Innovations lead to the optimisation of technical, economic and social structures. The structures often become more complex as a result. So innovations are generally associated with complexity benefits and complexity costs. The net benefit of an innovation can be high, low and even negative.
The fax machine is a good example. Although the fax suddenly made it possible to transfer documents in a matter of minutes, it also meant the need to operate an additional communication channel. For 50 years the complexity benefit of having a fax infrastructure was positive. Today it isn’t. The complexity benefit is not always obvious and it changes over time.
Project
We supported an insurance services provider to integrate and white label their products and services in their cooperation partners’ offerings (e.g. vehicle manufacturers, banks). As a result, the insurance customers can take out policies in a more situational and intuitive way. The intelligent combination of customer journeys and the corresponding data results in perceptible simplification for business partners and customers.
We help our clients to understand the complexity benefit of their products and services, their organisation and processes and their technical infrastructure – and actively intervene when it becomes negative. We have developed efficient methods for this purpose that managers and their teams can use to acquire a genuine simplification mind-set and systematically eliminate negative complexity in their spheres of influence.