How I do it

At the cost of billions of dollars, many investors and start-ups are learning that applying Bricks and Mortar business methods will not work with e-Business. e-Business operates almost entirely at the edge of chaos. In this environment, conventional planning is next to useless.

Essentially there can be no gap between a customer's needs today and delivering the service or product. The risks of trying to anticipate customer needs in the future increase exponentially with the size of the time gap. If I don't have a profitable customer today, the chances are that I won't have one in the future. The target will continue to move and I will probably fail to hit it.

That means that I have to be in the market operating profitably today and my only chances of success depend on my ability to spread my risks and to adapt or re-invent my services to meet customers´ changing needs.

The quality of my relationship with the customer then becomes paramount, to the point where my customer has become a co-creator of the service.

To maintain this flexibility and adaptability, the core expertise in the business may need to change frequently. In this environment the "doughnut principle" proclaimed by Charles Handy where the organization consists of a small core of people and a collection of stringers or portfolio workers in the space around the core no longer works. The reverse is now true: the core of the organization needs to include the best possible expertise as and when it is needed. These are likely to be portfolio workers, offering their services to a number of organizations simultaneously.

These are the experts that can be brought in as required as part of our collaborative services.