Gunjan Doshi

This year has been especially challenging. Now that we’ve crossed the 6-month mark and head into the winter, mental health becomes more important than ever. We’re still working remotely and unable to enjoy the same level of socializing with colleagues, friends and family that we’re accustomed to. Plain and simple – it’s not easy for anyone.

Here at InRhythm, we are committed to advocating against any social stigma associated with mental health. In fact, we’re aligning with the theme of this year’s World Mental Health Awareness Day, which is “greater investment – greater access.” This past Saturday, October 10, we welcomed the team to pause and reflect on how they’re truly feeling. I find it extremely important that they take the take the time to meditate and connect with the thoughts that are in their hearts and in their minds. 

We take this very seriously. If my team needs help, they will get help. And we’ll be with them every step of the way. 

The first step that we’re taking is to bring resources such as Headway, Headspace or Calm to their attention. Secondly, we advised them to take advantage of the internal resources, such workshops we will be hosting and Employee Assistance Programs that are readily available to them. Finally, I can never say thank my team enough. Everyone is doing their very best under extraordinarily challenging circumstances.

Each of us have different situations and varying needs. If you are not feeling quite like yourself – pause. Take a break and consider talking to a professional.

Know that there will always be someone here for you every step of the way.

I was recently invited to attend an Executive Education Series for a Global Leadership Community of Chief Executives with approximately 29,000 members in more than 130 countries. 

The sessions are conducted in partnership with a leading private technological university and place a heavy emphasis on Digital Transformation. 

This event was kicked-off by an alumnus of the university who introduced the Dean of the university’s Office of Digital Learning. This professor is an icon in his field, a renowned IoT expert and a distinguished professor of Mechanical Engineering at the university’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.

He was invited to talk about Innovation and IoT in the context of Digital Transformation and he was joined by three panelists who were members of the Leadership Community. 

To launch his presentation he asked the panel, if IoT was a technology, a platform or a solution and then introduced the concept of IoT as a design language.

To illustrate his point, he offered an analogy that compared the impact of the internet on business with the impact that electricity had on architects:

Without electricity, architects could use only windows as a source of light, instead of light bulbs, and steps instead of elevators. The invention of artificial light changed the language of the architect. Through this simple analogy the professor illustrated the need for business leaders to focus on “a rethinking of their business narrative.”

That rethinking is centered around an obsession with understanding what consumers really want. It also involves understanding how new technology can change the delivery of a product or service offering in this era of the experience economy. Again, he illustrated his point with a simple question:

“When people buy a drill, do they want a drill?” No, they want a hole!

Coming back to the world of IoT, he declared Uber as the ultimate IoT company with GPS sensors connected to the internet, your smartphone and the car. Other car companies thought consumers wanted a car and hadn’t obsessed enough with the question of what consumers really wanted. Unless you’re driving a Ferrari, which is obviously all about the driving experience, you are likely interested primarily in transportation. People are getting frustrated with parking, speeding tickets, insurance premiums, running out of petrol, skidding on ice, etc. and Uber exploited that insight.

Amazon rethought their business narrative numerous times. When they sold books, they knew it wasn’t about books, it was about access to content and information so they developed the Kindle. Then it wasn’t about the Kindle, it was about the e-reading technology service that they took to Apple, and the Kindle app transformed the business with the launch of the iPhone. Amazon didn’t stop there. They discovered that consumers’ need for reading may be a need for having a narrative in their ear and that insight created Audible and then Alexa.

The professor mentioned that Jeff Bezos (whom he knows personally) wanted to own the experience. Owning the experience requires “the peeling of the onion”, another analogy that refers to discovering the core, the consumer’s need, the stuff that people really want. The outer portion of the onion is the product not the experience.

“Did you really buy a CD because you wanted a CD or because you wanted to have the music on the CD play in your ear?”

Apple is successful because they have always changed their business narrative. From the iPod, to iTunes to the iPhone and the Apple watch – and they will change that narrative again when they launch Apple Glasses.

