Over the past twenty years there has been an explosion of data-based companies surpassing their “traditional” or “linear” counterparts. Most of this is due to how virtually free and accessible information is these days. Instead of maps, customers opt to use GPS systems or apps like Waze. Taxi services have largely been supplanted by Uber and Lyft. Dating has expanded into digital interfaces like OkCupid and Match. Keeping appointments or maintaining interoffice workflow has been streamlined by content creators like Google (Calendar, Drive).
This phenomenon is examined in Exponential Organizations, a joint effort between Salim Ismael, Yuri van Geest, and Michael S. Malone. They propose that technology is shifting so quickly that implementing it is a matter of survival. It’s just as important to move fast. Through adopting habits of other Exponential Organizations (ExOs) a company can increase its foothold in the market. Here are a few of their recommendations:
- Smaller workforces
- Using digital interfaces
- Encouraging peer-to-peer engagement
- Social media
- Integrating your offerings with something a customer is already using (phone, car, etc.)
- Utilizing data and algorithms to study customer response
As another example, we teamed with StreamLinx, the creator of Snapcount energy audit software, so that their tool can transfer key audit outputs into our one-page financial analysis and one-page narrative proposal formats.
Our offerings like Selling in 6™, Segment Guides™ and Mastermind Group Calls leverage similar tactics by consolidating important data to make it more accessible and connecting sales professionals to one another.
Can you integrate exponential practices into your career? If you’re convinced (or even curious), this is a book to check out.
Here is the summary on Amazon:
“In business, performance is key. In performance, how you organize can be the key to growth.
“In the past five years, the business world has seen the birth of a new breed of company―the Exponential Organization―that has revolutionized how a company can accelerate its growth by using technology. An ExO can eliminate the incremental, linear way traditional companies get bigger, leveraging assets like community, big data, algorithms, and new technology into achieving performance benchmarks ten times better than its peers.
“Three luminaries of the business world―Salim Ismail, Yuri van Geest, and Mike Malone―have researched this phenomenon and documented ten characteristics of Exponential Organizations. Here, in Exponential Organizations, they walk the reader through how any company, from a startup to a multi-national, can become an ExO, streamline its performance, and grow to the next level.”
