Infographic by Dennis Michael Dimos

A value roadmap can provide a number of sustainable benefits inside the company that invests in the effort.

1. The capabilities section of the value roadmap showcases the gaps between what the roadmap says is needed and what the company can actually provide. The gap analysis showcases exactly where the company needs to improve its own capabilities in terms of people, process, solutions, and services.
2. The gap analysis becomes a decision tree for what, when and how a company needs to fill the gaps. It sets up decisions that need to be made regarding
   1. Priorities
   2. Timing
   3. Investments
   4. Methodology – build, buy or partner
3. The effort to develop the value roadmap can motivate a company. Let’s face it. The work is highly strategic. It’s about creating an innovative yet functional form of intellectual property that can help catapult the company to category leadership. It represents a significant value opportunity, and everyone involved knows it.
4. The roadmap team is a reflection of how powerful a company can be when it aligns its critical assets. The construction of a value roadmap requires the active participation of a cross-functional team from Product Management, Sales, Services, and Marketing. Input in = input out. Smart, committed people supported by executive sponsors will produce a really good result.
5. The roadmap identifies what each department needs to do
   1. Product Management needs to fill gaps in the product portfolio while continually improving existing products that are core to what’s needed
   2. Services can elevate its game from simply supporting customers to strategically guiding customers through a new consulting practice
   3. Marketing must leverage the thought leadership value of the roadmap, first with influencers like analysts and the media, then as a vehicle to drive higher value engagements with customers and prospects
   4. Sales needs to be trained on how to leverage the roadmap content in two ways: to create a new narrative with current customers; and to be able to have a credible conversation with senior executives who heretofore have eluded the company’s reach
6. The content of the roadmap can be repurposed into other thought leadership forms, such as keynote addresses, Point-of-View booklets, executive seminars, workshops, articles, and the like. For one company, we even formed a partnership with a top business school to create an executive education series off of the content of the roadmap. We received money (nice), valuable input (good), access to executives (really good), and the pedigree of partnering with a leading institution (invaluable).

As you have seen in these posts, a value roadmap is a highly worthy endeavor for those companies looking to lead a changing or emerging category. It has clear and sustainable benefits within the marketplace and within the company doing it.

But, it’s not easy. Not in the least. To be successful you have to be willing to commit to the hard work of doing it properly. Here are some tips.

– You have to stay firm with a skeptical sales force used to selling from demos

– You have to test the content of the roadmap as it’s forming with real customers in real sales situations as often as you can

– And, you have to be willing to take to heart what one of my executive partners in one of these efforts said when he admonished a Services team for not fully committing to the roadmap as it was forming. He said, “Get with the (expletive) program! If you’re not on the roadmap you’re off strategy!!!”

That was … and very much is … the point. A value roadmap is the strategy that can make all the difference. It has for the many companies with whom I’ve done this. It certainly did for the company and executive in the above story. Now, 10 years later, the company is leveraging version 6 of their roadmap as the clear leader of their market space. And that passionate executive is the CEO/President of the company!

Thomas Butta

Much is written about value. Even more is said about it. Value just might be the most overused word in business today.

At the organization level, we hear about customer value, shareholder value, and enterprise value. At the department level, Product Management wants its products to be perceived as good value not high cost. Sales wants to sell from value rather than feature/functions. And, Marketing is measured on the value of leads and brand equity.

Even support departments like Finance, IT and HR strive for value. Finance wants positive returns of value for capital deployed. IT must demonstrate value to its business unit customers. And, HR strives for a culture that recognizes the value of individuals.

If value is so important, why is there a dearth of proven ways to create and capture value in a given market space? A clear path to value would seem to be critical at a time when competitive differentiation is short-lived and the rate of change has accelerated.

My experience shows there is little content out there to help an enterprise know how to truly identify and realize top and/or bottom line value in their market. Which is enormously frustrating to client-side executives looking for clarity amidst the noise created by multitudes of companies touting their particular solution sets.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be shown the way to value rather than sold solutions? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a roadmap from a trusted advisor to guide your way to value — especially in a market that’s undergoing rapid change? You bet it would.

