Archive
Overestimating digital disruption’s impact
On the face of it, organisations around the world seem – to borrow a phrase from last year’s Bond film Spectre – like “a kite dancing in a hurricane” as they try to counter the creative destruction that is being wreaked on them by new customer trends, sales channels and competing entrants, facilitated by digital.
In February, McKinsey published a podcast entitled Achieving a Digital State of Mind, saying that digital profoundly impacted “business models, customer journeys, and organizational agility”. That same month, Boston Consulting Group, another consultancy, upped the ante. For those lost at sea in a world of hashtags and start-ups, BCG offered Navigating a World of Digital Disruption. In it they continue the naval navigation analogy, warning of the impending third – and most destructive – wave of digital disruption about to hit, with “profound implications not only for strategy but also for the structures of companies and industries”.
So what to make of news in The Economist this week that indirectly shows the rather pathetic impact – not to mention particularly calm seas – of all this disruption? While stories of Uber disrupting Luddite taxi firms around the world are commonplace, The Economist reports that things are only getting better for the successful legacy companies at the top: “A very profitable American firm has an 80% chance of being that way ten years later. In the 1990s the odds were only about 50%”. How to account for increased chances of long-term, consistent success in a world where your USP and customer base are stolen from right under your nose by a newer, nimbler, digital doppelganger, supposedly the moment you turn your back? The article continues:
Unfortunately the signs are that incumbent firms are becoming more entrenched, not less. Microsoft is making double the profits it did when antitrust regulators targeted the software firm in 2000.
The Economist reasons that increasingly concentrated ownership, coupled with an onerous regulatory environment, are to blame. It is sad to see that while digital takes on work cultures, shapes strategy and provides new opportunities, it cannot compete with themes as old as business itself: monopolies and red tape.
When does Microsoft stop being Microsoft?
An astounding twenty years ago, my father bought Bill Gates’ book, “The Road Ahead”. A business book barely interested me at that age, but it came with a CD-ROM (contents above) that showed an exciting future, much of which will sound familiar today. It seemed only natural that Gates’ company, Microsoft, would play an integral part in this future. Who would have guessed that Microsoft would fail to be the leader of so many of today’s dominant technologies? In smartphones, they are reduced to competing for the “middle ground” with Sony, as Apple and Google innovate. In television, again, Apple and Google, as well as the likes of Amazon, Netflix. In gaming, it has lost the console crown to Sony’s Playstation 4. And its famous OS, Windows, went through significant problems in its most recent iteration when myriad complaints about the absence of a Start button and a generally perplexing UX caused a volte-face that served as an embarrassing period for the company.
Since Satya Nadella took over as chief executive last year, there has been much talk of change in the way Microsoft does business, and indeed, in which businesses it will continue to operate in. But how much should Microsoft change before it loses touch with its roots? When does Microsoft stop being Microsoft?
In an article published in The Economist last month, the newspaper detailed how any business project that seemed to operate in an adjacent or transformative area for Microsoft – and thus by implication weakened the focus on Windows – was given short shrift during the days of Gates, who was known to utter in disbelief: “WHAT are you on? The ‘fuck Windows’ strategy?”. The Economist goes on to write that many of the companies best innovations were killed at the hands of this “strategy tax”. This phrase reportedly makes Mr Nadella shudder now, and he encourages innovations in areas that interest people. This has had noticeable effects; Microsoft wares are no longer confined to a walled garden. Office programs are available on smartphones, and the company is working more closely with Linux, an open-source platform that erstwhile chief exec Steve Ballmer once referred to as a “cancer”.
This previous reluctance to embrace open-source drove initial (and hugely profitable) success. But today, as computing moves to the cloud, The Economist writes, “this model is breaking down. Software is becoming a service delivered over the internet and mostly based on open standards”. Although it innovated in the right areas – specifically cloud computing and smartphones – its reluctance to allow people to run anything on these platforms but Windows OS not only narrowed their offering but allowed for competitors, the likes of Amazon and Apple, respectively, to move in. It is thus interesting to note that Nadella’s motto for Microsoft is “mobile first, cloud first”.
It is interesting to note that Mr Nadella rose to the top via Microsoft’s cloud business (Azur), rebuilding revenues by “letting customers use their own choice of software”. Office is available as a freemium model, and he has reached across the aisle in making it available on Android and iOS devices. The company allows Office 365 users to save their files “on the servers of Box, an enterprise-software firm. ‘They used to treat us like arch-enemies’, says Aaron Levie, Box’s boss.” Importantly, the ways of working have changed there; agile work practices are now in place, with products being tested and released iteratively under the umbrella “Garage”.
