Knowledge Center: Pivot To The Future: Discovering Value And Creating Growth In A Disrupted World By Omar Abbosh, Paul Nunes & Larry Downes (Summary)

Pivot To The Future: Discovering Value And Creating Growth In A Disrupted World By Omar Abbosh, Paul Nunes & Larry Downes
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The Main Idea

Disruption is very much a way of life in every industry today. A multi-year research project carried out by Accenture on more than 3,000 companies showed that at any one time at least 63% of companies will be experiencing disruption, and that 44% of the companies in any marketplace are highly susceptible to future disruption.

So what is the best way to respond to ongoing marketplace disruptions? Ideally, you want to become a disruptor, not the disrupted. To do that, you're going to need to have the ability to pivot again and again:

The Old	Transform Your Core Business To Drive Up Investment Capacity
The Now	Grow Your Core Business To Provide Capital For Growth
The New	Scale New Businesses At Pace To Identify New Growth Area

If you can master the wise pivot and keep reinventing your business over and over, you're all set regardless of what happens in the future. To accelerate growth today and establish leadership in tomorrow's opportunities, you have to systematically balance and rebalance your investments in the Old, the Now and the New.

The only solution to continuous and potentially devastating change is constant reinvention, rearchitecting the business in a way that allowed us to pivot from one opportunity to the next, quickly and efficiently — an approach to business value creation we came to call the 'wise pivot'"

Omar Abbosh, Paul Nunes and Larry Downes

Pivot To The Future Strategy

1. Releasing Trapped Value. When you are dealing with markets which are unpredictable, a single one-time large-scale "transformation" of your company just won't cut it. Constant reinvention and multiple pivots from one opportunity to the next and then to the next after that will be required. The aim here is to keep coming up with new and better ways to unlock the value which is trapped within your current business model and then to refocus your business around the right mix of old and new assets.

2. How To Make Wise Pivots Again And Again. When you are dealing with markets which are unpredictable, a single one-time large-scale "transformation" of your company just won't cut it. Constant reinvention and multiple pivots from one opportunity to the next and then to the next after that will be required. The aim here is to keep coming up with new and better ways to unlock the value which is trapped within your current business model and then to refocus your business around the right mix of old and new assets.

Your Innovation

Your Finances

Your People

Concentration

Centralized Vs Decentralized

Fixed Assets

Own Vs Pay-As-You-Go

Leadership

Operators Vs Entrepreneurs

Control

Directed Vs Autonomous

Working Capital

Ready-Made Vs
Made-To-Order

Work

Human Vs Machine

Aspiration

Instrumental Vs Disruptive

Human Capital

Reskill Vs Redirect

Culture

One Culture Vs Multiple

About The Authors

Omar Abbosh is group chief executive of Accenture's Communications, Media & Technology operating group. He previously served as chief strategy officer for Accenture. He is a member of Accenture's Global Management Committee and has management responsibility for a number of Accenture's business units. Omar Abbosh is a graduate of INSEAD and the University of Cambridge.

Paul Nunes is global managing director for Accenture Research. He is the co-author of three books Big Bang Disruption, Jumping the S-Curve and Mass Affluence. Paul Nunes is a graduate of Northwestern University.

Larry Downes is a senior fellow with Accenture Research. He specializes in developing business strategies. He is the author or co-author of several books including Big Bang Disruption, The Laws of Disruption and Unleashing the Killer App. Larry Downes is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School and Northwestern University.

Summaries.Com Editor's Thoughts

Thoroughly enjoyed this business book. The authors are all employees of Accenture, which went through a digital-era makeover a few years ago and has lived to tell the tale. I thought the point that they make that you pivot to the future technologies on the strength of your legacy business is valid and smart.

I particularly liked the fact they point out this is always an opportunity to release trapped value and to use that trapped value to fund your future movements into new technologies. That is smart. The traditional way of thinking about turnarounds has always been that you exit legacy businesses and start afresh, but this pivot strategy is far more robust and applicable. Well worth reading.

Amazon.Com Review …

The Proven, Effective Strategy For Reinventing Your Business In The Age Of Ever-Present Disruption

Disruption by digital technologies? That is not a new story. But what is new is the "wise pivot," a replicable strategy for harnessing disruption to survive, grow, and be relevant to the future. It's a strategy for perpetual reinvention across the old, now, and new elements of any business.

Rapid recent advances in technology are forcing leaders in every business to rethink long-held beliefs about how to adapt to emerging technologies and new markets. What has become abundantly clear: in the digital age, conventional wisdom about business transformation no longer works, if it ever did.

Based on Accenture's own experience of reinventing itself in the face of disruption, the company's real world client work, and a rigorous two-year study of thousands of businesses across 30 industries, Pivot to the Future reveals methodical and bold moves for finding and releasing new sources of trapped value-unlocked by bridging the gap between what is technologically possible and how technologies are being used. The freed value enables companies to simultaneously reinvent their legacy, and current and new businesses.