So what is there to do? Rise above the noise. Stop selling your stuff, and start making sense of the madness. Become a thought leader for your industry. Develop a value roadmap that shows the way to create and capture value in your market space. It works. I’ve helped architect a number of value roadmaps for companies in emerging or changing industries like PLM (product lifecycle management), Customer Experience Management, Digital Media, and Scientific R&D, among others.

What does a value roadmap look like? It’s a map that shows discrete routes to value along with specific advice on capabilities needed to capitalize on the journey. On the one hand you delineate the opportunities to create value. On the other you provide advice on the people, process, and technology needed to capture value. Simply put, a value roadmap shows where to go, how to go, and what’s needed to maximize value.

A road to value is organized by the following connected route and competencies:

More specifically, a value roadmap is comprised in the following ways:

–  Two measures of value. One is growth. The other is cost savings

–  Seven or eight discrete value opportunities. These are proven opportunities to create either top line growth or bottom line cost savings. One or two of the value opportunities might create both top and bottom line value

–  Two to four executing strategies for each value opportunity. These are the strategic imperatives that bring the value opportunities to life

–  Four to six business initiatives aligned to each strategy. These are the activities taking place deep inside an organization. Business initiatives are typically where most conversations start

–  Three sets of competencies in the form of people skills, process/workflow, and technology infrastructure needed to fully realize each value opportunity

Beyond the structure, it’s critical to know what a value roadmap is and isn’t.

A value roadmap is an overarching view of an industry for the benefit of everyone in that industry. As such, it is imperative to present a complete view of the capabilities and credentials needed.

A value roadmap is not a subset of just what your organization might be able to provide when it comes to knowledge transfer, process support or technology. The capabilities needed to fully leverage each value opportunity must be all encompassing.

Again, a value roadmap is an industry-leading effort. It is thought leadership at its best. And, unlike most thought leadership, a value roadmap is highly functional because it is actionable and real.

A value roadmap has clear and immediate benefits to any company operating in your market space. But, it also represents a significant opportunity for the company that publishes it and leverages it. Look for more on that in my next post, The Road to Value, part 2.

Note: If you like this post, you might want to check out another of my posts called Noise. It’s an example of how a value roadmap shifted an entire industry and helped position the company that brought it to market as that industry’s leader.

Thomas Butta

Do you ever wonder about motivation?

Now  is certainly the time of year when many of us reflect on where where we’ve been and where we’re going.  Reflection is good, after all. But, do you ever consider why you’re motivated to do certain things? Do you wonder what’s driving you?

When I look at my friends I see a group of highly motivated people.  Some are starting something new — most with nothing more than the desire to bring an idea to life. Others are working in established organizations — usually stimulated by what remains possible despite good success under their belts. Others are on a personal journey — off the grid to explore what’s in front of them for no other reason than the belief that something valuable will emerge if they pay close enough attention.

While we are all motivated to do or be something that’s personally valuable, we are also likely to be stimulated in different ways and for different reasons. It could be the need to be accepted or to prove someone wrong. It could be about expectations or fear. It could be blind ambition or fundamental survival. Regardless, we can be motivated by anything.

Do you know why you’re motivated to do certain things? Does it enter your mind when you take on an assignment, embark on a new project, or simply go forward? Do you think about it or does it just happen?

I wonder about motivation. Do you?

Thomas Butta

Activation and action are key.

By Roger Ehrenberg
Roger Ehrenberg is the founder and Managing Partner of IA Ventures.

