GovernBest

What a great time to be reconsidering business models. All the bailout activity seems to be perpetuating, albeit re-regulating, models whose time has past. Consider health care and autos…oh, and rental cars. Two guests recently descended upon us in Zipcars…a no-lot, no designated auto business model that uses technology to let you buy transportation…not specific cars…on an as-needed basis. Some operations research problems for scattered sites and folks who “need their truck for work”, to be sure, but why not explore buying transportation services the same way we buy cell phone services…by the minute; blow up the existing channel system and all the baggage that goes with it. Or how about Zipcare? All the talk about health care reform is only health care financing reform…more money (or less with rate controls) for the same chassis. How about living wills, nurse practitioners, tele-diagnostics, informed mothers and an all-out re-engineering of what we know to be one-third wasteful (in the US). Financial Services, Media, Construction anyone? If this is truly a “strategic infection”, let’s dig underneath the perpetuation strategies and stimulate some yeasty discussion about finding new ways to satisfy the needs for which we “hire” these old business models. Thoughts?