These changes are evidently not merely cosmetic. It does seem to be part of a renewed focus (that may even involve the spinning off of Xbox). It is key changes like this that IBM – a behemoth once surpassed by Microsoft, which is in its own throes of evolution as it looks to consulting and a partnership with Apple – is also engaging in. There are challenges though. On the subject of clawing back the hearts and minds of mobile developers, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen told The New York Times recently, “It’s very challenging to carve back market share”. It speaks to a larger problem around talent. Marco Iansiti of Harvard Business School commented recently “Microsoft has lost a lot of great people”. Furthermore, its cloud and mobile focus could be dangerous; while its cloud services revenue is growing, it will not be enough to be make up for losses elsewhere. In mobile, the purchase of Nokia is increasingly seen as a misguided decision. Such challenges are compounded by the fact that, as Allen says, Microsoft has “more competitors than any major C.E.O. in the world” has to deal with. Faced with such fundamental change to the business on its own Road Ahead, it should be of small comfort that Boston Consulting Group published a report in April entitled “There’s no such thing as corporate DNA”, with the subheading “Why You Have to Be Prepared to Change Everything to Endure“.
TMT Trends 2015 – Star Wars, Tech Wars & Talent Wars
***
*Our 2016 trends for the sector can be found here*
***
Our most popular article this year by far was a piece we wrote on trends in the media and entertainment industry for the coming twelve months. That nothing has been written since January that has proved as popular as that is a little disappointing, but it is a good indication of what users come to this blog for.
It’s been an interesting past month or so in the Technology, Media and Telecoms sector. We’re going to attempt to recap some of the more consequential things here, as well as the impact they may have into next year.
Star Wars – And the blockbuster dilemma
Friday saw the release of the first trailer for Star Wars Episode VII, due for release December 2015. CNBC covered the release at the coda of European Closing Bell, around the point of a segment a story might be done about a cat caught up a tree (“On a lighter note…”). They discussed the trailer and the franchise on a frivolous note at first, mostly joking about the length of time since the original film’s release. One of the anchors then went on to claim that Disney’s purchase of “Lucasfilms” [sic] and the release of this trilogy of films, given the muted reaction to Episodes I-III, constituted a huge bet on Disney’s part. This showed a profound lack of understanding. Collectively, Episodes I-III, disappointing artistically as they may have been, made a cool $1.2bn. And this is just at the box office. Homevideo revenues would probably have been the same again, almost certainly more. Most importantly (whether we like it or not), are revenue streams like toy sales, theme park rides and the like (see below graphic, from StatisticBrain). So we are talking about a product that, despite many not being impressed with, managed to generate several billion dollars for Fox, Lucasfilm, et al. With a more reliable pair of hands at the helm in the form of J.J. Abrams, to say Episodes VII-IX are a huge bet is questionable thinking at best.
It can be easy for pundits to forget those ancillary streams, but in contemporary Hollywood it is such areas that are key, and fundamentally influence what films get made. Kenneth Turan, writing in mid-September for the LA Times, echoed such thinking. As with our Star Wars example; so “with the Harry Potter films, and it is happening again with ‘Frozen’, with Disney announcing just last week that it would construct a ‘Frozen’ attraction at Orlando’s Disney World”. It is why studios have scheduled, as of August this year, some 30 movies based on comicbooks to be released over the coming years. Of course, supply follows demand. Such generic shlock wouldn’t be made again and again (and again) if consumers didn’t exercise their capitalist right to choose it and consume it. We have been given Transformers 4 because the market said it wanted it.
But is this desire driven by a faute de mieux – a lack of anything better – in said market? David Fincher may not have been far off the mark back in September when he mentioned in an interview with Playboy that “studios treat audiences like lemmings, like cattle in a stockyard“. But a shift from such a narrow mindset may prove difficult in a consolidated environment – Variety’s editor-in-chief Peter Bart pointed out recently that “six companies control 90% of the media consumed by Americans, compared with 50 companies some 30 years ago”. Some players of course are trying to change the way the business this works. The most provocative statement of this was in September when Netflix announced a sequel to “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, to be released day-and-date across Netflix and in IMAX cinemas. Kudos. It’s the kind of thing this blog has been advocating since its inception. Though not in accordance with a capitalist model, the market is certainly showing a desire for more day-and-date releases. Netflix isn’t a lone outlier as on OTT provider trying to develop exclusive content that goes beyond comicbooks (that in itself should give Netflix pause; about a fifth of its market value has eroded since mid-October). Hulu’s efforts with J.J. Abrams and Stephen King, as well as Amazon’s universally acclaimed Transparent series (full disclosure, a good friend works on the show; Zeitgeist was privileged to take a look around the sets on the Paramount lot while in Los Angeles this summer). And that’s not to say innovative content can’t be developed around blockbuster fare; we really liked 20th Century Fox’s partnership with Vice for ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’, creating short films that filled the gaps between the film and its predecessor. Undoubtedly the model needs to change; unlike last summer, there were no outright bombs this year at the box office, but receipts fell 15% all the same. The first eight months of 2014 were more than $400m behind the same period in 2013. Interviewed in the FT, Robert Fishman, an analyst with MoffettNathanson put it wisely, “It always comes down to the product on the screen. And the product on the screen just hasn’t delivered.” An editorial in The Economist earlier this month praised Hollywood’s business model, suggesting other businesses should emulate it. But beyond some good marketing tactics there seems little that should be copied by others. Indeed, lots more work is needed. Perhaps the first step is merely rising that not all blockbusters need to be released in the summer. Next year, James Bond, Star Wars and The Avengers will all arrive on screens… spread throughout the year. Expect 2015 to feature more innovation on the part of exhibitors too, beyond having their customers be rained on.