Throughout my business career, I’ve observed that people love to label current fashions. “Web 2.0,” “Cloud” and “Social” are three which are currently in vogue. In my lifetime likely none was bigger than “.com,” describing a business and its recognition of the importance of the Internet. Remember when long-established businesses would change their names by adding a .com extension, only to receive a salutary stock market reaction? This was an equity market story that was destined to have an unhappy ending, from which the public markets still have yet to fully recover. Needless to say, the Internet has changed billions of lives in positive ways too numerous to mention, but those benefits didn’t come from labels, stickers or launch parties. They emerged from businesses new and old building and re-positioning their strategies to harness the Web’s true power, and to engage with customers in more and better ways than was previously possible. Nobody gratuitously adds .com to their names any more, and as far as I know I haven’t heard anyone refer to an Internet-based business as a .com for at least five years. That said, I’m beginning to detect a similar phenomenon in companies touting a characteristic particularly close to my heart: the use of “data” to describe a value inherent in the business. And in many if not most cases, it’s not true and I’m not buying.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that data is everywhere, and that it is growing exponentially across virtually every dimension: bigger, faster, deeper – and perhaps even more messy. Every business uses and generates data, but this doesn’t begin to capture what it means to be a data-driven enterprise or where data is viewed as a discrete asset and treated as such. It is a fundamental issue of strategy and culture, and the mere presence of data is not itself an indicator of having deep and relevant data DNA. “Hey, our business generates a lot of data, BIG DATA” is a phrase I hear frequently which I assume is supposed to get me excited. It doesn’t. “Hey, we’ve got this thesis that as our business scales we’re going to build a monster data asset that can better help us attract, retain and monetize happy customers. It will help us create competitive barriers and we’re planning for this from Day 1. We’ve shared some early data with a data-hacker buddy and feel this is a promising avenue for building company value.” Hey now, NOW you’ve got my attention.

There is a world of difference between the mere presence of data (say, an inert corpus of data accumulated from customer transactions) and its activation (putting that same data in a form that can be analyzed in real-time to provide intelligence about trends, pricing, feature attributes, etc. and classified and stored in a way that subjects itself well for future analysis). The data-driven enterprise will embody the notion of creating and leveraging its data asset in everything it does, and will use it to drive current and future decision-making, not merely retrospective analysis. There isn’t some checklist to determine if a business has a deep data culture or not; believe me, if you are one you know it. And if you toss around labels that sound good but ring hollow as there isn’t a bridge between headline and application, then, well, you probably lack the culture I’m describing.

There isn’t anything wrong with not being a data-driven enterprise. I mean, we all can’t be data-driven, can we? Well… I take that back. There is something wrong if a business isn’t data-driven in some way. Online or offline, it doesn’t matter. Commerce generates data. Businesses need to learn from and leverage data to remain competitive and grow. Whether you operate a barber shop, an enterprise software business or sell virtual goods online you have the potential for creating a valuable data asset. But I’m here to ask you a simple question: “Where’s the beef?” Because without it don’t talk about it: just get it. It’s never too late to adapt but it requires core cultural change, and half-hearted efforts simply won’t work. Just as building an online culture has been critical for all businesses to compete in the 2000s, building a data culture has become an essential element for success in the 2010s and beyond.

Read Original Post >

We just passed a milestone that should have been a thunderclap heard round the world. Instead, it slipped past with barely a whisper.

This May 25 was the semicentennial of a great moment in history. In his 1961 “Special Message to the Congress on Urgent Needs,” a young president painted an insanely bold picture of our future in the language of a dare: We’ll put a man on the moon and get him back safely—within the decade.

The truly crazy thing, of course, is that we did.

What JFK employed there was what I call futureview, and right now it may be our most pressing national challenge.

Futureview is your ability to project yourself into the future and then look back at your present position from that future point of view. Futureview is not the same thing as a goal, plan, ambition, or aspiration. It is not something you hope for or try for. When Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and spoke to a great people about their greater future, he didn’t say, “I have a plan.”

Futureview is the picture you hold, for better or for worse, of what you expect and believe about your future.

How you view the future shapes how you act in the present; how you act in the present shapes your future. Your futureview determines the future you.

My concern is that for many Americans today, the futureview is bleak.

In India and China, the prevailing futureview is positive. Young and old alike are actually excited about their future. The atmosphere crackles with an optimistic, can-do energy.

