Two tech giants are Microsoft and Google. The former has been around for over 30 years. The latter about a decade. Which is the company you should work for, or invest in? The one that has demonstrated a long history and great record of earnings, or the newer one participating in new markets still not well understood with a slew of new – but largely unproven – products? You might think the older one is less risky, and feel more comfortable backing.
But we know that Microsoft is losing market share, especially in growing markets. Although its products have been dominant, the market for those products (personal computers used as servers, desktop machines and laptops) has seen substantial slowing. New solutions are emerging that compete directly with Microsoft (new operating systems like Linux and others) and compete indirectly (cloud computing and thin applications on mobile devices.)
In just 18 months Microsoft Internet Explorer has lost 13 market share points – dropping from 68% of the market to 55%. Almost all of that has gone to Safari (Macintosh) and Google Chrome. Chrome has risen from nothing to 7% of the market. And since internet usage is growing, while desktop usage is shrinking, this is the "leading edge" of the market.
Also, the Chrome operating system will be launching later in 2010. It also will go directly after the "Windows" franchise which had a very unexciting launch of System 7 in 2009.
Let's look at valuation: First Microsoft – which has gone basically sideways. Huge peak to trough, but overall not much gain for investors despite launching two major upgrades during the period (Vista and System 7 as well as Office 2007). Obviously, upgrade products have produced very little growth for Microsoft, or its valuation.
Now we can look at Google. Google investors have doubled their money, while employment has grown. All those new products have helped Google to grow, and investors have an optimistic view of future growth.
Do you make decisions looking in the rear view mirror, or out the windshield? It can be tempting to be influenced by a great past. But that really isn't relevant. What's important is the future. And we can see that Microsoft, which keeps trying to Defend & Extend what it knows is rapidly falling behind the market changer, Google, which is rapidly moving toward where markets are heading.
D&E Management never creates growth. By trying to recapture the past, new market moves are missed and growth opportunities lost. Companies have to move forward, with new products, into new markets. And if you have any doubt, just compare the results of Defend & Extend Management at Microsoft the last 5 years with Phoenix Principle management using White Space at Google.
Apple's shareholder meeting was last week. In an era where shareholders are most worried about the survivability of the companies where they are invested, the biggest issue at Apple is what to do with all its cash! Reuters.com reported "Apple's Jobs says must think 'big' on cash hoard." In 2009, when most companies saw their market value decline, Apple's value doubled. Yet, it's cash is fully 1/5 (20%) of its current market capitalization! Clearly the company is generating cash faster than it has found investment opportunities. Even after launching the iPad with expectations of selling 2 to 5 million units in 2010!
We all should be so lucky, to have this problem of riches. Apple has enough cash that it could buy all the equity of Dell. Of course, why do that? It just goes to show that the company that built its market cap in the 1990s on Defend & Extend behavior – focusing on execution in a growing PC marketplace – has seen its valuation multiple shredded as buyers have shifted to other solutions. Meanwhile, Apple's value has skyrocketed because it entered new markets and created new solutions. Yet, it's cash flow has skyrocketed even faster!
It is possible for all companies to follow Apple's lead, increasing revenues and valuation. Last week I was interviewed by Zane Safrit for his radio program and highlights are on his blog, and the full interview is available for listening at the BlogTalkRadio site. In the interview Zane brings out how so many business leaders are stuck defending and extending broken Success Formulas that cannot produce better returns, and waiting for a "better economy" to "save" them. What Zane also cleverly brings out is how The Phoenix Principle can be applied to any business, with results that can be as stunning as Apple's. If leaders will start focusing on the future, obsessing about competitors, utillize Disruptions and White Space.
Of course, these are amplified in the "10 Ways to Stay Ahead of the Competition" I posted in yesterday's blog. I've received comments that the links to the deeper discussion on both the Business Insider web site and the IBM Open Forum weren't working, so I'm reproducing them here again.
All companies can grow like Apple. But it takes a different way of approaching management. I hope you can find time to listen to the interview and explore how your organization can become like a Phoenix, forever growing through constant rebirth.
Guy Kawasaki contacted me a couple of weeks ago, asking me to write a short piece for him. I was happy to do so, and he published it at the BusinessInsider.com War Room as "10 Ways to Stay Ahead of the Competition." Fortunately for me, the article was also picked up at IBMOpenForum.com with the alternate title "How to Stay Ahead of the Competition." Full explanations of each bullet are at both locations (although the graphics are outstanding at Business Insider so I prefer it.)
