite last year

“I started my technology career in the 1980s when there was palpable excitement about technology providing strategic advantage. Then technology, IT in most companies, went into the woodshed for the next two decades. It focused on costs, controls, and compliance. It was not focused on competitive advantage. In fact, its costs and overruns made many companies uncompetitive.

Several years ago, that two-decades-old hope flickered again,
and as I wrote my last book, The New Polymath, I saw an amazing amount of technology-enabled innovation being planned. This book builds on that hope.”

My next book experience this summer shows such  systems have spread across countries and industries as companies embed technology in products, move to technology enabled business models, redefine distribution channels with technology.

Three trends come through.

a) These are multi-threaded initiatives. Insurance companies are leveraging advanced analytics, telematics, mobile tech and and. Banks are leveraging next-gen data centers, event engines and and. Manufacturers are leveraging robotics, 3D printing, M2M networks and and…Shippers and logistics companies are utilizing elaborate asset management and track and trace technologies and and…Auto companies leveraging telematics, radar, wireless technologies and and. You ask them about the Gartner nexus of forces – social, mobile, information, cloud - and they smile and say “keep going. And, and”

b) The advantage is fleeting.  Some features in  a $ 80,000 Mercedes show up in a few years in a $ 25,000 Skada or even in a $ 3,000 Tata Nano. So, the pace of Advantage systems has to be relentless. When you think in those terms, you see more clearly GM’s decision to cut back on a long term EDS relationship. You want to own the Advantage resources and you want them thinking 3-4 releases ahead.

c) How little analysts and bloggers write about this stuff. Robert Scoble explained it well in a post about the “underhyped” radar in his Toyota Prius. To paraphrase him, that’s because “Most tech journalists haven’t bought a new car in the past year”, “Safety systems just aren’t as “sexy” as other toys on cars””, “There aren’t big companies who are pushing the radar systems to bloggers”, “It’s hard to demo” ,“It’s expensive” 

If that’s true of a car feature, think how little analysts or bloggers write about turbines or locomotives.

But that does not mean Advantage systems are not being worked on. Across 3 books now I have seen the pace accelerate. More from the New Technology Elite:

“We live in exciting times. To some degree the current landscape is the throwback to the 1960s and 1970s, when we dreamed of competitive advantage through technology. Sabre, the American reservation system, and American Hospital Supply were spoken of fondly for changing their
industries.”