Tech wars – Hacking, piracy and monopolies
Sony Pictures faced some embarrassment this week when hackers claimed to have penetrated the company’s systems, getting away with large volumes of data that included detailed information on talent (such as passport details for the likes of Angelina Jolie and Cameron Diaz). The full story is still unfolding. We’ve written a couple of times recently about cybersecurity; it was disappointing but unsurprising to see the spectre of digital warfare raise its head again twice in the past week. The first instance was with Regin, an impressive bit of malware, which seems to be the successor to Stuxnet, a spying program developed by Israeli and American intelligence forces to undermine Iranian efforts to develop nuclear materials. Symantec said Regin had probably taken years to develop, with “a degree of technical competence rarely seen”. Regin was focused on Saudia Arabia, Russia, but also Ireland and India, which muddies the waters of authorship. However, in these post-Snowden days it is well known that friendly countries go to significant lengths to spy on each other, and The Economist posited at least part of the malware was created by those in the UK. Deloitte, ranked number one globally in security consulting by Gartner, is on the case.
The news in other parts of the world is troubling too. In the US, the net neutrality debate rages. It’s too big an issue to be covered here, but the Financial Times and Harvard Business Review cover the topic intelligently, here and here. In China, regulators are cracking down on online TV, a classic case of a long-gestating occurence that at some arbitrary point grows too big to ignore, suddenly becoming problematic. But, if a recent article on the affair in The Economist is anything to go by, such deeds are likely to merely spur piracy. And in the EU this past week it was disconcerting to see what looked like a mix of jealousy, misunderstanding and outright protectionism when the European Parliament voted for Google to be broken up. No one likes or wants a monopoly; monopolies are bad because they can reduce consumer choice. This is one of the key arguments against the Comcast / Time Warner Cable merger. But Google’s share of advertising revenue is being eaten into by Facebook; its mobile platform Android is popular but is being re-skinned by OEMs looking to put their own branding onto the OS. And Google is not reducing choice in the same way as an offline equivalent, with higher barriers to entry, might. The Economist points out this week:
“[A]lthough switching from Google and other online giants is not costless, their products do not lock customers in as Windows, Microsoft’s operating system, did. And although network effects may persist for a while, they do not confer a lasting advantage… its behaviour is not in the same class as Microsoft’s systematic campaign against the Netscape browser in the late 1990s: there are no e-mails talking about “cutting off” competitors’ ‘air supply'”
The power of lock-in, or substitute products, should not be underestimated. For Apple, this has meant the acquisition of Beats, which they are now planning to bundle in to future iPhones. For Jeff Bezos, this means bundling in Washington Post into future Amazon Fire products. For media and entertainment providers, it means getting customers to extend their relationship with the business into triple- and quad-play services. But it has been telling this month to hear from two CEOs who are questioning the pursuit of quad-play. For the most part, research shows that it can increase customer retention, although not without lowering the cost of the overall product. Sky’s CEO Jeremy Darroch said “If I look at the existing quadplays in the market, not just in the UK, but pretty much everywhere, I think they’re very much driven by the providers who want to extend their offering, rather than, I think, any significant demand from customers”. Vodafone’s CEO Vittorio Colao joined in, “If someone starts bidding for content then you [might] have to yourself… Personally I have doubts that in the long run that this [exclusive content] will really create a lot of value for the platform. It tends to create lots of value for the owner”. Sony meanwhile are pursuing just such a tack of converged services in the form of a new ad campaign. But the benefits of convergence are usually around the customer being able to have multiple touchpoints, not the business being able to streamline assets and services in-house. Sony is in the midst of its own tech war, in consoles, where it is firmly ahead of Microsoft, who were seeking a similar path to that of Sky and Vodafone to dominate the living room. But externalities are impeding – mobile gaming revenues will surpass those of the traditional console next year to become the largest gaming segment; no surprise when by 2020, 90% of the world’s population over 6 years old will have a mobile phone, according to Ericsson. So undoubtedly look for more cyberattacks next year, on a wider range of industries, from film, to telco (lots of customer data there), to politics and economics.
