De 4 lessen van Alexander Osterwalder

Het is half tien in de ochtend in het Koetshuis van Nyenrode. Ruim 100 deelnemers hebben zich verzameld voor de Focus Conferences masterclass van mister 'Business Model Canvas' himself: Alexander Osterwalder. 

De Zwitserse wetenschapper is pas 40 jaar maar reist nu al de wereld rond naar aanleiding van zijn bestseller (meer dan 1 miljoen keer verkocht) Business Model Generatie. Na een intensieve dag, waarbij het tempo hoog lag, vertrokken we vermoeid maar vol inspiratie en inzichten weer naar huis.

De 4 belangrijkste lessen van Osterwalder:

1. Business plannen zijn zonde van je tijd
Nog altijd zijn er veel organisaties die hun teams vragen om na te denken over nieuwe producten, diensten en markten, door achter hun bureau een business plan te schrijven. 

Zonde van je tijd! Er zijn weinig businessplannen die het eerste contact met de klant overleven. Terwijl toch meestal de business case op papier er heel goed uit zag. Of zoals Scott Cook eens zei: "For every one of our failures, we had spreadsheets that looked awesome".  

Het proces om van idee tot een succesvolle dienst te komen is niet lineair. Het is chaos. Het is zoeken, brainstormen, ontwerpen, testen, leren, aanpassen, weer testen, soms terug naar de tekentafel, andere keren weer bijschaven. Pas na dit hele proces meermalen te zijn doorlopen, en onzekere factoren zoveel mogelijk al in tests zijn onderzocht, kun je grip krijgen op mogelijke uitkomsten en deze vastleggen in een business case. 

2. Betaal medewerkers om fouten te maken. Snel.

Bestaande organisaties hebben de uitdaging om het huidige business model goed te laten functioneren en verder te verbeteren, terwijl tegelijkertijd nieuwe modellen en proposities moeten komen om concurrerend te blijven. 

Bij de eerste ligt de nadruk op executie en de bedrijfscultuur is hier omheen gebouwd: plannen, forecasts, processen verbeteren, automatisering, efficiency. Bij het zoeken naar nieuwe business modellen ligt de nadruk op innovatie. Dit vraagt een hele andere cultuur. Medewerkers hebben ruimte nodig om fouten te maken, ruimte om niet te weten of iets gaat lukken, of iets gaat opleveren. Probeer dat maar eens te gieten in je bestaande salarishuis, voortgangsrapportages en budgetbesprekingen. 

Vooral het maken van fouten past doorgaans niet in de corporate cultuur. Osterwalder pleit daarom voor het 'omdenken'. Betaal medewerkers juist om fouten te maken. Beloon ze. En geef ze een bonus als ze die fouten snel maken en aantonen dat ervan geleerd wordt. Alex noemt dit 'Pivoting'. Pivots zijn wijzigingen aan je business model zonder dat er een crisis voor nodig is of uit volgt. Het bedrijf dat het snelst de meeste fouten maakt, wint.

3. Vraag niet wat een klant wil, maar wat hij wil bereiken

Clayton Christensen,
professor at Harvard Business School
talks about the job to be done.

We kennen allemaal de bekende uitspraak van Henry Ford: "Als ik mijn klanten had gevraagd wat ze wilden, hadden ze gevraagd om snellere paarden". Zo vroeg een fastfood keten in de VS recentelijk aan klanten welke nieuwe milkshake-smaken ze wilden. Na de nodige investeringen bleek dit echter geen effect te hebben op verkoop en klanttevredenheid. Vragen 'wat' de klant wil, is niet effectief. 

Pas toen met veldwerk onderzocht werd wanneer de klanten milkshakes kochten, en waarom, werd duidelijk wat de milkshake-drinkers wilden bereiken. Ze hebben in de ochtend en de avond graag iets eet- of drinkbaars in de hand om de tijd door te komen tijdens het dagelijkse file-rijden naar en van het werk. Iets dat lekker lang mee gaat, geen troep maakt en niet snel bederft. Uiteindelijk bleken klanten enthousiast te worden van een dikkere milkshake die lastiger door het rietje te krijgen is, en daardoor langer meegaat. 

Het Waardepropositie Canvas van Osterwalder speelt in op deze les en helpt om in kaart te brengen wat de klant wil bereiken. En welke 'pains' en 'gains' voor de klant een rol spelen om dit te bewerkstelligen. Door vervolgens een dienst of product te ontwerpen dat maximaal de pijn verzacht en voordelen toevoegt voor de klant, kunnen organisaties succesvoller concurreren.

