Imaginar Mongo

"This notion of a future that hasn’t quite conformed to prior expectations is perhaps the most striking facet of Strategy&’s recent series on industry trends,
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Companies in every industry are confronting an imagination gap between the established and safe — but rapidly aging — way of doing business and the opportunities and challenges of the technologies emerging today.
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For every sector, it is essential to close the imagination gap by incorporating technology into business models in more creative ways.
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Company strategists presumed a world in which computers everywhere would let customers more expediently and seamlessly access their own business offerings. In this view of the future, the companies themselves were the center of the transaction, determining what products or services to offer, when and where to offer them on the digital grid, how much to charge, what form these items would take, and how quickly they would be delivered. Whether purchasing electricity from a utility or a CD from Amazon, consumers in this vision were, in effect, bystanders, getting limited value out of the deal (generally, some level of convenience and discounts). The largest gains — in efficiency, an expanded customer base, marketing outreach, the sheer number and variety of products and services offered, and lowered costs — would always accrue, in this scenario, toward the companies that used digital technology purely to enhance their existing way of doing business.
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this approach to the kinetic landscape will never work."

Impressiona esta incapacidade de imaginar Mongo!
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Por exemplo:

"The commercial transportation industry is facing perhaps the most radical technology-inspired change in customer behavior. Manufacturers, the sector’s biggest customers, are rapidly adopting 3D printing, which lets companies produce finished goods from a single piece of equipment and minimal amounts of raw material, rather than assembling them from dozens, hundreds, or thousands of parts procured globally.
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The implication is dramatic: As the need to purchase parts from multiple global sources diminishes, component and materials shipments, a substantial portion of the commercial transportation sector’s revenue stream, will be eliminated or greatly reduced. In fact, as much as 41 percent of the air cargo business and 37 percent of the ocean container business is at risk because of 3D printing. [Moi ici: E os que imaginam o TGV dos portos...] Roughly a quarter of the trucking freight business is also exposed, owing to the potential decline in goods that start as air cargo or as containers on ships and ultimately need some form of overland transport.
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The electric power sector is also on the threshold of major change.
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power supplied locally is often cheaper than power supplied via the traditional electric grid. Relatively low amounts of customer-sited generation can significantly affect utility financial performance. According to one study, a market penetration rate of just 5 percent could lead to an earnings reduction for utilities of between 4 and 9 percent.
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In the retail and consumer goods spheres, shoppers’ behavior has become wildly pluralistic. People want to move easily across online and offline purchasing channels while demanding an ever-increasing number of product options and full visibility into inventory and pricing.
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Similar consumer-driven disruptions can be seen in healthcare, as individuals use digital channels to obtain more personalized information about their well-being from their providers and as they demand bundled, transparent programs that allow them to pay a single fee for tests and treatments related to a condition or procedure. In the chemicals industry, innovation is moving away from the blockbuster breakthroughs of the late 20th century and toward more incremental advances that address particular customer problems. In the automotive sector, consumers — awash in easily accessible information about vehicle specifications, prices, discounts, quality, and performance — are less loyal to individual brands than in the past and are seeking more sophisticated features at a low cost. They also want a seamless online/offline car-buying experience that simplifies the purchase decision, financing, and insurance."

O futuro não será uma projecção linear do passado. O que é que a sua empresa faz para imaginar os futuros possíveis? O que faz para aproveitar esses futuros?
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Recentemente lancei o desafio a um conjunto de empresas para uma reflexão sobre que futuros possíveis afectam o seu sector.
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Trechos retirados de "The Imagination Gap"