Talent wars – Cui bono?
Our last section is the lightest on content, but perhaps the most important. It is the relation between artist and patron. This relationship took a turn for the worse this year. On a larger, corporate side, this issue played itself out as Amazon and publisher Hachette rowed over fees. Hachette, rather than Amazon, appears to have won the battle; it will set he prices on its books, starting from early 2015. It is unlikely to be the last battle between the ecommerce giant and a publisher, and it may well now give the DoJ the go-ahead to examine the company’s alleged anti-competitive misdeeds.
Elsewhere, artist Taylor Swift’s move to exorcise her catalogue from music streaming service Spotify is a shrewd move on her part. Though an extremely popular platform, driving a large share of revenues to the artists, the problem remains that there is little revenue to start with as much of what there is to do on Spotify can be done for free. The Financial Times writes that it is thanks to artists like Swift that “an era of protectionism is dawning” again (think walled gardens and Compuserve) for content. The danger for the music industry is that other artists take note of what Swift has done and follow suit. This would be of benefit to the individual artists but detrimental to the industry itself. And clearly such an issue doesn’t have to be restricted to the music industry. It’s not hard to anticipate a similar issue affecting film in 2015.
*
There’s a plethora of activity going on in TMT as the year draws to a close – much of it will impact how businesses behave and customers interact with said media next year. The secret will be in drawing a long-term strategic course that can be agile enough to adapt to disruptive technologies. However what we’ve hopefully shown here in this article is that there are matters to attend to in multiple sectors that need immediate attention over any amorphous future trends.
Firefighting at Sony
Sony’s ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ made a cool $700m+ at the global box office for the studio and its parent company. Elsewhere, the news for Sony was less rosy.
We’ve written about Sony multiple times over the years, rarely in a good light. A parody Twitter account of the company’s CEO, Kazuo Hirai, often makes for entertaining reading. The company can’t seem to catch a break. Its latest financial results, released today, warned of a $2.2bn loss for the financial year, the sixth loss in seven years. For the first time since 1958, the company will not pay a dividend. Much of the blame fell to the ailing smartphone division, which generates a fifth of the company’s revenue, but other businesses hurt the conglom too. The company loses $80 on every TV sold; rumours abound they will sell the Spider-Man franchise back to Marvel for a quick payday; the one bright light, Playstation, which took the company into the black in Q2, is beginning to seem risky, as customers look beyond single-use devices like games consoles, a trend we spotted back in January last year. (Earlier this week, Microsoft continued to hint that it might spin off the Xbox business). Sony recently spun off its TV division into a subsidiary and sold its PC business. These actions in turn were supposed to bear fruit, but clearly haven’t.
Much of the difficulty Sony faces was elaborated on in detail in a brilliant profile of then-CEO Sir Howard Stringer for The New Yorker, back in 2006. Little has changed since then. In today’s FT, the newspaper outlines the longevity of Sony’s heartache.
June 1999 Nobuyuki Idei becomes chief executive. Four years later he presides over the infamous Sony “Shokku”, or shock, in which the group surprised investors with a profits warning.
June 2005 British-born Howard Stringer becomes chief executive, the first foreigner to lead Sony with a mandate to restore profitability and turn the core electronics business round.
September 2005 Sir Howard’s first major restructuring initiative outlines a plan to cut staff numbers by 10,000, or 7 per cent, and reduce costs by Y200bn. It will also close 11 manufacturing plants, streamline its number of products and generate capital from asset sales. “We must be like the Russians defending Moscow against Napoleon, ready to scorch the earth to stay ahead of the invaders. We must be Sony United and fight like the Sony warriors we are,” he says.
December 2008 A second wave of restructuring begins with plans to cut 16,000 full-time and part-time jobs in its electronics businesses around the world.
2011 Sony downgrades its net income forecasts four times.
March 2012 The group highlights its digital imaging, game and mobile units as the three core pillars of its electronics business.
April 2012 Kazuo ‘Kaz’ Hirai takes over as chief executive. Sir Howard says he will be a “tough-mind[ed]” leader. The first restructuring under Mr Hirai is outlined under the banner of “Sony will change”. Sony will shed 10,000 jobs, or about 6 per cent of its global headcount, over the next three years.
March 2013 The group reports its first full-year net income in five years.
October 2013 Sony warns on profits.
January 2014 Moody’s cuts Sony rating to junk.
February 2014 Plans to spin out the television business and sell the Vaio PC business are announced.
May 2014 Sony warns on profits for the third time in six months.