4. Haal de bureaus weg, ga staan en visualiseren
Als het aan Alex ligt, dan halen we veel bureaus weg uit kantoren. Er wordt veel te veel gezeten, getypt en vergadert. Mensen moeten staan, lopen, tekenen. Muren vol met whiteboards, posters, post-its en stiften. Met het business model en de waarde propositie canvassen zijn de tools beschikbaar om één eenvoudige gemeenschappelijke taal te spreken binnen een organisatie, die bovendien op één A3 weer te geven is. 

Dit is de manier om snel veel fouten te maken in een fase waarin het nog om experimenteren en ontwerpen gaat. Op die manier kost innovatie relatief weinig, en is het ontwerp van de dienst of het product dat uiteindelijk echt gerealiseerd gaat worden fijngeslepen op papier.

What the labour market can learn from AirBNB

Milwaukee is only 2 hours away from Chicago where I will land at the airport. What if I fly in a few days before the meeting and arrive there on Saturday already? That will give me a day and a half to catch a glimpse of the famous Windy City in Wisconsin. Staying there will be at my own expense and as a real Dutch Man I want it cheap and simple, so no hotel for me. Time for Air BNB.

The online platform that successfully matches house owners who want to lease their apartments to travellers looking for a place to stay around the world. I typed ‘Chicago’ and filtered the results on ‘private room’ and a cost per day range. On the map I selected the Lincoln Parc neighborhood, which should be nice and safe, and browsed the images, amenities, guest reviews, rating and the approximate location on the map. Within 24 hours three house owners I contacted replied.

I made my final selection based on the best match with my criteria and was then guided to the identification and

payment process on the same Air BNB platform. After typing in my telephone number, within seconds a text message arrived with a verification code that I had to type into the appropriate field on the website. Next step was to show my passport to my webcam. After one minute Air BNB had checked and verified my ID. I was really Radi Jaarsma! Next was the credit card payment (payments via Air BNB are guaranteed and insured). My reservation was now final. After this verification and payment I now had access to the exact location of the apartment and full contact details of the owner.

Done.

Within a couple of hours my host personally let me know that they were looking forward to my stay, and that they would sent me a list of all things to do in Chicago, plus tips on public transport and tours.

And with that, Air BNB had cut out all the middle men; the travel and real estate agents.The completely digitized online platform brings together supply and demand. Self serviced. User friendly designed workflows for matching, reservation, reviewing, payment and ID verification. And all without the (human) interference of a middle man; just direct contact between the two parties. Completely scalable and distributed over the Internet as a website and a mobile app, potentially reaching everybody around the globe with access to internet.

But this is strikingly similar to the recruiting business….In the labour market, the house owners are the business owners. Some large, some small. Candidates and freelancers are the travellers. Looking for new opportunities in a specific city, region or industry. After the match, we also need to do the ID verification, agreements and payments. Currently recruiting companies are the real estate agents of the labour market, bringing the two parties together, making the match. When will the Air BNB of the labour market arrive that knocks out the agents?

The professional segment saw the rise of LinkedIn, and in the freelancing segment of the labour market www.Twago.com is already gaining ground in Europe (and bought by Randstad in the meantime), while www.freelancer.com is growing rapidly in the US. In general TAT-tools (Talent Acquisition Technology) is exponentially growing.

Platform business in the Human Capital management sector on the risePlatform business models, that by

nature are two sided, are gaining ground rapidly. In my mind there is no doubt that the leading company’s in this world all will be platform players. Platforms that are AirBNB-like could enable the complete work arrangement from source to pay, building a Human cloud. But also platforms that offer toolkits for business to run their HR business as a platform. For example www.NextCrew.com that offers a white labeled cloud based toolkit to ‘Create your own online staffing business’, including tools for talent pools and time sheets.

Strategic choicesTraditional businesses in the labour market have some strategic choices to make. Do they want to become a platform player? Or do they risk to become dependent on the possible future platform players in the market? Do they want to disrupt the industry, or at least transform it? Or be disrupted?

A platform player needs to be breathing software and development. A company with IT at its core. Programming in the veins, agile structured, scrum working, innovative and decisive. That is a challenge for traditional players, big and small. Not by accident we saw that company's like Booking.com, Amazon, Spotify and AirBNB have no roots in the industry they disrupted.

