Why Technoprenuers should focus on creating business value?
‘By now, we all know about the “merger of equals,” where Cloudera is acquiring Hortonworks to form the big ‘big data’ technology company. The deal signifies that the Hadoop market could no longer sustain two big competitors. Hadoop has been synonymous with big data for years, but the market — and customer needs — have moved on.
Companies of all sizes are increasing their adoption of AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud services at the expense of on-premises infrastructure and software. This is a no-brainer.
So what’s the lesson for technopreneurs in here?
While it is good to build your technology practices (with changing trends and times), it is far more important to solve customer problems and create business value.
At the end of day, selling to your customer means conveying what they value, not how cool your tech is
For starters let’s define what both business and technical value look like?
Technical value: This is the value built into the technical implementation of whatever solution you offer by the engineers in your organization. The complexity of solutions and advanced technology add value. Simpler implementations and common technology reduce the value.
Business value: This is the value extracted from your solution by the customer to run their business. This is the WHY of your whole solution – why the customer would want to use it in the first place. Usually, this value can be measured in terms of revenue, growth, reduction of complexity in business systems, saving of time and simpler transactions – things that help your customer improve their business
Most Technopreneurs I meet are either a technical CEO who have a scientific or engineering bent themselves. Although they’re obviously aware of the need to win customers and grow the business, sometimes the temptation of a big juicy technical problem to solve with a stable of engineers is just too much.
I’ve seen many business leaders go from a state of boredom to full-on orgasmic glee in an instant when I ask about the latest thing they are working on.
Typical ‘shiny new object syndrome’.
When developing and selling value for your customers, use the constraints and rules of creative disciplines like writing and creativity to satisfy the engineering mindset of solving problems while at the same time tapping into the human and business needs of the customer.
Solve business problems. Leverage technology. But don’t get married to it.
Good luck.
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