July 2014 The group surprises the market by swinging into profit for the second quarter.
September 2014 Sony warns that its expected annual net loss will be nearly five times as big as initially predicted at Y230bn.
How Apple flaunts precedents
If a market sector hasn’t seen a great deal of activity or customer engagement, after several attempts by respected companies, it might be deemed a bit of a risk for a business to enter the market. Why try where others – with the benefit of first-mover advantage – have failed?
For Apple, the opposite is the case. Sony was already trying to make laptops look beautiful with Vaio before the success of the iMac, Creative Labs and others had been selling MP3 players for years before the first iPod launched in 2001. Microsoft had tried its hand at smartphones with the Pocket PC before Apple wowed the world with the iPhone and Intel made a tablet in 2001 that saw little success. So it was curious to see the below quote yesterday from Ben Bajarin, analyst at Creative Strategies, on the eve of the release of Apple’s Watch device.
“There really isn’t a market for wearables yet… You struggle to find the value proposition and the reason for Apple to do it.”
The reason for doing it is precisely because so many of Apple’s peers and pretenders have failed to create a market for wearables, just as they failed to create a market for the tablet, the smartphone and the MP3 player.
Cyberattacks and espionage – Risks and Prevention
It’s not quite as cool as Bond in his Tom Ford suit leaning on his wonderful Aston Martin while he plots his next move to unseat some despot. All the same, Germany’s recent apparent spate of typewriter purchases points to a renewed sense of fear of being overheard and compromised in an era of digitally pervasive content, vulnerable networks and indelible conversations. Spying and intelligence concerns coalesced with subject matter we’ve previously written about – including online privacy, governance, security and the internet of things – in a special report in last week’s The Economist, which produced eight articles on the subject of security in a digital landscape. Some highlights:
- Cybercrime is costly. The Centre for Strategic and International Studies estimates the annual global cost of digital crime and intellectual-property theft at $445 billion – a sum “roughly equivalent to the GDP of a smallish rich European country such as Austria”.
- Focus on prevention rather than reaction. As with many things, the best way to make sure cyberattacks aren’t too damaging to your business is to make sure they never happen in the first place. It’s more difficult (and costly) with digital security because the process can easily feel like a Sisyphean struggle; businesses invest in new technology only to see it circumvented by more hacking, perhaps exposing a different loophole or vulnerability. But an iterative approach is better than leaving the door open and spending more money after the fact.
- Honesty is the best policy. After being hacked, a company can find it hard to admit it. This is understandable. Not only is it somewhat embarassing, it admits to customers and shareholders that the company is vulnerable, but it also suggests that their data is not safe with said company; perhaps they should shop elsewhere. However, transparency in such a situation is paramount if others are to learn how to combat such attacks. One suggestion is that the US government “create a cyber-equivalent of the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates serious accidents and shares information about them”.
- Who to complain to? The perpetrators of cybercrimes are no longer limited to the teenaged hackers of yesteryear. Though ideological groups like Anonymous serve as a disruptive influence, often the biggest problems are caused by the governments charged with protecting things like individual privacy, security and freedom of speech. From the US to China, authorities “do not hesitate to use the web for their own purposes, be it by exploiting vulnerabilities in software or launching cyber-weapons such as Stuxnet, without worrying too much about the collateral damage done to companies and individuals”.
- External trends point to a worsening of the problem. The Internet of Things as a trend will have billions of devices connected to each other via the Internet over the next few years. With one of the fundamental ideas being that the user isn’t really aware of the connection, the likelihood of spotting a hacked device becomes all the smaller. This isn’t a huge problem in cases like a connected fridge receiving spam email, but it becomes more of a problem when hackers can gain remote control of your car. One of the barriers to improved security for everyday devices is that the margins are razor-thin, as are the chips to connected to the devices, in order to keep the product small. Any added security software or hardware and the cost and size of the product increases.
Zeitgeist believe the risk to IoT devices will be one of the key areas that businesses and regulators will need to focus their efforts in the future. Because it is still a relatively fledgling sector, the issue is not being discussed yet in many places. Deloitte, in association with the Wall Street Journal, recently reported on the nature of cyberrisks and how companies can help mitigate them. Well worth a read.
Regulating in the face of digital disruption
Having studied policy and regulation at university, Zeitgeist is often compelled to look at many issues facing companies today through a regulatory lens. But even the most dispassionate fan of rules and laws would have to concede that as digital innovation disrupts multiple sectors around the world, the way these new innovations and businesses are governed is an important consideration. In this piece we’ll be looking at regulatory concerns for disruptors like Uber and Netflix, as well as how regulation effects legacy companies like Microsoft and Comcast. As with many of our articles on this blog, we’ll be taking a particular look at the TMT sector. (Bitcoin will have to wait for another article).
