Digital Operating Model

CHAPTER 9Outsmarting the Competition

A business platform modeled after the shopping mall helps companies quickly capitalize on market share.

Today's consumer behaviors are changing faster than ever, creating new opportunities and threats in the process. Those companies with their houses in order—their business platforms on track—can proactively meet these demands and challenges faster and will come away the market-share winners.

Platforms offer the necessary agility for swift changes as markets dictate. They also foster the platform effect—user numbers snowball as services increase and more users tap into the system. The bottom line is that DOM in motion can be the pathway to outsmart the competition.

Whitsons is a great example. As mentioned earlier, the company and its technology partner worked for more than three years to roll out their initial business platform, but only three months to roll out a subsequent enhanced product to meet changing market needs. That's the competitive power of the business platform.

DISRUPT OR BE DISRUPTED

History is full of stories of once hugely successful companies that failed to transform quickly enough and ended up extinct or nearly that way, says CP Jois, a longtime global CTO. Retailers Kmart and Sears once had stores everywhere; today they're down to a handful. The once-omnipresent Toys “R” Us is another brick-and-mortar stalwart that's disappeared—though more recently it's been reborn online.¹

Vine, an app enabling users to post ...