First I would like to go back in time where in 1989 Sir Tim Berners-Lee, British computer scientist invented world wide web and he first received the feedback from his boss as ‘ Vague but exciting.’
He might not imagine how his invention change the human life dramatically but yes this was one of the extraordinary inventions that changes the human history once more forever.
What did www bring to our lives?
· Decentralization
· Non discrimination and
· Universality
Not too long ago, companies like Google, Airbnb, Uber and Facebook started out with a few developers scrapping together code from their garage-turned-office. Now they're defining the way we live our lives.
A new business-building model has risen, characterized by intense technological innovation and exponential growth.
As Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler describe in the book Abundance, the rise of exponential technologies is generating an abundance of everything. Today it is possible to access the world’s unlimited information on the internet, at a near-zero cost.
This new abundance-based context is already threatening existing business models, which are largely based on scarcity.
These exponential technologies also provide new opportunities to everyone. Peter Diamandis describes the chain reaction that takes place as the “Six Ds” — Digitized, Deceptive, Disruptive, Demonetized, Dematerialized and Democratized.
And the boardrooms across the world asked the big question: "How are these new companies growing exponentially when we aren't?"
Well, Salim Ismail may have found the answer in 2014 in his Amazon best-seller book, Exponential Organizations.
In his book, the definition of An Exponential Organization is one whose impact or output is disproportionately large -- at least 10 times larger -- compared to its peers because of new organizational techniques that leverage accelerating technologies. In other words, it grows faster, bigger and cheaper than its competitors because it has a Massive Transformative Purpose and scales as quickly as technology does."
The ExO approach can be used by new organizations launched from scratch in order to become Exponential Organizations or by existing ones that want to transform to become one.
Salım Ismail founded ExO Works in 2016 to lead innovation practices and introduce organizations to "exponential thinking."
The ExO Movement now includes a platform and consulting teams, educational programs, books and tools to build exponential organizations.
In 2017, Ismail co-founded OpenExO, helping organizations, institutions and people transform for the future by implementing and evolving the exponential thinking and practices. It hosts the world's leading ExO transformation ecosystem, with more than 3,000 members and more than 250 certified consultants worldwide.
So, how to be an exponential organization?
Companies like Netflix, Google, Facebook, Snapchat and Airbnb are just a few of the organizations that have shown how new technology can change an idea to a billion-dollar business in less than 10 years. In his book, “Exponential Organizations”, Salim Ismail describes the common features that can be seen across these organizations and why the average exponential organizations perform 10 times better than its competitors.
Salim Ismail, After identifying and researching over 100 ExOs to find out what they’re doing to rapidly scale, came up with 11 specific attributes which any company can adopt for exponential results.
The ExO framework consists of the Massive Transformative Purpose (MTP) as a foundation for the remaining 10 attributes
These 10 attributes are also divided into five external characteristics and five internal mechanisms, for is called SCALE and IDEAS .
SCALE – External Properties of the Exponential Organization
S: STAFF ON DEMAND.
In general, the exponential organization’s permanent staff is reduced to the absolute minimum. The exponential organizations hire the talent needed when needed. The ability to utilize experienced freelancers within different expert fields give exponential organizations the flexibility to adapt to the demands of the world and market around them.
C: COMMUNITY AND CROWD.
Community and crowd are all the people interacting with your organization but who are actually not on your payroll. External groups can have a close relation to and cooperation with your organization, but you should also be aware of the resources in more peripheral fans, whom you do not interact with on an everyday basis. The exponential organizations are characterized by being open systems, where the crowd one community are constantly offering their knowledge and ideas.
In the crowd, you will have both consumers and potential new employees and sometimes these people are able to see your decisions in another light and perspective – and might just be right. By opening up your decision process you get new opinions and can easily test out new products and ideas. It will make you both time- and cost efficient.
A: ALGORITHMS.
In exponential organizations, the use of big-data is embedded in the DNA of the organization. In the future, more business ventures and changes will come from decisions based on recommendations from algorithms. Algorithms make your organization able to analyze and comprehend data that is too complex for the human mind. The time where organizations followed a leader’s gut is soon over and by implementing analysis tools in your organizations today you are able to get a clear picture of what is happening within your budget, employees, and operation.
L: LEVERAGED ASSETS.
The future demands a high degree of flexibility and therefore agile organizational structures. The old ideas of owning assets and saving money are therefore no longer best-practice. When your organizations lease its assets, it creates a great opportunity to scale on demand. Through changing this structure in your organizations, you will be able to easily tap into some of the success of the exponential organizations.
E: ENGAGEMENT.
Engaging your customers around your product is key to a success that cannot be disrupted by anyone. Getting consumers to work with you on the massive transformative purpose of your organization will make your business sustainable without a lot of work. You can make engagement with your customers through competitions, marketing or community groups. Through engaging with the customer, you can easily gather information about your customers need and they will get to know your company and thereby increase loyalty. The goal is to convert a scattered crowd into a strong community that is loyal to your product and Massive Transformative Purpose like it is seen in exponential organizations.
IDEAS – The internal drivers of the exponential organization
For many organizations, adapting the external resources that are part of the “SCALE” focus is probably the easiest part, but to get the full growth and success of an exponential organization this is not sufficient. It is time to look within and change internal patterns and behaviour.
I: INTERFACES. These organizations have very customized processes for how they interface with customers and other organizations. An example of this is Apple's strict rules on what reaches its app store.
D: DASHBOARDS. To manage employees with a light weight and high touch, exponential organizations use real-time management systems and dashboards to measure business metrics.
E: EXPERIMENTATION. Exponential organizations operate like lean start-ups--they are constantly adapting, tweaking, and tuning their efforts to match external factors.
A: AUTONOMY. Many exponential organizations streamline with a decentralized authority structure, which means no reporting structure or job titles.
S: SOCIAL. Using collaborative technologies, these organizations manage real-time communication to keep all employees up to date.