Develop future scenarios
Obsess about competitors
Study fringe competitors
Attack your Lock-ins
Seek Disruptions
Don't ask customers for insight
Avoid Cost Cutting
Do lots of testing
Acquire outside input
Target competitors
Blog followers know that this program has now worked for many companies who want to grow in this recession. The reason it works is because
You focus on the market, not yourself
You avoid Lock-in blindness by avoiding an over-focus on existing products, services and customers
You use outside input, from advisers and competitors to identify market shifts that can really hurt you
You put a competitive edge into everything you do. Competitors kill your returns, not yourself.
You use market feedback rather than internal analysis guide resource allocation
Of course this works. How can it not? When you are obsessed about markets and competitors and you let it direct your flow of money and talent you'll constantly be positioned to do what the market values. You'll have your eyes on the horizon, and not the rear view mirror.
The biggest objection is always my comment about "don't ask customers for insight." So many people have been indoctrinated into "always ask the customer" and "the customer is always right" that they can't imagine not asking customers what you ought to do. Even though the evidence is overwhelming that customer feedback is usually wrong, and more likely destructive than beneficial.
Just remember, IBMs best customers (data center managers) told them the PC was a stupid product, and IBM dropped the product line 6 years after inventing the PC business. DEC's customers kept asking for more bells and whistles on their CAD/CAM systems, then dropped DEC altogether for AutoCad ending the company. GM customers kept asking for bigger, faster more comfortable cars – improvements on previous models – then moved to imports with different designs, better gas mileage and better fit/finish. Circuit City customers asked for more in-store assistance, then took the assistance across the street to buy from cheaper Best Buy stores. The stories are legend of failed companies who delivered what the customer wanted, and ended up out of business.
Enjoy the links, and thanks to Guy for publishing this short piece. Follow these 10 steps and any business can stay ahead of the competition.
"From the day we start kindergarten we fear the teacher's call to our
parents saying, "Hello Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I'm sorry to tell you that
Mary has been disruptive in class." We are taught, trained and
indoctrinated to go along and get along, to not disrupt. In fact we're
constantly told to seek harmony. But in business that can destroy your
entire value."
That's the first paragraph from my Forbes.com column, posted today,"To Succeed You Must Seriously Disrupt." Companies that don't Disrupt remain Locked-in to Success Formulas with declining value until all hope is lost – just look at Sun Microsystems. Although Chairman Scott McNealy was famous for his Disruptive corporate behavior – he was unwilling to tolerate disruptions from his own organization to the company business model. In 10 years Sun went from $200B market cap to out of business.
Now Toyota is struggling because it wouldn't Disrupt. Meanwhile Honda is doing much better than most, because it is willing to Disrupt. Listen to the 40 second video on Disruptions, and read the article so you can see the need for Disruption and adopt in your business!
Google keeps on growing. While many companies bemoan revenue losses and poor results in 2008 and 2009, Google keeps new products flowing out the door and revenues continue to increase. New markets are being developed.
This Google revenue growth is powered by use of White Space, as CNN.com reported in "Gmail holds Graduations and Funerals." GMail labs is a White Space team that develops new applications and uses for Gmail. Its operating premise is that it should develop the products rapidly, then push into the market to get feedback. Then the team can determine what to modify and test further, what to push into the market as non-beta and what to kill. As recently demonstrated in the headlined behavior, Google is ready to keep some things and kill others based upon market feedback – not just what the internal people or analysts think.
"This isn't the first time Gmail Labs has graduated and killed some test
features since Gmail Labs started in June 2008, but the event does
underscore an idea that Google says is key to its success as an
innovative company: Let people create products they'd use themselves,
get those products out to the public as soon as possible, and make
consumers think it's OK for things to break."
""At Google, in general, the philosophy is to get things out quickly in
front of our users and not make huge promises," said Ari Leichtberg,
another Google engineer"
Nothing is more accurate than real market feedback, as readers of this blog have heard me say often. Scott Anthony of Innosight recently took up this mantra in a Harvard Business Review blog "How to Kill Innovation: Keep Asking Questions." He relates how a large company with a new idea kept asking "what if" questions about a new idea. Each piece of research led to more "what if" questions. With its massive resources, the company could keep asking and researching forever, never getting real market input and never getting the innovation to market.