Regulators often find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place. Should the emphasis be placed ex-ante, to ensure compliance, or ex-post to apply punitive measures and fix problems once they have become apparent? The former seems wise as it sets initial goals for companies. But it also risks opening loopholes, as well as being overly prescriptive and thus failing to adapt. It can also lead to the development of overly-familiar relations between regulator and industry, leading to what is known as ‘capture’. Currently, the US favours an ex-ante approach, but as Edward Luce detailed recently in the Financial Times, this has led to a “creeping impulse to micro-regulate“. The FDA’s recent announcement that they would regulate e-cigarettes, despite no proof it encourages the take-up of smoking tobacco, is such an example. Ex-post – regulating after an event – seems just as bad, mostly because the damage has already been done at that point. While it means that all problems addressed are real-world and practical, they can also be applied with too much emphasis. Above all, regulation ultimately risks stifling innovation; Edison moved to the West coast because he was fed up of the stringent regulations in the East. A recent lead article in The Economist asserted that, far from too little regulation, the global recession was caused by too much state involvement in the wrong places. Too little oversight though, and companies can be allowed to run wild.
Earlier this month, The New York Times featured an op-ed on regulating the online world. It is written by New York State attorney general Eric Schneiderman. As might be expected, he quickly attacks online start-ups saying it is “amazing” that they think just because their business is online, that “somehow makes them immune from regulation”. This is all well and good, but it masks the fact that clear regulations have not been established. Schneiderman is right to point out that just because a business now has an app instead of a high street store doesn’t mean its responsibilities to the law have changed. It is an apt analogy. But in practice the story is different. As with most innovations, from film to Napster and Airbnb, regulators must constantly be playing catch-up. The complaints of new businesses are not that they should be subject to regulation, rather that those rules are onerous or outdated, applying to a different time. The sharing economy works because it has found cheaper, more efficient ways of offering services that hitherto were more restricted; regulations need to be appropriately dispensed. Sadly, many cities in the US have simply blocked allowing such services to operate. Uber – a car pickup service – is probably not wholly repulsed by the thought of regulation, but they are resistant to rules put in place by entrenched interests and unions. Airbnb might violate the letter of the law, but not the spirit surely. People have always let out their living space to others. The only thing that has changed is scale. Why does scale suddenly make something legally problematic? Schneiderman points out that some lettings are so large, with multiple rooms let at once, that they are essentially hotels. True enough, perhaps, but Zeitgeist has certainly never come across such a property, and they are certainly small in number, and no more represent Airbnb’s ethos than any hotel violating its own (regulated) terms. A recent article in The Economist argued for “adaptation, not prohibition“. Schneiderman’s sentiment is that these start-ups need to work more closely and proactively with regulators, but this fails to recognise that regulators need to also fundamentally change their approach.
East and West shook up a regulatory framework with the recent release of “300: Rise of an Empire” via China’s Tencent website
Regulation in China has been a hot topic for a while now. This is principally because the region has a low tolerance of free speech. But it extends to cultural concerns as well; the Google Play store, Twitter, and most of Hollywood’s annual product do not make it onto Chinese shores (legally, anyway). What this creates is a secondary tier of companies who take Western business models and run with it. That’s why there are multiple Chinese Android app stores, why Sina Weibo is a fantastically successful service, and why many poor remakes of US films flood the Chinese market. It has been pleasing then to see two recent developments in the way China regulates the TMT sector that should be good news for consumers and Western companies. Today saw the announcement that Microsoft’s Xbox One is to be sold in China. It will be the first foreign games console to go on sale in the country, lifting a fourteen year ban. This would open up the company to the half billion active gamers in China. Additionally, as Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Securities pointed out,
“The middle class in China is pretty large, and positioning the box as an over-the-top TV receiver gives it a lot of appeal to wealthier Chinese.”
Earlier this week, Warner Bros was the latest film studio to partner with Chinese site Tencent. The film 300: Rise of an Empire, is available to rent through the site, while it is still in cinemas in territories like the US. The points of the deal were very interesting. Zeitgeist has for a number of years now advocated an increased flexibility to film platform release windows. Such a rigid structure as the industry has in the US is not as apparent in China. This could help alleviate piracy in the country and separately could pave the way for a relaxing of the quota of US films that are let into the Chinese market every year. Hopefully this will be a precursor to more such moves in Western markets. As someone commented on the news when it was published on the Financial Times website,
“Maybe they can do the same in the rest of the world as well?
Or I could wait 2 months for something to come out on Bluray in the UK compared to the US. Or just pirate it when the US version is available since they won’t let me buy it in my country, but will let other people buy it in other countries.”