However, you don’t have to be Apple to change the narrative. Now is the time to really think about your ideas and consider them as being valid. Talk to a friend, get advice, consider it deeply. We’re in a time where things are changing massively and your idea might be totally relevant.

He continued his talk with more examples: “What does a door do?”

It keeps people out from getting inside and let’s you go outside from inside. But if you rethink the narrative of the business of a door, it also lets shipments come in, it lets your nanny or your dog walker come in and that insight created the smart door with a smart lock and a smart doorbell that allows you to do more with your standard door.

“What does a mattress do?”

It provides better sleep, more comfort, better refreshment the next day, etc. 

EightSleep exploited that and leaned on neuroscience research that indicated sleep was important to achieve those objectives. The fearless and creative mind of the inventor of the product was key to this.

Most people are unaware that Rolls Royce pioneered the concept of moving towards an experience economy where the needs of the customer is central, instead of the product. When they sold aircraft engines, their true interest was in a service economy where planes anywhere in the world could be serviced by dedicated Rolls Royce partners. They use a satellite system that recognizes when a plane lands in Boston, for example, and then connect the airplane for relevant service or maintenance with a service partner in the Boston area.

The professor provided more examples of service economy players such as Solar City (a service beyond solar panels) and then describes how a turnkey solution/offer creates high margins but also requires high investment. Exceptions are companies like Uber and Airbnb that have managed to offer turnkey solutions without the investment into tangible assets and people, which makes them particularly successful.

Amazon invested in the cloud as they recognized businesses’ need for computing, not computers.

Netflix produces great content because they constantly analyze viewer data and insights. Big data is becoming more important and with that privacy concerns rise. One way of addressing this is to create synthetic data whereby banks, for example, can create data sets from real transactions with all records being anonymous.

The power of the idea is the most important aspect and is the key to technological advancement. While new technologies used to land in sequence with one major ripple coming out of an invention, these days technological impact is exponential. It’s like a storm with rain drops falling on a still pond creating multiple and overlapping ripple effects. It’s the intersection of ripples where the exponentiation of technology takes place.

For example, the AI revolution comes from the technology overlap of neural networks that have existed since the 80s, and GPUs in gaming and the internet. Cell biology, genetics and chemistry has led to Crispr. Quantum computing is the combination of quantum mechanics and computing. Cryptography and distributed ledgers came together and created blockchain.

Electricity and motors existed for a long time but lithium batteries and railroad magnetic motors enabled the electric car revolution. Radar existed for a long time. As vision and computing took off, the three technologies overlapped to enable self driving cars.

These are all examples of intersecting circles. We’re in an era where the magic of technology is changing many things. This should encourage us to consider our ideas deeply. The professor recommends giving them a thought and discussing them with people.

The third aspect of today’s technological landscape is the growth of Jedis. These are founders of companies who have pioneered change. The so-called PayPal mafia who were people that initially worked and later left Paypal to create major innovation are an example of this. It shows that you can learn from one other and become a Jedi. Ideas and leadership are the difficult part, not the technology.

For example, Kiva Systems was invented by an inventor who had the vision that the product in the warehouse should come to the picker not the other way round. It was this idea of a different workflow that changed the game. The inventor sold the company to Amazon which is now rolling out the system across their warehouses nationwide under the name Amazon Robotics.

The fourth aspect is the great Covid acceleration that will likely create a “new abnormal” with Zoom Inc now worth more than all leading airlines combined.

Even without Covid, there would have been a new way of working that would have seen greater virtual activity.

The professor concluded his talk with five key takeaways:

1. Understand the need you are serving. What does your consumer really want? “The peeling of the onion.”
2. Constantly scan for other ways of serving that need. “A door is not just a door.”
3. Find a client that champions your new offering.
4. Prototype to quickly get to market. When Amazon launched the Kindle, Barnes and Noble responded quickly with the Nook but Borders didn’t and went out of business.
5. Be a Jedi!

