This week, I had three fascinating conversations on technology value creation; this blog is the curated output of those conversations.
For value creators only.
Here are some examples that will resonate from working with your portco tech leaders on technology value creation:
Order takers say:
“Do we have the budget to do that?”
“Our product is unique, so we can only do it this way.”
“We’ve got a board meeting; let’s wait till after that and see.”
And so on.
Ambulance Chasers say:
“We’ve got so many service incidents right now; we need to fix those before thinking about anything else!”
“We’re moving to this new tech platform; it won’t be a problem in 12 months.”
“I’m not sure right now; we have to invest in this new technology; everyone else is.”
Etc. Etc.
Value Creators do:
“How will we know we’ve been successful? What measures can we use?”
“Who will we need to involve, and how will we get them engaged?”
“What do we need to do to get started, what are we missing, what risks can we address? How can we showcase our value?”
Value creators live in a future world where they have already achieved the results; they want to make sure it stays that way and are ready to challenge the status quo to get there.
Ok, I get it; why is this distinction important for technology value creation?
As a value creator, you can sometimes be dissuaded by the influx of order takers and ambulance chasers in your portcos.
You might think I’m not sure we have the resource in the portfolio to support this? Or, what size of upside would be worth changing the value creation plan for? How certain would I need to be? How can I convince the board it is worth dealing with it?
How would you benchmark your portco tech teams approach to value creation?
Order takers and ambulance chasers can significantly limit the value you can create in your portcos. Identifying and eliminating them early can help keep your value creation plans on track and find opportunities to exceed your PE firm’s expectations.
Until next time.
Thomas
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