While China is taking steps forward, the US seems to be faltering in its regulatory approach. We mentioned the impending restrictions on e-cigarettes earlier, and let’s not even go into then-mayor Michael Bloomberg’s crusade against sugar. We’ve written about net neutrality before. The issue has been of interest to Zeitgeist since university days. It was thrust into the spotlight this year when a US court ruled that the FCC had “overstepped its authority” after a legal challenge from Verizon. Last week, new rules were proposed that will undermine the original purpose of the policy of treating all traffic the same, allowing ISPs to charge companies like Netflix more in order to reach consumer with greater quantity or quality, but only on “commercially reasonable” terms. These terms have yet to be defined. These moves touch on a related matter that has also been greeted with consternation by those who favour fairness. This is Comcast‘s proposed merger with Time Warner Cable. Netflix recently publicly came out against the move. It is easy to see why. As The Economist recently elaborated, such a deal would limit competition and reduce any incentive to innovate. It is also one more example of the assumption companies have that their problems can be solved with size. Comcast have admitted they will raise prices for the end user, while as much as conceding there will no be no discernible benefit to them. One might argue there is little more for such companies to do, but average internet speeds in Tokyo and Singapore are ten times as fast on average as in the US. Even the Financial Times, which can often be counted on to be a bastion of support for capitalists, compared Comcast to the Railway Barons of the past.
The sharing economy is creating difficulty for many sectors, and regulatory agencies have not escaped this. Such forces have been to slow to adapt to fundamental changes in the TMT sector, particularly in print, music and film industries. There certainly seems to be a tendency for over-regulation today, particularly in the US. Returning to an article we mentioned at the beginning of our piece, Edward Luce laments that America “no longer feels unusually free”. Perhaps this is part of a cyclical trend. Like the causes of the recession, perhaps the problem is a stifling caused by over-regulation in the wrong places, coupled with a lack of innovation in areas where sensible rules that do not cater to the established are in dire need. It is good to see rules and regulations around consoles and release windows are being relaxed in China, but the furore around regulating the sharing economy needs a similar dose of innovative thinking.
UPDATE (17/9/14): We’ve included some nice examples in this post of innovative thinking paired with light touch regulation going on in China’s entertainment sector. Sadly the pendulum swings both ways; though shows like BBC’s ‘Sherlock’ were made available with authorised translations mere hours after their original broadcast in Blighty, the state is cracking down hard in other ways. The Economist reports that last week, China’s TV regulator said that, from April, any foreign series or film would need approval before being shown online. It is looking for “health, well-made works” that “showcase good values”. This sounds like a vague excuse to arbitrarily censor content it doesn’t like. Explicitly, banned subject matter includes, according to The Economist, “superstition, espionage and—bizarrely—time travel”.
Microsoft’s ‘New Coke’ moment – On knowing when your customer is dissatisfied
Microsoft has been trying its hand at a bit of innovation of late in an attempt to raise some of its lost brand equity, and stem the larger market decline in PC sales, which has recently started accelerating. (On a side note, Deloitte have a caveat to these figures, saying the true measurement is in usage, not units).
One of the ways this innovation has come about is in the release of its Surface product, which has interested many but earned the ire of erstwhile manufacturing partners as Microsoft has pursued its own path, making the product in-house. Its new operating system, Windows 8, has struggled to gain traction with consumers. The president of Fujitsu, one of Microsoft’s partners, declared interest to be “weak” back in December last year. The most obvious step-change from previous iterations is the slate screen that greets users upon booting up. On proceeding through this, users then come to a more familiar Windows layout.
In yesterday’s Financial Times, Microsoft said it was preparing to “reverse course over key elements of its Windows 8 operating system”. Envisioneering analyst Richard Doherty was quoted as saying it is the biggest marketing fiasco since New Coke. The only difference being, Doherty comments, that Coca-Cola acknowledged their error three months in, whereas Microsoft is pushing eight months now since launch; Coca-Cola conversely paid more attention to what its customers were saying about the product. “The learning curve is definitely real”, said head of marketing and finance for the Windows business, Tami Reller.
IDC research tells a discouraging story for businesses relying on PC sales
Today’s FT featured an editorial entitled “Steve Ballmer was right to gamble on change”. Opening with a quotation by Bill Gates, saying that to “win big you sometimes have to take big risks”, the editorial cites Kodak as a primary example of a company that refused to take risk, and ended up succumbing to creative destruction at the expense of trying to protect legacy revenue streams. We’ve written before about Kodak and creative destruction. The editorial calls for a revival of a “climate of creativity” at the company, and certainly that is what Ballmer is trying to instill, very nobly and with good reason. Zeitgeist’s bone of contention is with the following, seemingly logical statement,
“…disruptive innovations are disruptive precisely because the new technology does not appeal to traditional customers. Instead, it appeals to the customers of the future.”
