Boost your digitalization: horizons model

One of the most common questions I get when discussing the digitalization of an industry and a company operating in that industry concerns resources. The typical reasoning goes along the lines of agreeing that it’s relevant and important to explore digital solutions for the company, but that unfortunately, no resources are available to allocate to this. The current business or businesses are consuming all the resources in the company and it’s impossible to free up anyone to work on innovation.

The fundamental misconception is that it’s reasonable for the current, dominant revenue generator to consume all the resources available in the company. Often the argument is used that this business is the one generating all the revenue and, consequently, it can and should consume all the resources as well. The advocates of this often forget that today’s cash cow once was an early-stage innovation that was kept alive even though revenue was highly limited, if not non-existent.