Visit the airport in Beijing and ride the train that transports passengers from terminal to terminal. On its walls you’ll see posters highlighting Chinese entrepreneurs, their dreams and accomplishments. Get off the train and into the city: everywhere you look, you’ll see evidence of seemingly impossible ideas becoming reality. Dreams are everywhere.

The result? These people are moving forward, proactively building their future. They see a bright tomorrow. So they’re creating it.

And here in the U.S.? The American futureview is mostly negative, filled with apprehension and fear. This is the first generation of parents since World War II who do not believe their children will have a better, richer life than they did.

Making the Impossible Possible

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to converse with Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon. He said that in the years following Kennedy’s articulation of that goal, NASA engineers would periodically hit a major roadblock and declare the goal impossible.

Each and every time, the response from those in charge was the same: “We’re going to the moon.”

So the engineers would go back to their benches with a renewed determination to do the impossible. Every time they hit a snag, that unshakable futureview held them to their task.

“They kept solving those unsolvable problems,” Armstrong added, “until one day, there I was—walking the lunar surface.”

And here we are, fifty years later. Who is standing up to paint us an insanely bold picture of our future? Who is calling out that impossible dare, naming it so we can all go about the great work of achieving it?

So far, the answer is, “nobody.” Everyone seems too busy casting blame and keeping their eyes glued to the problems.

Here’s the good news: the potential for real innovation, growth, and new prosperity in the United States is vastly greater than the prevailing futureview suggests. We are in a time of massive, technology-driven, transformational change, pregnant with opportunity. Realize it or not, we have an unprecedented ability to create new products, new services, new markets, and new careers — provided we exercise the futureview it takes to see them.

If we don’t, they will remain invisible. And you can’t build what you can’t see.

The problems we face today are not economic or technical in nature. They are largely in our minds. We need to take a fresh, close look at what it is we’re looking at.

The sooner we start looking at the extraordinary opportunities before us and seeing a picture so insanely bold that we feel compelled to reach for it, the sooner we can get about the business of seizing those opportunities and transforming our society—for generations to come.

Daniel Burrus is considered one of the world’s leading technology forecasters and business strategists, and is the founder and CEO of Burrus Research, a research and consulting firm that monitors global advancements in technology driven trends to help clients better understand how technological, social and business forces are converging to create enormous, untapped opportunities. He is the author of six books, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal best seller Flash Foresight: How To See the Invisible and Do the Impossible as well as the highly acclaimed Technotrends. For more information, please visit: www.burrus.com.

A good fit is something that matches your specifications. Fundamentally, it’s where demand meets supply.

The clothing and shoe industries do a great job of enabling a good fit. They each provide a variety of styles in multiple sizes to match what you might be looking for. And if the fit isn’t perfect, your local tailor or shoe repairman can make adjustments.

The same is true with restaurants that provide a broad menu to fit your taste. They serve hot or cold starters, main courses of meat, fish, or vegetarian, different starches. And if the preparation isn’t to your liking, it can likely be made to the way you prefer.

Now, what about a good fit like when it comes to matching a potential employee or consultant to a hiring company? How well does that work? Not as well in many cases. Why is that?

For one thing, supply isn’t as abundant.

Second, demand can be quite demanding, perhaps unreasonably so.

Third, humans aren’t made from molds or recipes. We’re unique.

Think about what happens when a hiring company meets a really good candidate who matches nearly all of its criteria. Rather than move in to secure and support that near-perfect candidate with everything needed to be successful, the company lets the person dangle while it continues to look for the ‘rock star’ or ‘supermodel’ candidate.

Now what if you’re the near-perfect candidate? The company fits most of what you’re looking for, but its process leaves a lot to be desired. It runs hot and cold with inconsistent feedback. Is that an indication of the company’s culture or perhaps what decision-making will be like? Probably so. Your interest level wanes.

What do we do with this common dance between companies and candidates?

Accept reality. There is no such thing as a perfect fit when it comes to hiring.

Go for it. Be decisive, clear and completely committed to success. That’s what makes most every relationship a good fit.

The alternative is risky. Every day you continue to look for perfection is another day you’ve allowed the market to encroach on your space and impede your agenda.