AS WE MOVE INTO THE TEN PRINCIPLES FOR NETWORK ORCHESTRATION, we want to exhort you to consider what each principle has to offer your organization.
Many of these principles will come across as challenges—challenges to your business, your beliefs, and your values. And with challenges often comes resistance. Bringing new thinking to industry incumbents is notoriously hard. Many leaders struggle to see the possibilities, resist letting go of previously successful strategies (even if they are no longer effective), or tinker and tweak without generating any real change.
Instead, try to look at each principle as a lever that could propel you and your organization into a future with greater revenue, profit, growth, and value. You do not need to pull all the levers at once. Some will suit your team and your business immediately, while others might need to be saved for the future. Network orchestration is not one-size-fits-all, and each firm must navigate its own path. But, since the path is unclear, we offer these principles as distinct options to help you make, and track, forward progress on your transformation.
The ten principles are:
- Create digital capabilities
- Invest in intangible assets
- Actively allocate your capital
- Lead through co-creation
- Invite your customers to co-create
- Focus on subscriptions, not transactions
- Embrace the freelance movement
- Integrate big data
- Choose leaders who represent your customers
- Open your mind to new possibilities
Following each chapter, you can rate your organization on each of the ten principles using “The ten principles” chart.
These principles are based on themes we have observed in our work with companies of all business models. The principles can be applied individually, but they often apply to the entire organization—which is too much for most leaders to undertake all at once. For this reason, we designed the more detailed PIVOT process, covered in part III, which will help you create network orchestration on a smaller scale.
Remember the power of networks, and create one around you to help guide your company toward a more competitive and profitable future. To start, you could turn to a group of your peers, preferably those with some diversity in their thinking. Ask them to join you on this exciting journey.