Sometimes the only way to drive change is to “burn the boats”
Too many companies outline a bold new strategy—and then half-execute it. Sometimes you’ve just got to destroy the status quo.
Adobe Systems CEO Shantanu Narayen saw the clouds massing. Narayen’s company was making billions selling boxed CDs and downloads of graphic, editing and design software. But the traditional model made it hard to deliver updates, and Adobe’s leadership foresaw an industry-wide shift to the cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. So the company decided to “burn the boats with regards to desktop software,” Narayen told the Financial Times.
In May 2013, Adobe announced it would stop offering traditional versions of its software and focus instead on selling subscriptions to its Creative Cloud SaaS products. The move paid off: Despite some early consumer concerns, Creative Cloud revenue went from US$153 million in 2012 to US$2.6 billion in 2015…
Click here to read the full article on CanadianBusiness.com written by Murad Hemmadi.