In traditional companies, with a new product funnel and stage gate implementation process which can take years to run through, once something moves into the market the internal "champions" are so vested in the innovation they can't stand for it to fail. Far too often, if the innovation were to fail the champions would lose their jobs – or see their careers tank. Too much analysis causes too few ideas to make it to market, and causes the organization to overspend on the innovation that does. After launch market feedback is often ignored, or manipulated, to allow the innovation to be pushed harder and longer on the hopes that with "just a little more time and effort" it will succeed.
What keeps Google growing, and attracting top talent, is its willingness to use White Space. It is willing to develop ideas quickly and obtain real market feedback. Then decide what to keep, and what not to keep. Because it moves quickly, market input shapes the offering. Market input allows the company to see what people really use, and thus worthy of additional investment. Or what people don't use, and thus needs to be dropped before too much is sunk into the idea.
When Microsoft decided to add "clippy" to its products it was a herculean effort to install it across all products. This computerized help tool has had little use, and is often despised by users. Microsoft decided to create this feature based on almost no market input, instead relying on some customer focus groups. After making the enormous investment – in lieu of many other opportunities passed over internally – Microsoft simply became "married" to the innovation. Now "clippy" is still on the applications, but is almost never used. And it gives Microsoft's products no user advantage.
All companies can grow in 2010. You need to act more like Google. Develop early stage products quickly, and get them into White Space projects which will market test them. Don't spend too much time, money and effort "what iff-ing" or doing "market research" trying to predict future customer behavior. Listen carefully for market input, then modify. Have more than one opportunity in White Space, because you don't want to over-invest in any single idea that ran the internal gauntlet. Be ready to move forward quickly with things that work, and abandon those that don't. If you use give yourself permission to test new things in White Space, and resources, you too can grow in 2010 and climb out of this recession.
Every day it seems someone tells me they "are looking forward to an improved economy." When I ask "Why?" they give me a horrified look like I must be stupid. "Because I want my business to improve" is the most frequent answer. To which I ask "What makes you think an improved economy will help you?"
This recession/depression is the result of several market shifts.What people/businesses want, and how they want it, has changed. They no longer are willing to part for hard earned (and often saved) dollars for the same solutions they once purchased. They want advances in technology, manufacturing processes, communications and all aspects of business to give them different solutions. Until that comes along, they are willing to put money in the bank and simply wait.
Take for example restaurants. Many owners and operators are complaining business was horrid in 2009, and still far from the way it was years ago. And regularly we hear it is due to "the recession. People fear they'll lose their jobs, so they don't eat out as often." Nicely said. Sounds logical. Makes for a convenient excuse for lousy results.
Only it's wrong.
In "Dinner out Declines: Economy Not Sole Factor" MediaPost.com does a great overview of the fact that dining out started declining in 2001, and has steadily been on a downward trend. Across all age groups, eating out is simply less interesting – at least at current prices. When the recession came along, it simply accelerated an existing trend. Increasingly, people were less satisfied with cookie-cutter, similar establishments that had similar food (almost all of which was prepared somewhere else and merely heated and combined in the restaurant) and exorbitant drink prices. For years restaurant prices had outpaced inflation, and simultaneously family changes – along with the growth of better prepared foods at grocers and specialty markets – was enticing people to eat at home.
This is true across almost all industries. A revived economy will not increase demand for land-line phone service. Nor for large V-8 American autos costing $60,000. Nor for newspapers, or magazines – or even books most likely. Or for oversized homes that cost too much to heat and cool. In fact, it was the trend away from these products which caused the recession. People simply had all of these things they wanted, so they stopped buying. Fearful of economic change, they simply accelerated a trend brought on by shifts in technology and underlying ways of doing things. When we once again talk about better economic growth in America it will not drive people to these purchases. Rather, people will be buying different things.
For the recession to go away requires a change in inputs. Providers have to start giving buyers what they want. They have to understand market needs, and give solutions which entice people to part with their money. Waiting for "the economy" will make no difference. Government stimulus can go on forever, but it won't create growth. It can't. Only new products and services that fulfill needs create growth. That will cause spending (demand), which generates the requirement for supply.
