online january 20, 2015

The Internet of Things
Wins s+b’s 2014
Strategy of the Year
The linking of billions of devices through the Web has scaled the heights of strategy fashion. by ken favaro

www.strategy-business.com

strategy+business

www.strategy-business.com

The Internet of Things Wins s+b’s 2014 Strategy of the Year
The linking of billions of devices through the Web has scaled the heights of strategy fashion.

1

by Ken Favaro

W

hat was the “it” strategy of 2014? In my last post I asked for your nominations, and I received many great candidates. This comes as no surprise: Ever since strategy became the word business leaders use to give something great importance, there’s been no shortage of “next big things.” And the past year was no exception. Big data strategy continued the streak of popularity that won it s+b’s 2013 Strategy of the Year. “Agile strategy” entered into the business vocabulary from its roots in software development. And
I increasingly heard “What’s your Uber strategy?” as the so-called sharing economy gained traction, and “What’s your cloud strategy?” as more companies outsourced their computing power and digital data storage to thirdparty suppliers.
But there can be only one winner, and s+b’s pick for the 2014 Strategy of the Year is Internet of Things (IoT) strategy. Two standout runners-up, however, are worth noting. One is “corporate trust strategy,” which strikes me as being the next generation of corporate social responsibility, and which raises some interesting questions. Can having high trust equity give a company an advantage in buying and owning businesses (think
Berkshire Hathaway)? Can trust—building it, protecting it, and exploiting it—be a distinctive capability that enables a business to win in its target market? How much does trust enter into the equation, consciously or