Simon Fabri

This blog explores different aspects of what it takes to create great tech products. It is meandering journey as I amble around from topic to topic driven by where my curiosity takes me. Sometimes I try to explore different aspects of what makes truly great tech teams, while at other times I try to get under the skin of the latest tech hype or understand what's going on in a particular industry. This blog started off with a distinct IoT flavour, but now is fairly tech-agnostic.

10 Must-Read Digital Transformation Books

Here is a collection of digital transformation books from a technology, product, organisation and strategic perspective. One of the great fallacies of digital transformation initiatives is that it is the preserve of the technical function, be it the CIO or the CTO’s remit. A truly successful digital initiative requires the mobilisation of the entire business. These books explain both the how and why, including highlighting any pitfalls. Note, this post collates reviews from two previously published posts for convenience. The … Read more…

Five (more) Digital Transformation must-reads

One of the blessings of spending the past few months working from home, with my daily commute suspended, is that I have had time to start to tackle some of the tomes on my bookcase. Oh, and yes, I know that it is ironic to be talking about physical books in a blog dedicated to all that is digital and connected. Truth is that I find that my trusty Kindle cannot match the uniquely tactile experience of scribbling comments and … Read more…

Crossing the Change Chasm – Succeeding in driving change

First of all, change is hard One of the key success factors to any successful organisation change programme is getting all members of the team on board with the proposed changes. To most people, change is at best, difficult. It often means coming out of one’s comfort zone, often ditching old skills, roles and responsibilities that have served oneself well. All this is done in the quest of a better way of working, new business models, a new product strategy … Read more…

The Smart Products Pipeline – Using DevOps to roll out AI & ML applications

In the previous two posts in this series, we saw that created a connected product, is of itself no guarantee of creating a successful business stream. While connectivity can provide great customer experiences, this only leads to a sustainable product strategy if there is a continuous revenue stream behind the proposition, either directly from the customer, or indirectly through other parties. The key to generating this on-going revenue, and with it, long-term sustainability, is using the data collated by connected … Read more…

The Smart Products Playbook – Using data to create compelling experiences

In the previous post of this series, we explored ways by which recurring revenues can be obtained from connected products. In this post, we extend the investigation to Smart Products. Two questions immediately come to mind. When does a product become ‘smart’ rather than simply connected? And is does being smart really equate with being useful? Do smart products, which make use of some form of machine learning or another form of artificial intelligence capability, really help users? Equally of relevance, … Read more…

How the UK squandered its advantage in dealing with Covid-19

Updated Sunday 24th May We have been told repeatedly by Government politicians and a few officials that comparing the impact of Covid across different countries is currently a spurious and futile endeavour. Is this really the case. Let’s have a look at the relevant numbers across Europe’s largest countries. First, how many people died in total? Here we use the official COVID death rate, which admittedly not the gold-standard way of assessing Covid mortality, which would be the excess deaths. I … Read more…

Finding the best Digital Business Model for IoT. A Quick Guide.

This is the first of a three-part series on how consumer products companies can extend from providing connected products to truly smart products, considering the impact on business models and organisational capabilities.  The past five years have seen an explosion in the growth of connected consumer products. This was first noticeable in the smart home space where start-ups in the US like Nest, Ring and Canary brought in a wave of app-controlled devices. These were stylish, design-led products, intended to appeal to … Read more…

How Google, Amazon and Spotify set up their teams for success

When leading a tech organisation, how do you determine what makes the difference between success and failure in a market that is rapidly changing? Determining where to focus in shaping an organisation and creating the right culture is clearly one of the key challenges of being a leader. In this post, I will look at how some of the leading tech companies set up their development organisations to deliver innovation and keep on top of a fast-moving world. Never has the adage that you … Read more…

5 Digital Transformation Must-Reads

Few companies will admit to not having a digital strategy, and any company that has been around for a while will also have a digital transformation programme. Indeed an entire industry of digital change consultants have emerged over the past few years to help the rest of us navigate the minefield of uncertainty. But what is all the hype about? Here are a few books that summarise the essential considerations relating to digitalisation. They cover some of the top-level business, strategic, marketing, … Read more…

Blockchains – Looking beyond the cryptocurrency bust

The past twelve months has seen the crypto-currency bubble well and truly burst. Bitcoin is only the most largest, and hence, most visible digital currency to have lost most of its value. An index of the top thirty cryptocurrencies in use, CCI30 shows that these have lost in excess of 75% of their value since the beginning of the year, a loss that puts even the dot com bust to shame. Despite a lot of PR indicating otherwise, most financial … Read more…

+ More