Every Company Is A Software Company

What would your company be like, if it was originally a software company?

How would the way you deliver your product or service be different?

How would you interact with your customers?

How would you infuse your offering with software to enhance the customer experience?

This is a good exercise to understand the potential of digital transformation in  your organization. Here are some examples of software companies that have taken over entire industries.

• Amazon took over books
• Netflix took over movies
• Spotify took over music
• Skype & Whatsapp took over telecommunications
• Uber took over taxis
• Airbnb took over hotels
• Tesla took over car manufactures

Last week one of these companies demonstrated, in real time, the power software has to turn lemons into lemonade. (so you can enjoy a delicious and refreshing drink to sip on while you watch your competition kick rocks.)

** In the interest of full disclosure I am an Elon Musk fanboy.**

It just So Happens They Build Cars

Tesla, the company that disrupted an entire industry of automobile manufactures doesn’t consider themselves an automobile manufacturer. Tesla is a software company. That’s not just a play on words or a cute way of saying they are from Silicon Valley. It is an important differentiating factor that has serious implications.

Last week Tesla gave their model 3 to Consumer Reports Magazine, who loved everything about the car except the brakes. The distance to stop was so massive,  Consumer Reports decided they could not endorse the car.

Tesla has been plagued by a series of production problems mostly attributed to the fact that they aren’t an experienced car manufacture and they don’t have 1oo years of stagnet technology to fall back on.

This would have destroyed any other company…but Tesla is not JUST any other company.

Tesla responded immedieatly.

Musk tweeted that he was looking into it with his team and 24 hours later they released a patch. That’s right they released a software update and with every Tesla connected to the cloud , the fix was simply emailed to the cars.

Software Changes The Game

I’ve read that Tesla has a two year tech advantage on their closest competitor.  It is only because of software and their understanding of digital transformation that the company saved itself from extinction. And the lemonade was delicious!

Say what you will about Tesla and Elon Musk, his companies understand digital transformation.

Hit me up on Linkedin if you are having a hard time imaging how your company would be different.

I’ll send you back my thoughts on how your company could do, whatever it does better and cheaper, with a focus on customer satisfaction.

Let’s start looking at our organizations differently. Lets see them as software companies first to get an understanding of what your particular transformation looks like.

-The New IT