I think there are three choices: Make, Buy or Outsource and configure.Making (building/developing) a platform will be hard for traditional players as discussed. So that leaves two options: 

1. Buy a rising (start-up) platform player and translate traditional business to that new platform
2. Outsource the work by paying for a platform toolkit (PaaS) and create hit-teams to configure and grow it, preferably in a of co-creation 

Air BNB: ‘We imagine a world where you can belong anywhere'
It’s not that far off: ‘We imagine a world where you can work anywhere’ :)

Waardeproposities: bied jij nog wel waar je klant om vraagt?

Tijdens een werkbezoek in Londen koos ik voor een verblijf in het citizenM hotel. De 'M' staat voor 'Mobile'. Hun gasten zijn dan ook niet zomaar toeristen, maar 'Mobile Citizen': mobiele wereldburgers. 

Ik stapte het hotel binnen in de London Bankside wijk en direct bij binnenkomst stonden 6 touch screen computers klaar voor het inchecken. Ik toetste mijn achternaam in en automatisch werd mijn boeking gevonden. Het scherm vroeg me een 'citizenM-Card' te pakken en deze voor de detector te houden. Et voilá: checked in! Met dezelfde kaart kan ik de lift gebruiken, mijn koffie, wijn of maaltijd afrekenen bij de bar en in 1 minuut uitchecken bij vertrek. 

In tegenstelling tot de meeste traditionele hotels bleek de lounge

gezellig druk. 'Lounge' is eigenlijk niet het juiste woord. De complete begane grond is eigenlijk één grote woonkamer, subtiel opgedeeld in drie delen door middel van kleuren en stijl. De 'citizens' praten hier bij, ontmoeten en werken hier, pluggen hun laptops in één van de vele stroompunten (geschikt voor zowel Europese, VS als VK stekkers), maken gebruik van de snelle gratis WiFi, delen presentaties op de diverse grote schermen die stijlvol zijn ingebouwd in boekenkasten, of ze lezen de gratis selectie aan kranten. In het midden van de ruimte is de 24/7 geopende hotel bar en ten slotte in de hoek enkele grote tafels met schermen, waar iedereen die binnenloopt kan inpluggen en werken. 

Wat is de pijn van de klant en waar wordt hij/zij blij van?

Eerder dit jaar ben ik in het nieuwste boek van Alexander Osterwalder gedoken: Waardepropositie Ontwerp. Een vervolg op zijn succesvolle boek over Business Model Generatie. In zijn recente boek gaat hij in op hoe organisaties producten en diensten af moeten stemmen op de klant; de pijn verzachten en verrassen met toegevoegde waarde. Toen ik op de website van CitizenM las: 'Absoluut geen broekenpers, liftjongens of stomme kussen-chocolaatjes', was ik eigenlijk al verkocht. Het bleek een uitstekende manier om echt te beleven hoe het is als een organisatie, in dit geval een hotel, het waardepropositie-denken succesvol implementeert.

Wat is hun waardepropositie dan? Wat verlangt een hotelgast nu werkelijk?

• een groot en lekker bed
• een krachtige regendouche
• gratis films op een breedbeeld televisie
• snel en gratis WiFi
• apparatuur kunnen inpluggen zonder adapters te hoeven kopen (of vergeten)
• een tablet om temperatuur,verlichting, televisie en de wekker te bedienen

En dat is het! Geen oubollige stoeltjes waar je toch niet op gaat zitten in de kamer. Geen bureau dat niet gebruikt wordt. Geen bijbels in de lade van je nachtkastje. Geen lichten waarvoor je je bed uit moet om ze uit te doen. Neem de pijnpunten weg bij je klant (in dit geval: wachten om in- en uit te checken, betalen voor WiFi, geen bereik, een lege bar), en verras hem of haar met extra's. Zoals ik bij CitizenM genoot van de heerlijke relaxte atmosfeer, mensen en gesprekken, mogelijkheden om nog wat werk te doen. 

Broekenpers

Het contrast was dan ook enorm toen ik twee dagen later incheckte in het (door mijn werk gereserveerde) Holiday Inn Kings Cross. Een lege hotelbar, WiFi met slecht bereik en steeds opnieuw verbinden voor 5 GBP per uur, in de rij staan bij de receptie en jawel..... een broekenpers (heeft iemand die ooit gebruikt?)! 

Alexander Osterwalder

Voor wie Osterwalder zelf bevlogen wil zien vertellen over zijn model voor waardepropositie-ontwerp is er op 29 september a.s. een Masterclass op Neyenrode. Klik hier voor meer informatie.

