For many years i have been focusing on building my industry expertise in the territories i have been covering in my sales job, I hadtremendous homework to understand how my customers think, what they need and what are their pains.
You may spend many years, just to be able to talk the language of a C-level manager in a bank for example. Or to have a 15 min conversation on their business and give them your opinion (which usually is very naive) to them to show how much you are “IN THE GAME” with them.
After climbing Mount Everest, i found myself i was on the wrong mountain. Actually to put it right, you find the peak you achieved is actually a small hill and there is still a long way to go . Things started to shapen for me couple of years ago after spending more than 10+ years climbing that hill. The challenge now is not to have an industry insight , but to have a more specialised view in each line of business in the industry.
Now analysts are talking a lot about the change in IT, the next transformation, we create more data each day more than cumulative data created in 90’s….etc. I found that bang or buzz is too loudto the extent a big elephant like IBM is starting to dance, transforming itself to match the market change.
I found myself caught in a new era of what is called “Domain Expertise” leaving behind the era of “Industry Expertise”. Feeling tired & exhausted rather than accomplished, I started to think more aboutthe new era and why it is happening.
So what is “Domain Expertise”?………………………….well, the short version answer would be, being more specialized in a specialization in an industry. Or in a more simple English, having the knowledge and understanding of a specific need or pain in a specific line of business in a specific industry. So for example, I would specialize in “Retail Customer Churn” in a bank or “ Data Analyst for customer Churn in Teleco”.
Ok, makes sense but why now, why should do this. Well after consulting many of friends . I figured why.
To keep it simple, we can sum it up in 2 reasons:
- Business now is taking over IT, as IT is becoming a crucial part of their lives. Taking the analogy of smartphones and how it made people more technology savvy and social media aware, you can easily spot how line of businesses want to claim the ownership crucial systems. With today’s complexity of IT , IT projects got out of hand. Businesses are fed up with inconsistent, unfulfilling IT projects.
- IT Experts are becoming more of a commodity, but at the same time finding a strong CIO in a bank or a teleco operator is like finding a strong golf player, there are many who on the field but very few who can really get a “birdie”.
Both these reasons made business very eager to have someone to address their pain directly, knows how to kill it directly. More of a doctor or a physician, you cannot have a physician the covers every part of your body. Actually it is becoming more and more specialized. So you can say , businesses are calling for doctors now , you can be either a 21st century specialised doctor or the village magician.
I will try to cover in a new post , how to cover the domain expertise and what is needed.
So to sum it up , don’t trust an IT witch doctor . Find yourself niche market player in the area of your pain, they will know what you need.
