Consider Delorean, Theranos, and FTX.

These were all over-hyped solutions claimed to be ready for primetime, with investors and buyers lining up. 

• Delorean failed because of the nearsighted decisions by the business leaders and owners who believed the hype (well before the internet age)
• Theranos was a classic shiny object, where the founders had no medical experience, and told supposed smart investors that the technology was too sensitive and proprietary. 
• FTX failed because it convinced investors to believe its hype, and then died by mismanagement.

These examples each contain a lesson where innovation, and adherence to the “Shiny Object Syndrome,” took the enterprises into a detour. Sometimes the journey is recoverable, other times not. 

Enterprise leaders constantly see new tools and technologies from cutting-edge AI to blockchain and beyond — all breathlessly described as “game-changers,” “disruptors,” and “must-haves.” In a hyper-competitive universe where even the tiniest edge can make all the difference, the pressure is intense to buy the hype and chase after the Shiny Object — without a clear strategy or complete understanding of how such a thing might fit into a broader technology ecosystem. 

Avoid the Detour by Taking a Strategic Approach

Making a technology buy for the wrong reasons is a hard admission for executives to make. In my experience, the solution to avoiding that fate is a careful and well-defined strategic approach to technology, backed by research and pilot proofs of concept (POCs). The most effective enterprises buy into new technologies only when those technologies approach a plateau of adoption and stability.

Designing and building a value-driven digital ecosystem and enterprise toolset begins with an effective and comprehensive strategy. With that strategy in place, decision-making and implementation are easier because everyone involved can better see how new tools fit into and affect the ecosystem as a whole. This improves efficiency and enhances customer and employee experiences, but in a larger sense, it mitigates the Shiny Object Syndrome by building a solid foundation for future decision-making based on deeper insight, more effective planning, and the flexibility to change as new insights emerge.

Such a strategic approach helps enterprises to: 

• Avoid hype
• Better understand internal and customer-facing ecosystems
• Make build-vs.-buy decisions
• Find sources of truth for data sets
• Vet purchases
• Assess risk 

For maximum visibility, the strategy should include integration points for the systems and dashboards to help IT and business leaders evaluate both established platforms and innovations on the cusp of adoption.

By making this planning and implementation consistent with the overall technology ecosystem strategy, the risks associated with choosing and integrating cutting-edge technology are greatly reduced.

Let’s look at some case studies based on previous consulting engagements that illustrate the risks and issues inherent in this process, and how thoughtful strategy and execution deliver great results. Empowered external resources were key to these results, resources who had no political skin in the game and could honestly recommend the best solution from time, budget, and asset perspective. 

Some Case Studies: Successes, Failures, and Recovery

Off the Blockchain

Shiny Object Syndrome was in full view in the early 2010s with Blockchain. Every IT leader in financial services was exhorted to implement blockchains, and most large consulting firms were successfully pushing blockchain strategies and engagements. But as we now know, blockchains have major flaws: 

• Complexity: Blockchains are overly complex and ultimately are only as good as their underlying systems (payment apps, financial portals, etc.)
• Economy: The “benefit” of avoiding middleman fees was outweighed by the costs of a team to manage the blockchain’s inherent complexity.
• Suitability: Blockchain is most valuable when you do not trust the other party in a transaction. But most banking transactions have nowhere near this level of mistrust, and if they do there is a high risk of financial improprieties.
• Sustainability: Many enterprises, particularly game producers, are now walking away from tens of millions they invested in Blockchain because it cannot deliver on its intended use.

All these flaws were discoverable for enterprises that took a strategic approach to their technology ecosystem. Time and experience have shown that Blockchain works for some companies and not others. The only way to tell the difference is to understand how that ecosystem operates in the enterprise as a whole.

Up a Data Lake Without a Paddle

Data Lakes are another current “must-have” attracting the attention of IT leaders seeking an edge. Data Lakes are inherently optimized for multiple “what if” scenarios and the analysis of huge amounts of data, but they are not optimized for transactional real-time data access.

In one engagement with an insurance carrier, IT had moved to Data Lakes for its Shiny Object appeal. The goal was to access customer data for call center servicing doing claims management. The move was made without a clear strategy, and with an immature SDLC process, making the initial project’s strategic and political decisions difficult to overcome.

To compound the problem, the IT group attempted to add microservices to the Data Lakes. The idea was to provide access to data for real-time call center platforms, but the execution didn’t work.