Alexander Osterwalder en het Business Model Canvas

Het is zo verleidelijk, en misschien ook wel zo makkelijk; opgaan in de dagelijkse werkzaamheden en beslommeringen van je organisatie. En daar waar dit voor veel medewerkers ook de bedoeling is van hun functie, is het juist voor directies van belang om een flink deel van hun tijd de agenda's vrij te maken. Even afstand nemen en vanuit een helicopter-view doorleven wat er gebeurt in de organisatie, in de markt, bij de klanten, technologie, kansen en bedreigingen. Met de opgedane inzichten geven zij het bedrijf vervolgens richting en sturen bij. Niet voor niets zit dat beklonken in de naam 'directie'. 

Alexander Osterwalder

Niet zelden echter spreekt de agenda van leiders boekdelen: de korte termijn wint. Begrijpelijk én gevaarlijk, zeker in het tijdperk van exponentiële digitalisering, netwerken en sociale media.

Digitalisering faciliteert het simplificeren van processen en maakt ze plaats en device onafhankelijk. Alle activiteit van de organisatie wordt meetbaar en koppelbaar, levert data op om te sturen en van te leren. Sociale media maken (de waardering van) dienstverlening transparant. Andere en nieuwe skills komen de organisatie binnen. Dit is nog meer dan anders dé tijd om het business model van de organisatie onder de loep te nemen.

Brainstormen over je organisatie, ook als je agenda vol zit

In 2009 presenteerde de Zwitserse wetenschapper Alexander Osterwalder het 'Business Model Canvas'. Een eenvoudige tool om ieder business model visueel weer te geven op één A4'tje. Of liever nog een grote poster aan de muur, zodat je met een team al brainstormend post-its kunt plakken en experimenteren met aanpassingen of nieuwe modellen.

Osterwalder heeft deze methode beschreven in zijn (co-created) boek 'Business Model Generatie'. De afgelopen 6 jaar gingen er ruim 1 miljoen exemplaren wereldwijd over de toonbank. 

Het Canvas is een uitstekende tool om, ook bij drukke agenda's, relatief snel, eenvoudig en met gemeenschappelijke taal te brainstormen. Teams komen snel tot de kern: welke toegevoegde waarde bieden we ook alweer aan welke klant-segmenten, via welke kanalen? Welke mensen, technologie, activiteiten en partners hebben we nodig om die waarde toe te kunnen voegen? Is onze werkwijze nog van deze tijd? Kan het anders, beter, efficiënter? Kunnen we oude kosten weghalen, en tegen beperktere nieuwe kosten veel meer waarde toevoegen voor onze klanten?

Business modellen zijn als yoghurt

De crisis en de (digitale) disruptie van markten, hebben het business model weer zeer actueel gemaakt. Of zoals Alexander het zelf zegt: 'Business modellen zijn als yoghurt in de koelkast. Uiteindelijk bederft het, maar nu veel sneller dan pakweg 10 jaar terug'. 

Business model canvas van WhatsApp:
Belangrijkste distributiekanaal en resource: internet = beschikbaar

Neem een bekend voorbeeld: traditionele telecomproviders als KPN verdienen geld door een business model waarbij over een eigen netwerk telefonie en sms worden aangeboden. Klanten betalen vervolgens voor telefoontikken en per sms-berichten. Plots kwam daar WhatsApp. Zij bekeken het business model en constateerden dat de hele infrastructuur om te bellen en berichten te sturen al aanwezig is: het internet. Het enige dat zij hoefden te doen is smartphone gebruikers faciliteren met een gebruiksvriendelijke cross-platform app. De distributie van die app gebeurt ook via al aanwezige kanalen; de app stores van Apple en Google. De gebruiker betaald jaarlijks € 0,89 als abonnement. Inmiddels heeft Whatsapp, niet gehinderd door landsgrenzen of kosten van een eigen netwerk, ruim 900 miljoen gebruikers wereldwijd. 

€ 0,17 per sms'je, of € 0,89 voor een jaar onbeperkt?

De gevolgen zijn bekend. Het sms-verkeer is de afgelopen 5 jaar in elkaar gestort. Het eerste kwartaal dit jaar nog gemiddeld 40%, en daarmee de inkomsten van mobiele providers. Met de introductie van bellen via WhatsApp dit jaar, wordt ook de tweede inkomstenpijler aangetast. Wat overblijft is mobiel-dataverbruik. WhatsApp weet tegen veel lagere kosten, veel meer toegevoegde waarde te bieden aan klanten: de kern van Alexander Osterwalder's Business Model Canvas.