The only thing that’s constant in this world is change. Our world has been moving towards an increasingly digital future but the coronavirus pandemic has proved to be a catalyst when it comes to our behavior surrounding payments. A survey conducted by the Electronic Payments Association and the Strawhecker Group reported that 27% of business owners reported a marked increase in contactless payments in late March¹.

This shift to digital payment methods has left a few consumers wary about the dependence on banking institutions. With the rise of contactless payments, merchants have been forced to account for increased costs. With fees as high as three percent, this puts a significant dent in profits.

It isn’t just merchants who are wary. Consumers often complain about the hassle of reversing charges and of the fear of hacks or unauthorized charges depleting their accounts. These fears are very real and in my opinion they present a huge opportunity for digital design teams. I’ve spent 20 years working with financial services firms developing digital products and the advances being made over the previous quarter have outstripped everything over the past decade.

Clearly, design teams have been jumping on this opportunity but there still remains a lot to be done. Consumers these days are increasingly familiar with digital payment options such as PayPal and Venmo but face challenges when paying for services such as hotel bookings, shopping purchases and so on².

Digital wallets are gaining ground but even their usage is challenged due to the dependence on the physical smartphone. There is a massive opportunity for a design solution that allows customers to seamlessly integrate all of their payments across devices, be it a smartphone, a smartwatch or even a digital banking application.

The underlying technology that makes such integrations possible are Application Programming Interfaces or APIs. These are the digital world’s connective tissue. Older digital solutions used to rely on companies owning the entire value chain associated with payments.

APIs make this a feature of the past. By plugging into a single link in the payments chain and by attaching their own solution to the larger chain using APIs, companies can provide their customers with better and more secure solutions. This ability to plug into an existing system allows companies to develop truly creative solutions since multiple combinations of blocks connected through APIs can deliver different solutions.

A common knock against digital payments is that people in less developed countries are unlikely to use them. Cash is still preferred in many parts of the world. However, the prevalence of digital solutions such as mVisa in Nigeria and PayTm in the Indian subcontinent indicate that digital solutions provide greater financial security and reduce the number of fraudulent transactions in the system.

The secret behind these solutions once again lies in the APIs they use. The cost effectiveness of such digital solutions helps merchants avoid spending large sums of money on Point of Sale systems. Compared to these costs, the fees paid for digital transactions are small.

Close on the heels of the usage of APIs is the move to the cloud in terms of infrastructure. Financial institutions currently rely on expensive I.T setups that draw focus away from service delivery. Leveraging the cloud expertise of SaaS providers is a key step to take in providing a better payment solution and is a huge area of opportunity.

Increasing the seamlessness in payments is where huge opportunities lie. Investing in great UX design will bring the largest returns on investment. While cash might not be entirely eliminated, this doesn’t mean it will occupy the lion’s share of payments. Companies that push digital transformation now stand to gain significantly. It’s time to adapt and grow stronger.

1: Coronavirus surge cashless mobile payments, The Inquirer

2: Consumer Desire and the future of Payments, Visa Blog

What an incredible honor. When I got the email last week from Inc. 5000 informing us that we had been awarded “The Fastest Growing Company” accolade, I had to pause for a moment and really let it sink in. 

InRhythm is already in the “Inc. 5000 Hall of Fame” as a recipient of this award – eight years in a row. Despite our past awards, this one feels different this year. It’s more special. And it stands out more than the others because 2020 has been such a challenging year for all of us in so many ways.

The award also offers us an opportunity to say thank you. These accolades and achievements would not be possible without tremendous contribution from so many people and the support of our customers. A sincere thank you to all of the InRhythm family including our customers and partners who stand behind us – and with us. Thank you.

We also hold deep gratitude for all the InRhythm alumni who have made this journey possible. We are also tremendously fortunate to have the staff that we do, both long-timers and our recent additions. One special mention is necessary: I want to dedicate this to Max Stevens, an InRhythmer who recently passed away. Our hearts go out to his family and we all miss him dearly.

