Stephen Wunker
About Stephen Wunker
Speech topics
Embrace the Octopus: How a Remarkable Creature Provides the Model for the AI-Enabled Organization
How will AI impact the way managers manage? How will it change the way that organizations function?
From pushing decision-making toward customer-facing staff, to breaking down traditional silos, to enabling new webs of collaboration, AI is starting to make possible a radical re-think of organizations.
The new model for AI-enabled management comes from a surprising creature - the octopus. With two-thirds of its neurons located outside its central brain, the octopus is a model of distributed intelligence and the remarkable benefits it creates. Hear more about how the octopus has evolved an alien-seeming structure that serves as a remarkable analogy for what AI both unlocks and requires.
Noted innovation authority Steve Wunker has been at the frontlines of AI for a dozen years. He has seen it already transform the way that business is done. Now, he’s at the forefront of determining how AI changes the nature of management.
Drawing from Wunker’s forthcoming book, this speech provides a fascinating and provocative look ahead at how AI will transform organizations, and it gives concrete advice on what managers can do today to prepare. Are you ready for the AI revolution?
Speaking videos
Books by Stephen Wunker
“Costovation: Innovation That Gives Your Customers Exactly What They Want--And Nothing More” (2018)
Cut costs-it's a common corporate refrain. But if you constantly slash expenditures, what happens to innovation? How can you stay competitive and satisfy customers? Costovation solves the dilemma of how to spend less and innovate more. The book's revolutionary approach broadens the definition of innovation beyond products to the business model itself. With costovation, you let go of assumptions, take a fresh look at the market, and relentlessly focus on what customers really want. Consider Planet Fitness-it grew to 7.3 million members by concentrating on casual exercisers. Those folks don't care about frills. They want easy, low-cost access to good equipment. Although it's inexpensive to run, Planet Fitness ranks highest in gym satisfaction.Gourmet grocer, Picard, sells only frozen food. With less perishable inventory, they compress costs while delighting a discerning but busy clientele. Packed with examples and interactive exercises, the book explores cost innovation strategies that work for big and small companies alike. From open innovation and cost-sharing to simplifying products and turning waste into new offerings-readers learn how rivals are carving out niches, protecting positions, and dominating industries. Innovation and cost-cutting are not opposites. Combined, they expose untapped opportunities to outsmart and underspend competitors.Wow your customers . . . with "less."
“Jobs to Be Done: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation” (2016)
Successful innovation doesn't begin with a brainstorming session--it starts with the customer. So in an age of unlimited data, why do more than 50% of new products fail to meet expectations? The truth is that we need to stop asking customers what they want . . . and start examining what they need.First popularized by Clayton Christensen, the Jobs to be Done theory argues that people purchase products and services to solve a specific problem. They're not buying ice cream, for example, but celebration, bonding, and indulgence.The concept is so simple (and can remake how companies approach their markets) -- and yet many have lacked a way to put it into practice. This book answers that need. Its groundbreaking Jobs Roadmap guides you through the innovation process, revealing how to:Gather valuable customer insightsTurn those insights into new product ideasTest and iterate until you find successFollow the steps in Jobs to Be Done, and you'll arrive at solutions that are both original and profitable. Advance Praise for Jobs to be Done:"As companies struggle to predict whether people will choose one product over another, Jobs to be Done gives a clear method for understanding what will make goods stand out. The steps it provides will help maximize the likelihood that your product will succeed." -- Jennifer Saenz, Chief Marketing Officer, Frito-Lay"Jobs to be Done takes what has become an essential theory for gauging customer needs and turns it into a structured approach to innovation based on what really drives behavior. It provides a coherent and highly actionable set of tools that you can put to use right away." -- Vijay Govindarajan, Coxe Distinguished Professor, Dartmouth College, Tuck School of Business"The Jobs methodology is core to how Nestlé approaches the front end of innovation. This book brings innovation to the next level, offering extremely practical steps to create opportunity in both established and new markets." -- Doug Munk, Director, Innovation and Strategy, Nestlé USA
“Capturing New Markets: How Smart Companies Create Opportunities Others Don't” (2011)
ARE YOU READY FOR THE FUTURE?New markets have powered the greatest business successes in history, from Standard Oil to Facebook. How can you discover and pursue new markets to make your business thrive?In Capturing New Markets, world-renowned business strategist Stephen Wunker argues that the first step is to stop applying traditional formulas of success and understand the unique dynamics in fast-changing new markets. He guides you through the process of creating counterintuitive strategies, such as treating competitors as collaborators, timing market entry, and targeting narrow niches before big customer segments. Capturing New Markets has been named one of the five Best Business Books of 2011.Whether you work for a huge corporation or for yourself, Capturing New Markets helps you find new sources of growth. Based on Wunker's groundbreaking work with Clayton Christensen--the Harvard Business School legend who coined the term "disruptive innovation"--plus Wunker's extensive experience in the trenches, this practical and fascinating guide shows how companies: Identify, create, and dominate new markets Avoid the pitfalls of commodization and find new ways to grow Develop and sustain new sources of growth into the future Drawing on dozens of case studies plus data-driven research, this revolutionary approach to business shows you how to turn new markets into the drivers of growth--propelling you and your company into a whole new world of opportunity. You'll learn how to anticipate customer demands and meet emerging needs before anyone else does. You'll discover how to spot ideas ready for explosive growth, and how to lead new markets while your competitors are just waking up to the opportunity. You'll also see how to make these strategies work in companies that are both small and very large.Capturing New Markets upends traditional thinking about business strategy, showing what will work in a new economy marked by turbulence and change. This is the resource you need to transform industries and the prospects of companies within them.
At a glanceStephen Wunker
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