How Does The Industrialist Successfully Engage With The Digital World?

-Here is an excerpt of an exciting piece I wrote a few weeks ago.- 
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Wealthy Mature Industrialist to Wed Attractive Young Software Maverick

A fascinating reflection of the seismic gap that traditional 20th Century companies now face is seen in a new course being offered at Stanford Business School this year: 

STRAMGT 520: “The Industrialist’s Dilemma:  This course explores
how digital disruptions are having tectonic shifts on large, successful and established companies, whether they have a digital foundation or not.”

“Industrialists” here refers basically to any organization whose business model is not built around digital software at the core.  The adaptation required is not a superficial fix in the extremities of a product or service offering.  Rather it lies deep in the hard wiring of the central nervous system – the fully integrated architecture of data, information sharing, and the organization of how work gets done.  Starting some 20+ years ago, companies cautiously began introducing new computer-based technologies (at their own pace) to realize huge gains in their internal operational efficiencies.  But now the digital revolution has shifted control to consumers demanding a role in “co-creating” their individual engagement experience.  Industrialists have lost control of the nature of consumer engagement and the speed with which it is changing. 

An article by the course instructors offers a number of insights into the depth of the “tectonic” challenge for incumbent Industrialists and suggests that strategies being employed by those Industrialists most successful in pursuing transformation include some form or another of “marrying” – or at the very least “dating” – younger (business) models from the (Silicon) valley:  partnerships
with…, investments in…, acquisitions of…, etc.

This is a strategy we wholeheartedly support.  It is far more than a marriage of convenience.  Why?  Well, for one thing: “Crossing Over.”

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