Do We All Have To Create An Uber For Our Industry?

Posted: April 10, 2017 by Robert Craven

Our new world has created some amazing products and services. Under the general heading of uberisation we have seen a catalogue of game-changers that have created products and user experiences that we love (iTunes, Nespresso, Amazon, Kindle, Wikipedia, Airbnb, Google and of course Uber…).

What these great businesses have in common is responsiveness. Don’t you just love the speed of Amazon Prime – how do they do it? However, I think they might be missing a trick.

In their obsession to create incredible responsiveness they also must create personal relevance. I am not interested in a product I don’t care about being delivered in under four hours. I am only interested in products and services that are relevant to me and my lifestyle. Speed is good; speed and relevance is, however, the sweet spot. And this has never been truer than now.

Most of us are not operating big-time disruptive businesses. We must deal with more mundane issues like the ridiculous clutter and noise all around, ridiculous competition cropping up everywhere, along with growing commoditisation and an ever-increasing consumer consciousness.

It is against this backdrop that we launched the Check-in Strategy Journal, in effect a start-up. The four or five Cs (clutter, competition, commoditisation, consumer consciousness) cannot be ignored. In designing the new start-up (think of the Lean Start-up philosophy), we have tried and tested our toolkit and refined it to a stage where we finally got the traction and results for customers that we knew was possible.

Of course, Uberisation is great. No-one can ignore the possibility or the probability that their industry will be hit by a disruptor who destroys the old customer value proposition in one swift move. Meantime, mere mortals without Silicon Valley investors can content themselves by sticking to business basics of creating a product or service that stands out for delivering brilliant customer value in an easy to buy manner. What matters to most customers is perceived value. As producers, we must understand the customer’s problems and how we can help them. At a ‘great’ price.

I will leave others to create an Uber of the personal development, productivity, and planning world. I am not sure what such a thing would look like; I know plenty are chasing that dream and just creating shiny objects. In the meantime, I know I have created my ‘bestest’ and I know that many reckon it to be pretty awesome. My clients live the lifestyle they want because my toolkit enables them to run the business they want to run. I can live with that.

If I do come across the true gamechanger for the industry you will be the first to know.