Hebben de directies van telecomproviders tijdig hun business model 'gechallenged'? Of waren ze met korte termijn opbrengsten en brandjes blussen bezig? Werden ze wakker pas na de komst van WhatsApp, net als de taxibranche pas na de komst van Uber? Of beseften zij dat het verdienmodel niet zomaar voor altijd blijft bestaan? En de hotelindustrie. Zijn zij hun business model onder de loep aan het nemen nu hotels het directe contact met hun klanten kwijt zijn door het wereldwijde succes van branchevreemden Booking.com, Expedia en Tripadvisor?

Op 29 september 2015 staat Alex Osterwalder op het podium van Nyenrode

Voor iedereen die uit eerste hand van Osterwalder wil horen hoe het Business Model Canvas toe te passen, en specifieker nog de waardepropositie van het business model; hij staat op het podium van Nyenrode eind deze maand. Lees hier meer over dit evenement.

Volgende week ga ik verder in op zijn tweede boek over het 'Value Proposition Canvas'!

(Het Business Model Canvas in 3 minuten)

BLOG: My trip to London pt. 6 (final) - ‘How social is changing our trip completely'

Monday, 9AM, time for the business purpose of my trip to London. After the one-minute touch-screen checkout at CitizenM I am walking to the ManpowerGroup Office in London City. Today I will meet with my Northern European colleagues for a two-day session on how social media is impacting our business, and how we can leverage our combined strength to use the huge potential of social for our candidate branding and engagement. While walking, I am thinking on how social influenced my trip so far.

First of all I came across the CitizenM Hotel-concept while reading slides on Business Model Innovation on the social sharing platform for presentations: www.slideshare.net. As I got interested, I looked up the hotel on TripAdvisor. This travel website has become thé review portal for all hotels, apartments, flights and restaurants. A great business model by the way, where almost all content is user generated (reviews and photo’s of travelers) and the money is earned with advertising. I filtered the reviews on ‘traveling alone’, and got 126 ratings that averaged 4.5 stars. Sounded good! Also the photographs matched the atmosphere that CitizenM where displaying themselves on their Facebook and Pinterest pages. On my way to the airport, I visited the Twitter account of EasyJet to check with a tweet what the extra costs were for taking an extra bag with me, and swiftly got a reply from their webcare team. 

Once in London, I used Yelp to find a nice restaurant in the neighborhood. This social review site lists all types of bars, restaurants and clubs. Search on the map, using your GPS location, filter on the amount you want to spend and the average rating of the restaurant’s guests. When I found a nice place, I could easily reserve it online with the ‘opentable.com’ connection, where I had reregistered for former trips already by connecting my Facebook-profile. When talking to a freelance writer during dinner in the hotel, I looked up her profile on LinkedIn and made a connection to see on what accounts she had been working on. After sharing my run on Sunday morning around the Battersea Power Station on Runkeeper, I received a couple of ‘hearts’ from my fellow-runners to motivate me. And in the evening, while writing my blogs, I shared my stories on our internal Google+ network. The comments and ‘+’es’ I was receiving, motivated me to continue writing and sharing with you. 

So if I am to point out the two most critical impacts that social has on today’s world, it would be these:

1. Traditional organizational hierarchy is soon history*

(* from a great Wall Street Journal article on ‘the end of management’)

Before we had the internet and social media, organizations needed a clear hierarchy and managers to organize people and allocate resources. Now we are online and social connected anywhere, anytime, any device. The internal ManpowerGroup Google+ is proving more and more to enable collaboration without the need of hierarchy. And guess what: the pace of creativity, collaboration and innovation is only increasing because of it. Employees no longer only need to make themselves valuable through what they know, they can develop more knowledge by collaborating in a much more fluid format. 

2. Reputation is the new cash

What became very clear of my social media influenced trip to London, is that reputation is key to succes for business in the future. Social media is bringing transparency. Via websites like TripAdvisor, it becomes transparent what the hotels’ value propositions are. Do they live up to it? And their own customers decide if the service, food, location and wifi is up-to-standard by rating it with 1 to 5 stars. The same is happening in a lot of industries. Uber is bringing ratings to taxi drivers. Would you order a cab with a driver that was rated with 2 stars by 24 people? And the Holiday Inn that I ‘rated’ in my blog. Would you book it?

