Unlocking the Customer Value Chain

Thales Teixeira is an associate professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School. He specializes in digital marketing strategy, e-commerce and the economics of attention. His articles have been published in the Harvard Business Review, Forbes, the Economist, and the New York Times. Dr. Teixeira is also a reviewer for the US Food and Drug Administration and for academic journals. He consults with companies including BMW, Siemens, Bayer, Nike, YouTube and Microsoft. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan.

The real driver of most digital disruption in markets today is not new technology. It's consumer behaviors and preferences. Consumers are flocking to new business models that give them more control and more value. Therefore, if you want to innovate, look at changing your business model first and foremost. Specifically, get to know and see your customer's "value chain" from their perspective – what they want and the steps they undertake to get that.

Traditional companies expected consumers to carry out all these activities with them. The most successful digital upstarts decouple or break apart this value chain. They have customers undertake one or two of these steps with them and the rest with incumbents. They change the game and slant things in their own favor by using technology to achieve decoupling.