How to Innovate the Macro Business Model

Up to now I focused my writings on innovation of Business Models of companies and their role in the Value Chain. The credit crunch and its effect on the real economy asked for a reflection on how to innovate the current Macro Business Models and the possibility to create a so called ideal Super Business Model on macro level.

The Russian Economist Nikolai Dmitrievitsj Kondratieff discovered in the early nineteen hundreds a economical cycle of fifty years in four different stages (seasons): Spring (starting up), Summer (consolidation), Autumn (stabilization) and Winter (liquidation). Eric Mecking (Universiteit Amsterdam, Deflatie in aantocht) recognized strong similarity between the situation of 1920-1929 and 1980-2000. These periods are also recognized as typical Autumn Seasons.
We are just at the beginning of the Winter Season and for the first time in the whole world at the same time. It will be much worse than today and it will be not over in just one or two years! On the contrary, based on the counter measures of National Administration (based on the old Business Model of one-faced value measuring and often extreme unequally value sharing) I expect they even enlarge the problem.

So it is time to Innovate the Macro Business Model (MBM) !!!

What are the key elements to change in the current MBM:

1. From extreme unequally value sharing towards a more balanced sharing. President from Brazil showed a nice example with his Bolsa Familia how he managed to implement the first steps to balance the value sharing. Its seems to work for Brazil.
2. From individual value measuring towards collective and sustainable value measuring. Noreena Hertz wrote about the change from Gucci-Capitalism to Coöp-Capitalism. The core values are based on cooperation and collective interests.
3. From absence of Government or overregulated Government towards a balanced and facilitating Government. In the VS the Administration is not endorsing basic human needs. President Obama showed that every 30 seconds a family is forced to lose their house because than can’t pay the medical bills. China bounds every economic model to operate freely. The EU suffocates entrepreneurship, innovation and risk taking with ridicule law and legislation. Administrations needs to develop new formats based on the balance between freedom and safety. It should be flexible, adaptive and therefore based on the courage of new generation of world leaders.
4. From one-side technology based innovation criteria towards holistic measurement instruments of Innovation. In many countries we measure innovation based on R&D spending, the amount of new IP and the volume of engineers. Successful innovations should be measured as I described in our Point of View on Business Model Innovation.

I strongly believe that all pieces of the puzzle are there but not in place. We need to co-create on a global level to reach out to a new Macro Business Model working for everyone and in any place. We need to step forward and show new leadership and entrepreneurship!