We would argue that Microsoft’s customer base is made up overwhelmingly of what might be considered “traditional” customers. Users who find familiarity with a long-established incumbent, who have no interest in OS alternatives like Linux, Apple, Android or Mozilla. They are not looking for a revolution. By all means change your product, but it must evolve, not look like a completely different way of computing when you switch it on. This point is confirmed nicely by a recent piece in Harvard Business Review, which details how to get customers to value your product more. The author, Heidi Grant Halvorson, describes the importance of knowing the right emotional fit for your customers’ mindset. The article elaborates,
“motivational focus — whether he tends to view his goals as ideals and opportunities to advance (what researchers call “promotion focus”), or as opportunities to stay safe and keep things running smoothly (“prevention focus”). While everyone has a mix of both to some extent, most of us tend to have a dominant focus.”
We would argue that users that prefer Microsoft Windows OS to other systems would strongly fall into the latter category. Change is perhaps inevitable, but Microsoft are choosing a precarious path with such radical changes aimed at a group little interested in such fundamental alterations to the way they interact with such an integral device.
Creative Destruction in Electronic Arts
The videogame industry, like many of the protagonists in the games it creates, is under attack. The competition is fierce. Not only is there healthy competition amongst legacy companies – including Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft – but new devices are increasingly distracting consumers, and digital disruption elsewhere is changing the way these companies do business.
Part of the problem is cyclical; the market has gone longer than usual without a major new console launch from either Sony or Microsoft, which in turn makes game manufacturers hesitate from making new product. But the industry needs to be wary that their audience has changed, in multiple ways. Sony are now starting to talk about their PS4 (due to be released in around six months’ time), beginning with a dire two hour presentation recently that failed to reveal price, release date, or an image of the console. And the word over at TechCrunch? “A tired strategy… [O]verall the message was clear: Sony’s PS4 is an evolution, not an about-face, or a realization that being a game console might not mean what it used to mean.”
We’ve written before on creative destruction in other industries, and talked before about shifting parameters for companies like Nintendo. The inventor of NES and Game Boy is currently struggling with poor sales of its new console, while at the same the chief executive of Nintendo America recently stated that digital downloads of videogames were becoming a “notable contributor” to their bottom line. Companies like Apple are surrounded by perpetual rumours of developing their own videogame platform. New companies in their own right, such as the Kickstarter-funded company producing the $99 Ouya, is among several players shaking up the industry. The upshot of such turmoil – a “burning platform” as the Electronic Arts CEO described the situation in 2007, referring to the dilemma of holding onto the burning oil rig and drowning in the process, or risk jumping off into who-knows-what – is a loss of market share. Accenture in January published a report predicting the demise of single-use devices such as cameras and music players whose revenues would be eaten into as more and more consumers flocked to tablet and other multi-purpose gadgets. Videogame console purchase intent was not researched, but it is not hard to make the analogy.
It was enlightening and reassuring then to read McKinsey Quarterly’s interview recently with Bryan Neider, COO of Electronic Arts. Some interesting take-outs follow. First, in 2007, the company recognised there was a problem: “game-quality scores were down and our costs were rising”. The company wanted to shift from having a relationship with retailers to having one with gamers. This meant having a focus on digital delivery. This fiscal year, digital is forecast to represent 40% of the overall business. Neider recognises this closeness to the consumer makes them even more susceptible to their whims and preferences, so they’re relying far more on data-backed analysis than they have before, including a system with profiles of over 200m customers. This data is used for everything from QA to predicting game usage. Neider elaborates,
“Key metrics answer the following questions: where in the game are consumers dropping out? What is the network effect of getting new players into the game? How many people finish a game? Did we make it too difficult or too long? Did we overdevelop a product or underdevelop it? Did people finish too fast? Those sorts of things are going to be critical… However, the challenge is that parts of the gaming audience are pretty vocal—they either really like a game or they really don’t like it. The trick is to find ways to get feedback from the lion’s share of the audience that is generally silent and make sure we’re giving these people what they want.”
Interestingly, the company’s structure was changed to reflect individual fiefdoms according to franchise – be it FIFA or Need for Speed – the needs for which are managed in that line of business. Each vertical competes with the others to deliver the highest rates of return, while also being able to draw on central resources (marketing, for example). Electronic Arts, as a developer of software for other manufacturers, will to some extent always be at the mercy of which devices are in vogue and the cycle of obsolescence. It is impressive though to see that the company has recognised the need to change the way it does business. The operational and technological sides of business don’t seem to have distracted Neider from the key insight in the industry, “Ultimately, we’re in the people business“.
davidllewelynjones
jordiconnor
zeitgeist and stuff 