A business model that gives your customers what they want
What if your organisation could guarantee the outcome most desired by your customers? Instead of peddling the dream in order to sell a product, why not sell the dream itself? Business models need to change The idea of selling the outcome (rather than the product), is it the heart of ‘servitization’. It means selling the […]
Gift Aid project could see charities pocket £560m extra a year
We are contributing our expertise in digital economy and payments to a project to automate Gift Aid donations and potentially unlock more than £560 million for charities every year. Gift Aid, a form of tax relief in which a charity can claim an extra 25p for every pound donated, has boosted charitable donations since it […]
How Not To Be Agile
Agile approaches are now widely used not just in mainstream software development but also in many other sectors. However, experiences working with large established organizations trying to use agile approaches highlights that their application in mature organizations remains fraught with difficulties. What are do their failings tell us about how to succeed in agile delivery? […]
Your Algorithm Doesn’t Know me!
In the UK to deal with lack of exams during the Covid lockdown, they turned to automated decision making via algorithms. How did that work out for you then? Deciding important matters using algorithms has been part of life for a long time. Yet the current A-level results fiasco reminds us that data science and […]
IT Heroics Kept Us Working Through the Last 6 Months. Now We Must Deal with the Technical Debt.
Whenever you move quickly to solve problems and deliver changes you risk the chance that you will introduce errors due to omission, ineffective testing, and lack of time to deepen your understanding of the real needs. This challenge is well known in software development and is usually known as “technical debt“. Designing and building complex […]
Using and Abusing Data in Times of Crisis
Data, data everywhere…but what does it all mean? As digital technologies drive new ways to generate, manage, and share data, the search is on for innovative approaches to use it to improve decision making. This has never been more true than in the midst of the volatility and uncertainty we face today as the world […]
The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of EdTech
Perhaps no surprise to many of you, but one area receiving a big boost over the past few months has been online education tools. The EdTech sector has been building for over 2 decades. Remember a few years ago when MOOCs were going to be the death of universities? That didn’t happen….and in retrospect, for […]
Digital Transformation – Time to burn the boats?
In a new blog article published at Digital Leaders, Professor Alan Brown asks whether the recent acceleration in digital transformation is a significant permanent step forward or a temporary blip. Here is a short introduction: ——————– The global economy is struggling to cope with the unprecedented challenges of the last few weeks as we proceed […]
Presentations for The Oxford Group
Recently, our Professor Alan Brown presented a series of short lectures for The Oxford Group. These videos are now available online, covering a range of topics from sustainable recovery to digital transformation. Five dilemmas Risk, trust, value Digital Transformation directions Sustainable recovery
Innovation in a time of crisis is all about speed…but also requires direction
An important and thoughtful piece this week by Roan Conway from the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) reminding us that speed is just one of the levers for innovation. https://medium.com/iipp-blog/purpose-driven-innovation-in-a-time-of-covid-19-296e9d05cb He points out that a lot of the rhetoric from the UK government is quite rightly about the urgent need for […]