And there is Glassdoor, a US website where employees and former employees anonymously review companies and their management. You could say: the TripAdvisor of the work-related part of business. It's already quite big in the US, and it will be coming over to Europe as well. Our services, operations, candidates, communication and style of doing business will be more and more rated by growing crowds of customers, candidates, employees. 

BLOG: My Trip to London pt. 5 - 'Battersea Power Station and Digital Pink Floyd Music'

It was Sunday morning 9AM, the last day of my personal time in London. With my running shoes on I stepped out of the Tube at Sloane Square and started running. With my Runkeeper App activated to track the route, I ran over the Chelsea-bridge across the Thames and entered the Battersea Park. Lot’s of fellow runners here and families taking a walk or playing cricket on this chilly Sunday morning. Probably few had the same goal as I had. Above the trees at the horizon I already saw them: the famous chimneys of Battersea Power Station. This typical Industrial Brick Cathedral was build in the 1930’s. With the passing of time, the building is now neglected and has been out-of-service for over 30 years. 

In my early 20’s I discovered Pink Floyd music. One of their famous old albums, the 1977 ‘Animals', has the Battersea Power Station on its cover. Back than record companies were the empires in that industry that had the power over this ‘information’ (music). Granting access to this music would cost consumers a lot of money. Distribution was done only via record companies, and you as a customer where obliged to go to that store between 9 and 5 if you wanted some.

How disruptive was (and is) the digitization of information. The fact that records became data (MP3 files) meant that the whole record distribution model was superfluous overnight. I remember the first time I downloaded a Pink Floyd song using Napster, it was a miracle. Bits and bytes just streaming into my computer! Sony owned a lot of record companies and already had invented the WalkMan as a portable music player. A disruptive power out of a completely different industry however took over the music business: Apple with the launch of iPod (’10,000 songs in your pocket’) and the iTunes store.

And here I am running with my earplugs in, streaming the Animals album via Spotify over 4G wireless connection, paying € 8 a month for an ‘all-you-can-eat’ music business model 24/7. Sony is nowhere, EMI (the record company of Pink Floyd) has been diminished and was sold in 2011, record stores are closed. The Battersea Power Station looks like an old record company, disrupted by modern power supply and the roll-out of the ‘smart energy grid’. 

Has the digitization of information been disruptive for the staffing industry? Yes, of course. A vacancy is nothing more than a piece of information holding value for our candidates. For decades we made money out of that information, by distributing it via our own ‘record stores’, the branch offices. Having said that, the comparison falls short as we offer a lot more value than only distributing jobs. That’s why the upcoming of the job boards a decade ago proved to be not a threat but an opportunity. Now leading to completely centralized and digitized sourcing and recruiting.

Back to my running: it was time to stop my Runkeeper tracking. Enough about Pink Floyd for now. I’m heading back to the CitizenM to write the final blog in this series!

BLOG: My Trip to London pt. 4 - citizenM says: Death to the Trouser Press

The sun is setting in London, time to head to my hotel for the coming nights: citizenM. The ‘M’ stands for ‘Mobile’. People they are targeting are not tourists, but Mobile Citizen. So I entered the Hotel in Southwark London at 6 PM. Right next to the entrance, 6 touch screen computers are awaiting me. I pick one and enter my last name. It automatically finds my booking, asks me to pick a citizenM card, hold it in front of the detector et voilá. The checkin is done! With the same card I can use the elevator, buy my coffee or beer at the bar, and checkout in 10 seconds. 

Contrary to the traditional hotels, the lounge is buzzing with people and conversations. And ‘lounge’ is not the appropriate name for it. The whole ground flour is one living room, subtly divided in colour and style into three area’s. The ‘citizen’ are working, plugging in their laptops in the numerous connection points, using the very fast and free WiFi Internet, sharing presentations on several large TV’s that are nicely build into bookcases decorating the walls, or reading the free newspapers on the tables. In the middle is the hotel bar, and in the corner large tables with connection points as co-working space. 

I selected this hotel on purpose as its concept triggered me. In a (very) traditional industry, this new Dutch based hotel chain has created a successful innovative service operation, business model innovation and a concept where the value proposition for the customer has been leading in every decision. Starting in 2008 in Amsterdam, the chain has now 7 hotels. On the website I read a “absolutely no trouser presses, bellboys, or stupid pillow chocolates.” To be honest, my decision to book citizenM was already made at that instant. 

