Transforming Organizations for the Subscription Economy
Starting from Scratch

The emerging present is a fast-changing context for incumbent organizations, especially in market segments where online behavior is replacing physical proximity, and users engage with digital platforms for the acquisition of products and services. These are platforms that allow users to behave, to leave a mark, and to participate in the community of others, which are the values people now seek.

Transforming Organizations for the Subscription Economy: Starting from Scratch aims to prepare executives for a world in which everythingis social, augmented and autonomous; objects and spaces will havemultiple purposes, capabilities and meanings. This is a new territoryfull of opportunity which is generally discussed only at the level oftechnology involved instead of the intellectual level, where the realunderstanding of the need for transformation resides. The book revealsideas about what is possible if we transform the present. The narrativeis organized around what is actual and what is potential; what is theprobable future that we can arrive at through change, and what is thepossible future that we can build through transformation. When engagingin transformation, the following strategic question develops: ifyou were designing your organization today, how would you design it?In other words, how would you go about it starting from scratch?

This book provides the intellectual framework that empowers organizations to understand and navigate the emerging present, and to develop and deliver products and services of intrinsic value to users.

Introduction

Part I The experienced present

1 When history turns a corner

2 Changing how the world changes

3 What has already happened

Part II Value delivery

4 The hierarchy of values

5 Maximum plasticity: data as material

PART III From capability to possibility

6 Strategic transformation 3.0

7 The nature of change and transformation

8 Starting from scratch

PART IV Toward a subscription economy

9 Transforming behavior through everyday experiences

10 Life subscribed

PART V Generation scratch

11 Changing the narrative: profound moments

12 Maximizing humanity: the self as media

Afterword

Bibliography

Index

Alexander Manu is a professor at OCAD University in Toronto, a strategic innovation practitioner, international lecturer and author. He provides strategic counsel and future-based advisory to executive teams in Fortune 100 companies in industries as diverse as consumer packaged goods, media, advertising, mobile communications and manufacturing. He is the author of numerous books including Value Creation and theInternet of Things (2015), Behavior Space (2012), Disruptive Business (2010) and The Imagination Challenge (2006).