Motorola Internal Tech Strategy Case Competition

The case was about Ford's announcement of partnering with Microsoft to bring Sync to the market. Sync is Ford and Microsoft's collaboration on in-car communications and entertainment - a service developed by Microsoft to be made available on Ford cars that will enable you to sync your handheld device with your car using Bluetooth technology. The service is upgradeable, fully-integrated and provides seamless connectivity from outside the car environment to within. We were asked to provide recommendations on how Motorola should respond to this announcement in light of other developments in the automotive connectivity space - Apple's iPhone, Motorola's partnership with BMW and even GM's OnStar.

We didn't make it. We made it to the finals but were not chosen to represent BU at the International Case Competition. I didn't see the other two teams present so I don't know wot they were selling but here are a few thoughts on why I think we were not picked:

We sold the vision of seamless mobility. A world where you can use multiple handheld wirelessly connected devices that will speak to each other and provide pervasive intelligent interactions. For a complete idea of seamless mobility, read Motorola's white paper on the subject. Our recommendation was something called MotoLife. A comprehensive vision that will seamlessly (and across protocols) connect your mobile phone with your car, your refrigerator, your garage door opener... your anything. True seamless mobility in the theoretical sense of the word practically achieved with one device. A truly smart phone. Bolstered by software written on an open collaborative online platform. Strengthened by Telematics Location-based Services. All coming together to bring you MotoLife. Your true personal digital assistant that senses its you and automatically opens your garage door, reminds you to pick up your dry cleaning when you're driving by the store, finds you a restaurant you will like in a foreign city and even sends your wife flowers on your wedding anniversary - and here's the kicker - all without you having to remember to tell it to do that. MotoLife. Seamless mobility for your life.

Here's why we didn't win - we couldn't quantify the ROI on this vision. Three very prominent and excellent judges (one IT strategy professor, one marketing professor and a BU alum) decided that you can't sell a vision. You can only sell a product, or an idea that has been done before that has hard numbers to back it up or a direct competitive short-term response in the shape of a new product that is exactly the same as your old products but just branded differently. But you can't sell a vision. Because nobody would buy it. Because you can't quantify it. We didn't show the ROI. We didn't convince them that the market was as large as the number of people in the world. They didn't think anybody would buy it or that companies will not partner with it or that developers will not write code to make it work. Because there is no ROI on that slide up there.

The team that won was accused by one judge to have "fanciful numbers".

We addressed a strategic directional issue - not a short-term solution to a problem. We came up with a way that would make Motorola aggressively competitive and stay on top of the competition for at least 2 years. In the words of Mr. Teng, my esteemed associate, "When Steve Jobs created the iTunes and iPod... did he have to produce an ROI for his people? When Bill Gates created DOS and the Wintel platform, did he calculate his ROI to be 200000000000000%?"

Therein lies the difference between professors and an academic environment that is looking for a product development solution and CEOs of companies that seek innovative blow-you-out-of-the-water enterprise IT strategy.

So here's a tip for your case competition for when you go to b-school. Make sure you define the ROI. Even if they're fanciful, make sure you have numbers.

And I think here's my tip for real life. Make sure I sell how to win a battle before I try to sell how to win a war.