There is so much to be proud of and even more to look forward to, together. Thank you, all of you, this award is for YOU and is because of YOU.

Gunjan

Last week, the WSJ published an article “The Dimming of GE’s Bold Digital Dreams’ that delivered fascinating insights into what went wrong with the company’s plan to transform itself into a software powerhouse.

The piece resonated with me since I have structured our business and service offerings in Enterprise Transformation to help companies prevent what happened to GE Digital.

Here is a short overview of the issues that were highlighted in the article and our approach to address these with our clients’ digital transformation journey.

Issue 1: GE didn’t assess the probability of a realistic transformation  

In 2014, GE’s CEO Jeff Immelt correctly saw that in order to survive into the future, GE would need to transform itself from a company known for power plants, MRI machines and aircraft engines to a company that could dominate the industrial software and digital solutions space. He tasked a High Impact Innovation team to deliver a demonstration of apps and software that could be used across internal departments. There was just one problem: No one knew how to go about implementing Mr.Immelt’s vision.

Our approach:

Mr. Immelt had the right intentions (to transform the company into a software powerhouse) but it didn’t seem that the desire for this digital transformation was rooted in customer needs or was assessed properly. When we take our clients on a Digital Transformation Journey, we start with a 6 week assessment, called Pulse.

By diving deeply into our clients’ current business operations and benchmarking against industry best practices, we uncover unrealized potential and opportunities early in the process. We identify the highest-impact changes to best increase capacity, and determine how to build on existing strengths, overcome current obstacles, increase efficiencies, and create high-performing teams. 

This vital step was seemingly skipped at GE Digital. 

Only at this stage can a company implement actionable solutions and realistic plans that tap into the full potential of the organization to get to where it needs to go.

Issue 2: GE pretended to have the necessary skill for being a ‘digital-industrial’ company

When the “High Impact Innovation Team” presented to Mr. Immelt, he liked it but it turned out the apps were flat design visuals with no working machine behind it and his Executive Leadership team had never assigned a budget to their Digital Transformation. Meanwhile, GE’s communications office was launching the company as the world’s first “digital-industrial” company in press releases. Revenues from digital solutions were forecasted at $15billion for 2020 and the company achieved $3.6b in 2016 largely from it’s own industrial units. That year, GE Digital was on track to spend $5b.

Our approach:

From immersive Boot Camps to Intellectual Training and Concentrated Coaching, we provide our clients with in-depth education to provide the skills that are necessary to embark on a Digital Transformation. A ‘more action, less lecture’ style provides a better understanding of fast-track agile adoption and accelerated product development that was clearly missing at GE.

Issue 3: GE inverted the usual industry model of engineering a single piece of software that can then be sold and resold

With no coherent strategy in place and a lack of well thought out processes, GE’s product development path was wasteful. Instead of charging a small team with developing the best product and then letting the operation grow with the product’s evolution, GE set up a huge organization that wasn’t quite needed yet. Problems increased when Mr. Immelt kept pushing for the initiative, while it became obvious that the software platform had no viable proposition, internal departments didn’t want to use it and even the sales force wasn’t sure how to pitch it. The desire to create a GE-owned and operated cloud was stopped by limited resources and time thanks to competition coming from Google, Oracle, Amazon and Microsoft. The software platform was slow and with the acquisition and integration of new companies and their tools, the software’s code became messy. After Mr. Immelt left in 2017, a new CEO took over,  was fired in 2018, and his successor Larry Culp sold a part of the business and named a new CEO to turn it around.

Our approach:

Committed to leveraging modern, agile best practices, GE Digital should have worked with small teams to deliver their software platform to market with the highest velocity. We work in iterative Design Sprints to understand, plan, design and test to rapidly create an MVP From here, clients can create a testing plan and establish future iterations built for scale. We call this Product Studio, where we build the best version of our client’s product from design to deployment in under 120 days.

This Was missing in that early 2014 meeting between Mr. Immelt and his “High Impact Innovation Team”.