Their value proposition? What does a hotel guest really, and I mean really, want?

• an XL king-sized super-comfy bed
• a powerful rain shower
• free movies on a wide-screen television
• free and fast WiFi internet
• international plug system
• a tablet to control temperature, lights, television and the alarm clock

That’s it. No stupid seats that you never use, no desk that you never sit behind, no bibles in the drawer, no lights that you have to get out of bed for to turn them off. They took away my pain points as a customer (waiting for checking in and out, paying for Wifi and/or having a bad internet connection, no guest interaction), and brought a smile on my face with a nice warm atmosphere, a hotel bar buzzing with activity and opportunities to co-work.

After my day in London, I took a meal (self service, card swipe and paid), a beer, and sat in one of the living rooms. Lounge music was playing, the whole hotel bar was crowded and buzzing. A freelance architect sat next to me and offered me a drink and we were eating some nuts while discussing the CitizenM concept.

CitizenM says: luxury isn't a packet of nuts in a minibar, it’s a 24 hour real-bar

BLOG: My Trip to London pt. 3 - The Silicon Roundabout

At 2 PM I am walking through a narrow neglected street, just to be sure I held my laptop-bag a bit tighter to my body. In the Shoreditch borough, Bonhill street number 5. I am looking through the window, yes, this is The Campus, the domain of many startups in London. I had registered upfront via www.campuslondon.com and received a community-ID. After typing it in at the reception desk I receive my card and can go downstairs through narrow staircases and have access to the basement of the building. It is buzzing here with youngsters. 

They have one thing in common: they all are sitting behind a MacBook Air and have a bottle of water. Some typing, most with headphones on, some calling (with their iPhones), others having discussions. Most guys wear beards, hoodies and jeans, a phew are dressed up a bit sharper. And the women seem to have asian blood in their veins mostly and make up for at least 40% of the people here. In the middle of the basement there’s a small café/counter for coffee or a croissant that you can pay for with Pounds or Bitcoins. In the background New Orders’ Blue Monday is playing. In a corner there’s a desk with testing devices, ranging from smartphones to several tablet sizes and laptops. Apparently apps can be tested here for cross device functionality.

The Campus was founded by ‘Google for entrepreneurs' and positions itself as ‘An Engine for Collaborative Innovation’. Working here is free when you are part of the community (by registering), WiFi is free and fast, and the café offers cheap drinks. 

The Campus is one of the many coworker spaces in this neighborhood. This Eastern part of London is, besides the Silicon Roundabout (referring of course to Silicon Valley) also known as ‘Tech City’. Starting with about 15 media and high-tech companies in 2008, this area now offers the homebase to a couple of hundred tech-based startups. Next to Google, some bigger established companies invested in this area: BT provides super fast broadband, Cisco is establishing an innovation centre, Intel has established a research lab and Amazon has opened a Digital Media Development Centre. 

Most startups here are focussing on the FinTech (Financial Technology) and EdTech (Educational Technology) sectors. And I found this a facinating contrast. The large shiny luxurious skyscrapers of HSBC, Morgan Chase and Credit Suisse in Canary Wharf on the one hand. And the cheap shabby basement with startups in East London on the other hand. The business models of the first are crumbling, while currency clouds, crowdsourcing, mobile banking and digital wallets are disrupting the financial markets.

To complete my journey in this inspiring borough, I drank a beer in hipster co-working place The Book Club. One of the slogans I saw here on the wall: “We are living in a transformational era for financial services. Our children will look back at these past decades and laugh at how we banked”. 

BLOG: My Trip to London pt. 2 - Stansted Airport without Humans

It was 9.40 AM when the plane touched the runway at Standsted Airport and taxied to the gate. After disembarking the plane, signing guided me to a driver-less mini-train. Passengers cued up before the doors, watching the countdown on screens to when the train would arrive and stop exactly at the designated door openings. The doors slid open and the train moved, while a sweet but cold digital woman’s voice told us the safety procedures and asking to keep our passports ready. 

Via escalators I arrived at the e-Passport gates located at the immigration checkpoint in the arrival hall. The gate number lit up of the available gate and I stepped forward. On screen I got instructions to put my passport on the scanner, while a camera, hidden behind a mirror, moved up to meet my length and clearly scan if I was really Radi Jaarsma. After a couple of seconds a green light flashed and the UK border opened itself for me in the form of sliding doors opening automatically. Meanwhile screens showed me at which bagage belt I could collect my overpriced extra hand luggage and after that I used my credit card and a touch screen to get my Standsted-Express ticket for a travel by train to London. I withdrew some pound notes from the ATM, grabbed a coffee from the coffee machine and the last thing I saw from Standsted Airport, where the automated gates on the train platform that opened in response to my ticket. 