Again, the root of the problem was the lack of an overall ecosystem strategy, which allowed the effect of poor decisions to grow and spread.

Our external consultants were empowered to perform a detailed analysis and develop the comprehensive strategy the business lacked. This strategy was executed across the entire technology ecosystem.

The consultant team built integration points to the Lakes, true microservices layers, and successfully added agile development and proper DevOps procedures, allowing frequent product launches over eighteen months. 

A Successful Digital Ecosystem Redesign 

In another example, we were brought in to a different insurance company because employees had a completely disconnected experience across multiple email, calendar, HR, and IT systems. The “employee portal,”  another Shiny Object strategy designed for this, wasn’t hooked up to the rest of the ecosystem and was simply inadequate.

Enterprise leaders realized that a coherent strategy and IT architecture had to happen. We designed and helped to build a fully integrated employee experience, allowing a single point of entry with pertinent notifications from all connected systems. Our design included HR inquiries, viewing calendars at a glance, submitting expenses, and even booking conference rooms in infrequently visited satellite offices. The systems could share data and create a single employee profile.

With the integration of these systems, the client reaped the benefits of enterprise technology ecosystems — and did not fall into the Shiny Object trap of the “cool apps” being hyped in the market.

The project was so successful that it was spun off as a separate entity.

Death by a Thousand Shiny Object Cuts

For a consumer brokerage strategy client, I started with a technology ecosystem full of Shiny Objects which didn’t work well together. The client had something of a long-term strategy, but it had long since stopped being effective. 

The CMO and technology leadership had purchased over a dozen platforms to track search, social media, display, and email marketing efforts. There was no real-time content management platform to reach out to clients and prospects with financial insights based on timely changes in the markets and respective client portfolios. The system could not provide integrated data feeds, a single source of truth, or a dashboard to evaluate efficacy and value in one place, optimize, and knock out laggards. Tens of millions had been spent, and a cost-versus-revenue (assets under management or AUM) assessment showed that the enterprise was actually losing money when evaluating its Marcom efforts.

As part of the comprehensive strategy our consulting firm designed, we conducted a deep analysis of the raw data to get the required answers. As a result, we devised a strategy to connect systems, and showed which systems should be sunsetted as they have limited value and no transparency.

The Strategy of Doing Nothing

Sometimes, an enterprise sees disconnected systems and the risks associated, and chooses to do nothing. I’ve seen an epidemic of doing nothing in my work in the financial services industry, through the continued reliance on and maintenance of legacy systems. 

Many retail banks continue to store customer profiles in silos at each banking unit. Efficient communication is thus impossible, and an individual customer with account questions has no single source of truth to provide answers. In these cases, the technology ecosystem strategy was to take no action and cling to the status quo. The opposite of the Shiny Object Syndrome, but with much the same result.

AI And The Importance of Strategy

Now, AI is the Shiny Object. Large enterprise players (OpenAI, Google, Apple, AWS) and countless startups claim to have the secret to AI and GenAI success. Large enterprises can use GenAI to produce more content internally, moving away from AORs. Others leverage AI as customer service bots to eliminate call center personnel – with limited success. 

Meanwhile, smart enterprises are strategically developing POCs to validate spend and assure themselves that any given platform is secure and fits within a private cloud. 

Everyone agrees that AI is an important tool, but its full capabilities in an enterprise are still being debated. So at the enterprise level we are left with a need to innovate, pressure to make the right choices, and uncertainty about how those choices will affect the ecosystem as a whole. We can’t know the future, we can only mitigate the risk.

This is not to say that innovation should be stifled. It is a business necessity that must be planned for and properly implemented. By making this planning and implementation consistent with the overall technology ecosystem strategy, the risks associated with choosing and integrating cutting-edge technology are greatly reduced.

A Shiny Object Syndrome detour is possible to turn around. By making a commitment to the substantial work that is required, and with the help of nimble, experienced consultants who’ve handled these types of turnarounds before, value-driven and data-rich analysis can be leveraged to assist enterprises to recover from a technology decision, before the investment  is moved into production. 

Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is. Nobody wants to be the Delorean owner with a lemon stuck in a garage, a cheated  investor in Theranos, or a large unrecoverable FTX portfolio owner.

Welcome to the Era Catalant Calls Consulting 2.0

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