Pivot to the Future is for leaders who seek to turn the existential threats of today and tomorrow into sustainable growth, with the courage to understand that a wise pivot strategy is not a one-time event, but a commitment to a future of perpetual reinvention, where one pivot is followed by the next and the next.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Omar and the team at Accenture have written a wonderful book that outlines what it takes to succeed in a world changed-and super-charged-by technology-based disruption."―Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft

"For any of us that are trying to build long-standing, sustainable businesses-which is hard-the most important thing is to listen carefully to what your customers want from you and then move quickly to innovate to improve the customer experience. Omar and his colleagues provide practical information and real-world examples that will be useful to companies looking to embrace change and adopt strategies and technologies to keep reinventing and iterating their customer experiences."―Andy Jassy, CEO, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

"In Pivot to the Future, Omar Abbosh and his coauthors make a powerful case that successful innovation is a long-term game that requires constant pivots to evolve and change. Pivot to the Future will excite, energize, and empower leaders, helping them innovate intelligently, keep moving forward, and always be future-ready."―Michael Dell, CEO, Dell

"Every company is seeking to reinvent itself. Pivot to the Future provides powerful and stimulating concepts, ideas, and examples that can help guide these efforts. A must read for anyone who is looking for help on the journey!!"―Hubert Joly, chairman and CEO, Best Buy

"We all face disruptive transformations fueled by digital technologies. Pivot to the Future: Discovering Value and Creating Growth in a Disrupted World is an invaluable testimony on how Accenture very successfully transformed and adapted. It takes more than a new strategy, it takes a new approach to strategy. It is a well-structured guide on how to 'wisely' pivot a business towards new opportunities in the digital age and definitely a must-read."―Jean-Pascal Tricoire, chairman and CEO, Schneider Electric

"The 'wise pivot' concept is a powerful framework that can shape top leadership teams' decisions around digital strategies and new operating models. With the help of Omar, we used that framework to develop a digital strategy that strikes the balance between growing our core business and shaping new ways of operating."―Giovanni Caforio, CEO, Bristol-Myers Squibb

"We'd better be ready for disruption. I like the strategies I'm seeing for unlocking trapped value and simultaneously reinventing legacy, current, and new areas of a business. I think they could go a long way in helping us-and other companies-get there."―John Pettigrew, CEO, National Grid

"We are facing a period of disruption, the like of which I have not witnessed in my career. It has the potential to obsolete businesses and destroy industries. Even the disrupters are being disrupted! As Pivot to the Future argues compellingly, traditional strategies are no longer enough. From their own experience, the authors reveal that reinvention must now be a constant, and must address not only the legacy businesses but pivot into new, scalable businesses. This requires organizations to embrace both technological and cultural change, and take bold moves from an outside in perspective. Change should be measured across three horizons: the old, the now, and the new. I recommend this book to those of you who have stepped up to this exciting challenge, understand the magnitude of what is required, and are keen to learn from their peers."

―Gordon Cairns, chairman of Woolworths Group and chairman of Origin Energy

"Pivot to the Future-finally-presents a much-needed perspective that reinvigorates tired and outdated concepts of strategy. Instead of building an advantage and defending it, it shows how organizations can release waves of competitive advantage by freeing up trapped value. Instead of innovation for the Next Big Thing, this book shows how innovation plays a role in businesses at every stage. And instead of theorizing, it draws on a real-world journey to figure all this out."―Rita McGrath, bestselling author of The End of Competitive Advantage and professor at Columbia Business School

"Pivot to the Future helps decision makers break free from traditional, linear thinking and immediate concerns in order to win in the Fourth Industrial Revolution by leveraging disruption rather than fearing it."―Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman, World Economic Forum

About The Author

Omar Abbosh is group chief executive of Accenture's Communications, Media & Technology operating group and is a member of Accenture's Global Management Committee. He has served as the global client lead for leading multinational companies where he advised client executives on major strategic issues for their businesses. Mr. Abbosh joined Accenture in 1989 and became a partner in 1998. He holds a degree in electronic engineering from Cambridge University and a master's degree in business administration from INSEAD.

Paul Nunes is the global managing director for thought leadership at Accenture Research and leads the company's principle business research programs that shape its strategic vision. He is coauthor of three books, Big Bang Disruption: Strategy in the Age of Devastating Innovation (2014). He has written for MIT Sloan Management Review, Fast Company, Conference Board Review, The European Business Review, Rotman, Strategy and Leadership, and Wired. Nunes' research findings have been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, BusinessWeek.com, Forbes.com, Inc.com, CFO, CIO, CIO Insight, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune.

Larry Downes is an Internet industry analyst and author on developing business strategies in the age of disruptive innovation. He is the co-author of Big Bang Disruption and author of New York Times business best-seller, Unleashing the Killer App: Digital Strategies for Market Dominance, (1998) which was named by The Wall Street Journal as one of the five most important books ever published on business and technology. He is a columnist on innovation for both The Washington Post and Forbes and writes regularly for Harvard Business Review. Downes has held faculty appointments at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Northwestern University School of Law, and the University of California-Berkeley's Haas School of Business, where he was Associate Dean of the School of Information. Since 2014, he has served as project director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy.