Dan Bieler

(with Pascal Matzke and Michael Glenn) Customer expectations are rising too quickly for traditional models of incremental improvement; companies need to find a strategy to harness disruptive technologies that balances iterative solutions with fearless, flexible innovation. Many company leaders have been swept up in the sex appeal surrounding the term “innovation,” claiming proficiency without any […]

Alibaba has become one of the world’s most fascinating and cutting-edge technology businesses — and is key to understanding where the digital era is heading.

Businesses turn to innovation consulting services vendors to strengthen their own innovation capabilities. These businesses want to strengthen their own competencies to drive sustainable innovation over the longer term.

Securing executive buy-in for any digital investment requires a detailed and carefully articulated business case. The case for investment in digital track and trace solutions serves as an example for any CIO looking to get backing for an internet of things (IoT) project. As with IoT, track and trace solutions require committed information sharing and […]

Telefónica hosted its Industry Analyst & Customer Days in Madrid recently. In our view, Telefónica is emerging as a leading global telco. Of course, digital natives like Alibaba, AWS, Google, and Tencent continue to capture the customer attention. Yet, the example of Telefónica indicates that traditional firms can effectively tackle digital transformation. Against these considerations, our […]

Since our last major strategic reassessment of the telecoms landscape in 2011, digital transformation has further raised the need for change of the telco business model. Our key observation still holds true: The traditional connectivity-centric business model will work only for few telcos with a low-cost base. The biggest challenge facing the other telcos is […]

Huawei hosted its annual Analyst Summit in Shenzhen, China, recently. As in 2016, Huawei reported strong financial growth in 2017. Revenues were up 16%, EBIT by 19%, and cash flow from operations by 96%. Revenue growth was driven primarily by the consumer and enterprise divisions, up by 32% and 35%, respectively, while the carrier division […]

Successful organizations innovate and differentiate by boosting diversity and inclusion. Diversity is too often an overused phrase and covers many facets of diversity. We think that diversity above all should be about the ability and the courage to communicate “contrarian” thoughts. This ability and courage allows organizations to create an environment where all employees feel […]

Your current market position is no guarantee for transforming into a successful digital business. To enhance their innovation capabilities and boost the necessary culture change, many traditional businesses are looking to startups as one option to drive service differentiation. Transformative innovation supports the shift toward a customer-obsessed strategy. But transformative innovation requires a different innovation culture. […]

Now that the dust has settled from Mobile World Congress 2018, it is possible to get a better feel which mobility themes will set the tone for the coming year of mobility. These observations are of course subjective; they only reflect my observations over three days at the world’s leading mobility event. To start, the […]

Building the business case for your digital investment is hard, so you need to drill into the specifics of any given process you intend to digitize. Digital track-and-trace solutions contribute to ROI in many different ways. The main strategic reasons for using them are: More effective risk management. Many countries are putting in place regulations […]

Transformative digital investments tend to play out over the long term and have broad implications for business processes across the entire value chain. This is where more accurate ROI calculations become critical, as: Your organization’s digital investments need to reflect its vision. Your organization’s vision forms the guiding light for developing the right investment strategy […]

Data management and data rights sharing are critical aspects of the IoT ecosystem debate. For businesses, Industry 4.0 is a new way to think about data across processes. Industry 4.0 is about real-time process integration with digital technology, “intelligence anywhere,” and distributed intelligence. In the B2B context, Industry 4.0 is about end-to-end transparency across the […]

Discussions about the promise of 5G networks are getting more excited. 5G is set to open new doors for enterprises to deploy IoT-enabled use cases that require high bandwidth, ultra-low latency, and differentiated service characteristics. Even so, 5G is not the only network technology for IoT solutions. Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT), LoRaWAN, Sigfox, and LTE-Advanced are […]

At the core of all ROI calculations are costs and benefits. However, there is no single catchall equation that allows your organization to calculate the ROI from digital investments. Benefits from digital investments need to be aligned with the business requirements for a specific value chain stage. Hence, these benefits are tied to usage scenarios […]

Web Summit 2017 took place from November 7 to 9 in Lisbon. It can come across as a chaotic event without any clear direction, and, as at last year’s Web Summit, there was no single overarching theme. But this is its very strength. Web Summit throws an extremely wide spectrum of topics at you. It […]

In the age of the customer, companies need fast access to scalable expertise, transparent costs, and agility in order to quickly adjust customer experiences to changing requirements. Community-based business models are gaining momentum as companies aim to intensify their customer engagement activities with relevant and great customer experiences. Originally, most online community-based models, such as […]

Digitalization forces you to transform your approach to innovation. For the last 20 years, our economies have been moving from “atoms” to “bits,” to use Nicholas Negroponte’s definition of “being digital”. In this digital environment, traditional R&D-driven approaches to innovation are beginning to fail. A key reason for the failure of traditional approaches to deal […]

Orange Business Services (OBS) hosted its analyst event in Paris in July 2017. The event’s theme was “Digital Business: Joining The Dots”. OBS highlighted its emerging digital service offerings as well as the progress it is making regarding its own digital business transformation. OBS’ CEO Thierry Bonhomme summed up the strategic direction when he observed: […]