Van Coller: How Salim Ismail’s masterpiece opens up world of 10x and ExOs

In Silicon Valley, 10x has become part of the vernacular. It translates into ten-times – exponential growth, the only kind of business the Valley’s venture capital investors are truly interested in. The 10x world was introduced by technology’s democratisation of information. Witness the explosion of Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, Google and in a local context Naspers’s 34%-owned Tencent, all of which have shattered the old rules of incremental growth. Singularity University co-founder Salim Ismail made a deep study of the 10x phenomena and consolidated it into his magnificent book Exponential Organisations – Why new organisations are ten times better, faster, and cheaper than yours (and what to do about it). This week Barclays Africa Corporate and Investment Banking CEO Stephen van Coller brought Ismail and his colleagues to Johannesburg to provide a masterclass in Exponential Organisations (ExOs). They shared their insights with the bank’s staff and top clients. – and Biznews was there meeting the geniuses and conducting interviews. Van Coller explains some of the motivation behind his decision to bring Silicon Valley to Gauteng in this review of Ismail’s book. – Alec Hogg  

By Stephen van Coller*

If there is one book that has fundamentally changed the way that I approach business, from a traditional approach using linear thinking, to an approach that has helped me to think creatively and harness the power of disruptive technologies to solve issues and create new revenue streams, it is ‘Exponential Organisations’.

Salim Ismail, one of the leading thinkers and practitioners on the future of organisations, outlines how accelerating technologies are changing the course of business. In fact, Ismail suggests that technology has the potential to meet the basic needs of every man, woman and child over the next few decades.

As a business leader in Africa, where social inequality is so stark, I was inspired by the exponential concept. I wanted to explore how we could leverage new technologies to not only grow and evolve our business at Barclays, but also to be relevant to the communities where we operate.

The book is based on the premise that our world is moving exponentially quicker. As technology evolves and more aspects of our lives are digitised, the pace of change is accelerating. Things like crowd-sourcing and big data have completely changed industries and are introducing new, unexpected competitors to the mix.

These technologies are also enabling massive scale and transparency. As a result, we are seeing the emergence of a new breed of organisations – so called Exponential Organisations. Consider Uber, Waze, and Airbnb. Each has leveraged the power of new technologies, social media and the crowd to up-end traditional companies in their industry. It didn’t take them decades to do so, it took them just 18 or 24 months.

What I love about those examples is how counterintuitive their approach was. Uber doesn’t own cars. Airbnb doesn’t own hotels. Yet they are now the leaders in their industry. How did they do it? The founders of those companies didn’t think about their business in a traditional, linear way.

The book frames a new approach and offers a how-to-guide for the executive who wants to thrive during this time of information-based, disruptive change. He offers business leaders, from start-ups to large global companies, advice and examples on how to apply exponential principles to the truly scalable parts of their business.

At Barclays, we were already thinking about how we could future-proof our business, and this book helped to focus my approach. We’ve established some very big, audacious goals and we’re doing two-week sprints to tackle them. We’ve also implemented a R200 million fund which enables us to invest like a venture capital firm in ideas that we see at the forefront of Africa’s banking future.

I think the biggest lessons that business leaders can take out of this book are:

• If you think about making 10x change, rather than a 10% change, you need to fundamentally change your approach. This allows creative, clean sheet thinking.

• We are at a pivotal point where we can use technology to make a real change. It is our responsibility to make a difference in the communities in which we operate, but with scalable technology and a marginal cost tending to zero this presents a real business opportunity.

• The competitive landscape is changing rapidly. Your competitors might no longer come from your industry. It is important to understand what your company offers and where your competitors are coming from, or risk failure. For instance, Kodak misunderstood that they were about creating memories rather than a chemical and paper company.

In summary, this book offers those in management critical insight into the current era of hyper-accelerated innovation and competition, as well as a credible way of future proofing a business in an open, transparent, information-driven world. I highly recommend it.

* Stephen van Coller is the CEO of Barclays Africa Corporate and Investment Banking