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in mind, it is obvious that new does not
always equal better.”
For Ford, it meant doing up-front
homework the right way, the first time,
including leveraging vehicle connectivity
data to let the product development
department understand how Ford drivers
use their vehicles. In turn, engineers can
do their jobs to better satisfy customers.
“There’s nothing new or unusual about
this; it’s simply a matter of committing
to continuous improvement and quality,”
Russell says. “This is the business model
of universities, internet service providers,
airlines and airplane manufacturers, book
publishers, and more. Consumers like
reliability and quality, so going for broke
on the next big thing is a big gamble
that a lot of reputable brands make only
rarely.”
As for how the digital acceleration of
the last decade has led businesses and
organizations to neglect maintenance,
Vinsel says the verdict still may be out.
“One thing we hear over and over is that
leaders in firms tend to underestimate how
much maintenance hardware and software
requires. There’s a kind of magical thinking
around digital technologies, as if these
‘disembodied’ systems somehow don’t
require maintenance, repair and upkeep. In
reality, entropy affects them just as it affects
everything else. In some cases, it hits digital
systems even harder.”
When it comes to world-class
maintenance, Russell and Vinsel like to
point out that Netflix, Google and Amazon
Web Services all have developed cutting-edge
maintenance offices, while brands like
General Electric remain steadfast at chasing
the shiny and new objects at the expense of
the bottom line.
Does that mean that innovation should
not be so much of a priority today? Vinsel
says it really depends on your definition
of innovation. “If we are talking about
the diffusion of new technologies and/or
business models, then innovation remains a
basic aspect of capitalism as it always has.
But there are also big questions about how
deep current innovations are going. For
example, the sharing economy, including
apps like Lyft, Uber, Grubhub, etc., have
not been as revolutionary as its boosters
imagined.”
As history reminds us, it might just be a
matter of time.