There are companies that had a great 2009. Google, Apple and Amazon are popular names. Why? Not just because they are somehow "tech" or "internet" companies. 2009 saw the demise of Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics, for example. The difference is these companies are studying the market, looking to the future and introducing new products and services which meet market needs. Because of this, they are growing. They are doing their part to revitalize the economy. Not with stimulus, but with products that excite people to part with their cash.
Those who are waiting on the economy to improve are destined to find a rough road. An improving economy will be full of new competitors with new solutions who did not wait. To be a winner businesses today must be bringing forward new products and services that meet today's needs – not yesterday's. And if we start getting winners then we will climb out of this economic foxhole.
It's easy to recognize a company in the winner's circle. Like Apple or Google. Most of us want to know how to spot the winners early. And that can be hard, because often the reported information will make an emerging winner sound horrible. Like the expected demise of Apple in 2000.
Last week Dell reported sales and earnings, and valuation fell (Marketwatch.com "Dell Shares Fall as Company Net Slips"). The article notes that sales were "surprisingly strong," but claims that a dip in profits was bad news sending the stock price downward. Of particular concern was a lack of growth in desktop PCs. Many analysts are expecting (I should say hoping) that System 7 is going to spur additional desktop sales and are upset that Dell isn't getting "its fair share" versus Hewlett Packard.
This is entirely the wrong way to evaluate Dell's results. Simultaneously, the Mobile unit had very strong performance. As did Services, greatly aided by the Perot acquisition. As I blogged months ago, Dell has started moving in a new direction. Toward the growth markets of mobile devices and the need to build out applications using Cloud computing architectures. These markets are certain to grow in the future. Meanwhile, desktop PC sales are destined to decline. There is no doubt about this.
Dell has been undertaking some Disruptions, and using White Space to develop and go to market with new productsin these newer, growing markets. Amidst this effort, it has put less money into the hotly contested and profit-margin-declining old fashioned PC business. This is clearly the right move. If Dell is the first and strongest to transition to new markets it has the best chance of regaining old growth rates. For Dell, the best thing possible is to see it growing beyond anticipation in these markets.
Some analysts complained that both mobile and services are too small as businesses at Dell, and therefore the company needs to put more resources (meaning price actions) into traditional PCs. These same analysts will lambaste Dell when the market shift is completely pronounced and the traditionalist (which now appears to be HP) is left in decline. Dell has used White Space to begin launching products. If it uses these White Space efforts to learn the company can become smart, faster than other competitors, and "jump the curve" from its old business/market to the new one. Isn't that what every business needs to do?
What we want to see now is ongoing investment in these growth markets,
with breakout products that can make a big revenue difference. White
Space is good, but it is critical that Dell invest fast and smart to
replace old revenues as quickly as possible.
I was encouraged by Dell's results. The company is growing where it needs to, and de-emphasizing businesses that can become slaughterhouses. For investors, employees and suppliers this is a good thing. When companies are using White Space it is easy to beat them up and ask them to "refocus" on traditional markets. It also can kill them. Here's hoping Dell stays on track.
About 30 years ago Roberta Flack hit the top of the record charts (remember records anybody?) with "Killing Me Softly" – a love song. Today we have 2 examples of CEO's softly killing their shareholders, employees and investors. Definitely NOT a love song.
Sears has continued its slide, which began the day Chairman Lampert acquired the company and merged it with KMart. I blogged this was a bad idea day of announcement. Although there was much fanfare at the beginning, since day 1 Mr. Lampert has pursued an effort to Defend & Extend the outdated Sears Success Formula. And simultaneously Defend & Extend his outdated personal Success Formula based on leveraged financing and cost cutting. The result has been a dramatic reduction in Sears stores, a huge headcount reduction, lower sales per store, less merchandise available, fewer customers, empty parking lots, acres of unused real estate and horrible profits. Nothing good has happened. Nobody, not customers, suppliers or investors, have benefited from this strategy. Sears is almost irrelevant in the retail scene, a zombie most analysts are waiting to expire.