Apart from my fellow travelers, there was no human interaction involved in this whole process from stepping out of the plane to stepping out of the train in London. It left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the white steel and spacious environment of Stansted Airport struck me as a cold mechanical atmosphere. On the other hand: my trip went very.. very smoothly. To be honest, the first human interaction that I had during that trip was in the train, when ordering a coffee (I need a lot of coffee in the morning). The guy was foreign and could not speak English very well, nor understand it. As an extra, he did not have change and when finally I overhauled him to use his credit-card terminal, it looked like it was the first time he saw that machine. After finding out that he was only allowed to use the credit card terminal for a minimum amount of 5 Pounds, I decided to treat two passengers in front of me for a coffee in order to get to that amount. 

This is what ManpowerGroup calls the Human Age. And almost as a paradox, a lot of tasks humans did the last decades are replaced by technology and robotics. All studies show that especially jobs that consist of some form of repetitive and routine tasks, are automated at a very rapid pace. Gartner calls this the ‘De-Routinization of Work’. And that is exactly what happened at Stansted. No more train drivers, ground services, immigration officers, ticket office agents and cafeteria staff.

The best contribution that people can bring to work, are not routinized processes that can be automated, but in the added values that are distinctively unique for us human beings: creativity, leadership, innovating, empathy, relationships, discovering. To put it more simply: the unique talents of people will flourish best in non-routine work. Helping workers to make that change is part of the ManpowerGroup ‘Dignitiy of Work’ statement.

BLOG: My Trip to London pt. 1 - easyJet and Ancillary Revenues

At exactly 9.35 AM on Day 1 of my trip to London, the easyJet airplane was taxiing down the Schiphol Amsterdam Airport runway. I am on my way to London for a few days off, followed by three days of Northern European meetings with ManpowerGroup colleagues on Social Media and Digital Strategy. 

Why I am flying easyJet? It was the cheapest fare. I typed my destination in on www.skyscanner.nl and the white/orange carrier topped the list. And that is exactly the competitive playing field most airlines are in today: be on the first page of any air tickets list or you are gone. Flying from A to B is such a homogenous product, that price is almost the only differentiator for most people. And yes, of course I prefer a comfortable seat and leg room. A hot coffee included and a short movie would also be nice. But if it increases the ticket price? No, it’s just not worth it then. Both on private trip as well as business trips. 

It reminded me of a Finnair presentation I attended recently. Finnair did not make it to the first page of many ticket selling websites. Main reason was their ‘all inclusive’ pricing. Travelers were allowed an extra piece of hand luggage, could pick a seat and have a newspaper on board. Competitors like easyJet, Ryanair and Norwegian stripped all this, offer a low price, land on the first page and get more sales. Do these low-cost carriers offer less? Well, not necessarily, they just offer a basic price to get from A to B. And additional services come at a premium. Airliners call this ‘Ancillary Revenue’. The ticket price is the basis and makes the sale. Ancillary services are the real money makers. Once a tourist trip has started, people are more willing to draw their wallet. And the best thing for a company? High margins and hardly any competition in this stage of the sales-cycle. The customer is already ‘hooked in’ and the moment of ticket purchase forgotten.

In the top 60 of airline ancillary revenues, easyJet takes ninth place, with ancillaries taking

account of 19,2% of the airlines’ total revenue.

So how does that compare to the staffing industry, where our biggest brand - Manpower - is in? Traditionally we tend to charge our customers one price for all staffing services: a markup on the hourly wage of our flex workers. The staffing product is quite homogenous as well price plays an important role in decision making. Our industry is adopting the Airlines model. Start with a basic pricing and offer additional services at a premium. 

And while the plane was descending for London Stansted, I thought of how I coped with easyJet's business model. Well… With my plans to do some running in the morning, my hand luggage was completely stuffed. So I had to take my laptop bag with charger, iPad, etc. as a second piece. EasyJet charged me € 30 extra for it. That is 20% of the ticket price. And I paid it without a problem, happy that I was able to take two bags on board now. Together with a coffee during the flight of € 3, I contributed € 33 to easyJets ancillary sales.