OWP liVe REPORT

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How can companies distinguish true secular trends from red herrings?

moment. It nixed its perpetual business model of marketing software products through retailers and resellers and became a subscription-only service in 2013. Despite 50,000 complaints and a public petition demanding a change of course, the company stuck to its guns and now boasts high customer satisfaction rates. Its customer base also grew dramatically from just under half a million subscribers in 2012 to 18 million in 2020. The company changed its mission. The CEO explained that Adobe had excelled in content creation, but that this was not “mission-critical” – meaning that Adobe services did not play an essential role in its clients’ survival. The company then took on the goal of helping digital marketing officers figure out their ROI, which was a very different space from its origins of making magazines look better on the page. It aimed to become an end-to-end tool to create content as well as manage, measure and optimize marketing campaigns. Besides the change in business model, how did Adobe’s strategy change?

Properly identifying a secular trend is instrumental in the success of your strategy. A secular trend is something that will happen regardless of whether you participate or not. Some are obvious and widely accepted, like an aging population or the current push toward environmentalism. Trends often start off small, but once they have built up steam and represent 5-6% of the market, they are certain. It’s important to note that you cannot time these secular trends. When you are finally convinced that the value of the trend is far superior to the traditional one, then it’s a secular trend. It might not be obvious at first, but eventually you will see things look like they’re going in that direction. go twice as fast as your competitors – before you miss the boat. Consider this recent example: at the start of the pandemic, companies that tried to enter the e-commerce market for the first time struggled, while those that had been in it for some time came out ahead. When you see the beginnings of a secular trend, my advice is to double-down and

The conclusion:

Don’t be afraid to drastically alter your organization’s course after re-evaluating where you’d like to go and what capabilities you’ll need to get there.

How did Adobe transition to a new business model?

Adobe identified the secular trends of cloud computing and the subscription business model at exactly the right

GOUTAM CHALLAGALLA