Today Crain's Chicago Business reported "Sears to Offer Diehard Power Accessories for Sale at Other Retailers." Sears results are so bad that Mr. Lampert has decided to try pushing these batteries, charges, etc. through another channel. At this late stage, all this will do is offer a few incremental initial sales – but reduce the appeal of Sears as a retailer – and eventually diminish the brand as its wide availability makes it compete head-to-head with much stronger auto battery brands like Energizer, Duralast, Optima and the heavily advertised Interstate. Sears has attempted to "milk" the Diehard brand for cash for many years, and placed in retail stores head-to-head with these other products it won't be long before Sears learns that its competitive position is weak as sales decline.
Mr. Lampert needed to "fix" Sears – not try to cut costs and drain it of cash. He needed to rebuild Sears as a viable competitor by rethinking its market position, obsessing about competitors and using Disruptions to figure out how Sears could compete with the likes of WalMart, Target, Kohl's, Home Depot, JC Penneys and other strong retailers. Now, his effort to further "milk" Diehard will quickly kill it – and make Sears an even less viable competitor.
Simultaneously, Chairperson Barnes at Sara Lee has likewise been destroying shareholder value, employee careers and supplier growth goals since taking over. During her tenure Sara Lee has sold buisinesses, cut headcount, killed almost all R&D and new product development, sold real estate and otherwise squandered away the company assets. Sara Lee is now smaller, but nobody – other than perhaps herself – has benefited from her extremely poor leadership.
As this business failure continues advancing, Crain's Chicago Business reports "Sara Lee to Spend $3B on Stock Buyback." In 2009 Sara Lee announced it was continuing the dismantling of the company by selling its body-care business to
Unilever and its air-freshener products and assets to Procter & Gamble Co. for approximately $2.2 billion. As an investor you'd like to hear all that money was being reinvested in a high growth business that would earn a significant rate of return while adding to the top line for another decade. As a supplier you'd like to hear this money would strengthen the financials, and help Sara Lee to invest in new products for growth that you could support. As an employee you'd like this money to go into new projects for revenue growth that could help your personal growth and career advancement.
But, instead, Ms. Barnes will use this money to buy company stock. This does nothing but put a short-term prop under a falling valuation. Like bamboo poles holding up a badly damaged brick wall. As investors flee, because there is no growth, low rates of return and no indication of a viable future, the money will be spent to prop up the price by buying shares from these very intelligent owner escapees. After a couple of years the money will be gone, Sara Lee will be smaller, and the shares will fall to their fair market value – no longer propped up by this corporate subsidy. The only possible winner from this will be Sara Lee executives, like Ms. Barnes, who probably have incentive compensation tied to stock price — rather than something worthwhile like organic revenue growth.
Both of these very highly paid CEOs are simply killing their business. Softly and quietly, as if they are doing something intelligent. Just because they are in powerful positions does not make them right. To the contrary, this is an abuse of their positions as they squander assets, and harm the suburban Chicago communities where they are headquartered. That their Boards of Directors are approving these decisions just goes to show how ineffective Boards are at looking out for the interests of shareholders, employees and suppliers – as they ratify the decisions of their friendly Chairperson/CEOs who put them in their Board positions. The Boards of Sears and Sara Lee are demonstrating all the governance skill of the Boards at Circuit City and GM.
It's too bad. Both companies could be viable competitors. But not as long as the leadership tries to Defend & Extend outdated Success Formulas unable to produce satisfactory rates of return. Lacking serious Disruption and White Space, these two publicly traded companies remain on the road to failure.
Paralysis from analysis is all too common. Why? Because for the longest time people have assumed that it's possible to predict the future by studying history. And there has been ample belief that if you ask customers questions, they will give you the answers which will guide your future. Further, people want to believe that it was possible to find hidden meaning via discovering previously unseen correlations — even though almost all these sorts of low-score correlations turn out to be spurious, merely mathematical artifacts.
Readers of this blog know that when we investigated The Phoenix Principle we learned that traditional market research rarely improves understanding of customers or markets. And we learned that customers are incredibly unreliable at telling you what they really want, or what they are likely to do next.
Nate Bolt of market research firm Bolt Peters now confirms this. His recent column at Venturebeat.com "Stop Listening to Your Customers" is an indictment of traditional market research observed through his 9 years working with clients in the field.
"A common assumption… is that listening to
potential customers is the best way to find out whether your product or
idea will succeed in the market. Honestly — don’t bother."
"Opinions are often inconsistent with behaviors or other attitudes,
especially when discussing hypotheticals."
