I just finished the book “Subscribed: Why the Subscription Model Will Be Your Company’s Future – and What to Do About It”. It is a fascinating book that explains clearly and well the importance of a customer-obsessed subscription business model nowadays.
I have been to Strategy classes at universities. The classes usually involve academic lectures and outdated case studies. Although hindsights are always great and strategies can only make sense after a while, the technological advances (cloud computing, machine learning…) have changed significantly how companies interact with customers and how customers want to be served. It is of little value to analyze what companies did 15 or 20 years ago (I used to be asked to analyze Google while it was still competing with Yahoo in 2003). The principles and theories of strategy remain the same, but the landscape under the influence of technology has changed dramatically. For instance, nobody is installing software by buying a disk any more. Software is delivered over the Internet now mostly in the subscription-based model. Lectures taught by professors at Ivy League and certificates can be accessed online at MOOC. With a small fee, guys can receive shaving blades every month. The days of having to buy hardware for IT services are over. IT is now delivered over the cloud and on the pay-as-you-go basis.
This book details the underlying factors contributing to the meteoric rise of subscriptions and what it is like to be customer-obsessed. It also discusses the ramifications of adopting subscription-based model ranging from HR, Marketing, Sales and organizational structure. It is choke full of successful subscription companies. If you are interested, you can do a separate study on each one.
I believe this book should be a must-read for college students, whether you major in business or not. If you have sometime to waste, I highly recommend it.
Minh Quang Duong 