Bundling and unbundling
A framework to understand change
“There's only two ways to make money in business: One is to bundle; the other is unbundle” — Marc Andreessen
Bundle-unbundle is one of the simple but powerful frameworks to understand change and adaption over time. Take newspapers for example. What started off as reporting major events transformed into a medium for consumption targeting different audiences (news, business, weather, children's section, gossip etc.,). After a while, each of these sections unbundled into exclusive editions targeting a sub-section of audience. And this pattern keeps repeating. Not just in newspapers, but across the board.
How does it apply to the process space? One of the earlier approaches to process improvements was the plan-do-check-act cycle (PDCA). Next came the more specialized approaches in the form of Total Quality Management (TQM) which advocated a holistic approach, Six Sigma which focused on variation reduction and Lean which targeted waste reduction.
It was a classic bundling of pre-existing concepts, techniques and tools into a unified methodology. One had to learn statistical techniques, quality management principles, project management practices, simulation methods, lean principles, change management techniques and so on. The conditions then became ripe for unbundling.
The way I see, unbundling is happening in two ways. Some of the tools or techniques evolve into a better version of the original ones. Take the case of application of statistical techniques to business problems. This discipline has now evolved into data science. Another quintessential example of this evolution is the process discovery. Simple SIPOC (Supplier Input Process Output Customer) diagrams gave way to more sophisticated BPM (business process management). Now a mix of BPM and data science has evolved into what is known as ‘Process Mining’. Better ways to achieve the same objective.
Another way unbundling is happening is simply using the tool or combination of them in a context outside of process improvement. My favorite example of this is Criteria Based Matrix which I have used in numerous instances. Whenever a choice had to be made among closely competing options, this tool comes to my rescue. I have also found the combination of ‘Voice of customer’ and ‘Critical to Quality’ tree useful in metric definitions. Likewise, the famous combination of Fishbone diagrams and 5-whys can help you do better causal analysis. Many such innovative combinations can be applied to a lot of business problems in isolation.
Do you agree that this bundle-unbundle framework explains the evolution in the process space? Where, in the process space, do you think the next innovative split or join is going to happen?
Image credits: medium.com/hackernoon