"Remember 'Clippy" the little character that appeared in Microsoft Word years ago? That
little bastard arose, in part, from Microsoft asking users if they
wanted help working on their documents — everyone said, “Sure, sounds
great.” But once people started actually using it in the real world,
they hated it — it might be one of the most hated features in the
history of computing."
"Never ask people what they think of your product or idea."
"Test ideas early by watching behavior. It’s fine if you
don’t have a 100 percent functional interface — having eight people
interact with a prototype or even wireframes or design mockups can be
incredibly useful. Even recruiting strangers from the street to use your
prototype is better than nothing."
"Use unorthodox methods. Companies like Apple and
37signals make a big deal about never conducting user research. They lie… Releasing products in generations, like Apple does, provides them with
mountains of reviews, task-specific complaints, crash reports, customer
support issues, and Genius Bar feedback"
Too much money is spent on research that can never, by it's design and method, tell the business what it needs to know. The only way to know how to compete is to get into the market. Quit trying to analyze – go do it! An ounce of "doing it" is worth a kilogram of research and analysis. Get out of the office, out of the conference room, and into the market. Set up a White Space team and make them responsible for launching, learning, reporting and figuring out what customers want that you can sell at a profit. That feedback is the research which is really worthwhile. It's faster, easier to get and more accurate than anything you'll get from a market study or focus group!
Nate Bolt's new book is "Remote Research." The link I found to the book was at RosenfeldMedia.com.
It's easy to misunderstand White Space. About twenty years ago Apple launched the Newton. The company sold about 375,000 of the first commercial PDAs, but Apple's leadership thought the market wasn't really there – and decided instead to focus on growing Mac sales. Obviously, as Palm and other PDA makers demonstrated, there was a tremendous market for PDAs. Apple misread the feedback from White Space.
Look now at the recent iPad launch. Silicon Alley Insider headlined "Now That They've Seen Apple's iPad, Most People Don't Want One." The headline keys on the fact that after the launch the number of people who said they were not interested to buy doubled (26% to 52%). Wrong fact to grab onto.
Instead, look at the fact that the number who said they would buy one tripled, from 3% to 9%. This is incredible, and should excite Apple's management as well as employees, suppliers and shareholders.
Most people will see a new, innovative product and say "why would I want that? I already have this other thing and it works great." And that is what marketers should expect. Most people are just trying to Defend & Extend what they regularly do, and thus all the want is a product that helps them do their thing a little easier, faster, better and cheaper. They want minor improvements – variations and derivatives of what they already have. Improvements that are immediate, without them doing anything new or different.
All new deeply innovative products start with customers who are under-served or unserved. And this is why it is so important they be launched in White Space. White Space teams aren't intended to develop the big, mass market of known customers looking for something new. White Space is about doing new things that bring in new customers, give new solutions that attract real growth. And White Space teams have to learn how the market is evolving, how they fit into the market shift and how their solution will advance the market in order to sell more.
For the iPad, the 3% to 9% shift in likely buyers is huge because it shows that the iPad is an offering that appeals to people who are not today well served by their existing PC, laptop, netbook, mobile phone, kindle or mix of these solutions. 9% of respondents are saying that they see the iPad and they see a solution for what they want to get done. And if 9% of potential buyers see this option, that is HUGE. By White Space standards, often there are only .5% or 1% or 2% of people who initially see how the new product fulfills their under-served needs.
Set expectations right for White Space. White Space is not for launching variation 4 of an existing product – targeted at existing customers. That's what the marketing and sales department can do fine, thank you very much. White Space is the team that finds the 3% (or in Apple's case 9%) of users that see value in this solution, then works with them to implement the product/solution in order to make sure it fulfills the market need and is priced to sell effectively while providing a profit to the company.
Apple understands this, you can be assured. Look at how successfully the Apple White Space teams found the underserved users that jumped all over the iPod and iTunes, the iTouch and then the iPhone. They got the product positioned and selling in a hurry. And now that Apple has that skill, the company is going to apply it to the iPad. If you understand this chart correctly, you understand that it bodes very, very good things for Apple.
And it tells you the importance of having White Space teams, setting their expectations correctly, and managing them for the kind of results that can turn your organization into the next Apple. It took Apple 10 years to reach this skill level. It did not happen overnight. Or with one product introduction. And it will take your organization a few years to build this skill. So, what are you waiting on?