We really liked the quote from George O'Connor at Panmure Gordon in his morning note today. Indeed, I couldn't have put it better myself!
George wrote:-
As we pour through the latest industry analysts predictions we are drawn to Mr Holway’s (chair at TechMarketView) view on the decline of the traditional IT department – this is a theme that Gartner and IDC are also slowly picking up. The change in the nature of b2b tech (the ‘bring-your-own-tech-to-work’ approach – admittedly it is more advanced in the US and the broader consumerisation of tech) will dramatically change the IT adoption, usage and procurement landscape – from how tech is selected, bought and, we think, paid for. This will also shake out the winners and losers.
Tech companies, as we all know, need to constantly not just innovate, but also be prepared to cannibalise their own products and process and like Madonna/unlike Kodak continually re-invent. We go back to our meetings with HP’s then Chairman and CEO Lewis Platt in the mid 1990s. Mr Platt was fond of telling us that very successful companies got into difficulties because they did whatever it was that made them leaders a little too long and Mr Platt’s view was that it is better to use pre-emptive self-destruction and renewal: There is an insightful quote from Fortune in 1994 where Mr Platt says; "We have to be willing to cannibalize what we're doing today in order to ensure our leadership in the future. It's counter to human nature, but you have to kill your business while it is still working. Or as they say in Silicon Valley, it's better to eat your lunch before someone else eats it for you.”
Quite!