The Competitive Advantage in business has changed. Many business leaders think it’s about technology – but that’s not quite the case. Technology used to be an enabler of productivity, but in today’s world it’s an amplifier of human capability.

Just the other day I ordered a pizza from Dominos through their app. It’s a straightforward process, one I’ve completed many times before, but that evening, the tech gods were not smiling on me. The app told me my pizza was on its way and just as it neared my doorstep, something went wrong and my order suddenly disappeared. I checked to see if it had been delivered but sadly it hadn’t. So I ring the store…

“Hello! Yes I’m calling about an order for AJ. The app suddenly stopped working for me and it hasn’t been delivered.”

“AJ was it? Yeah it says it’s been delivered.”

“I can confirm that it hasn’t.”

“O…K…”

“So what can we do to resolve this situation my friend?”

“I dunno. I’ll get my manager.”

Well that escalated quickly. I guess he wasn’t trained to deal with anything more than taking orders via phone. But instead of the manager he returned to the phone.

“You still there? It’s still being delivered.”

“Ok, great so if it doesn’t turn up I should call back?”

“Ummm yeah maybe. Give it about 15 mins.”

“Okay then.”

About 20 minutes later it arrived but what an unnecessary few minutes of friction in what could have been a simple Plan B process.

I share this story with you because it’s a great example of an organisation that relies heavily on technology for it’s customer experience – which is perfect for when technology actually works… but when it doesn’t, the humans weren’t prepared to pick up the slack to maintain the customer experience.

Sure this is one micro incident in the grand scheme of things, but in my experience of consulting to hundreds of businesses, little points of friction indicate bigger issues. That’s why the competitive advantage in business isn’t technology.

Watch the video below to see what the competitive advantage actually is today and what we can do to transform our organisations to win in this new era of business.

This clip is from my keynote presentation “Make Tomorrow Better Than Today”. If it resonates, consider booking me to speak at your kick-off event or conference to help your people reimagine business for the future 🙏🍀