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Last week, Dyson announced they cancelled its $2.5 billion electric vehicle project. A vacuum and home goods manufacturer building an electric car? Yes, as they could make use of the electric motor technology and air filter technology applied in their vacuum cleaners and hairdryers, all to make a ‘radically different car’.

So, what went wrong? In 2017, James Dyson, the founder of the company, announced the plan for making an electric car and pulled together a 400 car engineer strong team. How it went on from that point? We do not really know. And that might be one of the reasons the project failed.

Dyson was so secretive about its efforts on R&D, that within Dyson multiple teams worked on the same problem without their knowledge. Besides, suppliers were given only very limited information on parts, being able to only read information for one hour before it deleted itself. This halted cooperation between suppliers and Dyson and scared away talented new employees.

‘They are trying to impose Dyson’s culture on the automotive industry,” a departed employee mentioned. “You don’t build cars the same way you build a vacuum cleaner.” Dyson significantly mistook the automotive industry with the industry they were used to, which is building home goods.

After all, I believe Dyson actually did a great job. It’s these kind of brave, bold cross-industry projects that will foster innovation. By applying knowledge from one industry into another, innovation can be transferred beyond the usual industry barriers. Dyson’s battery and electric motor expertise can and should be applied not only in its own industry, but also shared and sold for purposes other than vacuum cleaners and hair dryers.

 

Sources:

Pooler, Michael. “Why Dyson Pulled the Plug on Its ‘Fantastic’ Electric Car.” Financial Times, Financial Times, 11 Oct. 2019, www.ft.com/content/1e032472-ec34-11e9-85f4-d00e5018f061. Accessed 15 Oct. 2019.

Turner, Giles, and Peter Robinson. “What Happens When a Vacuum Company Tries to Make an Electric Car.” Bloomberg.Com, Bloomberg, 2019, www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-10-11/dyson-s-expensive-road-from-electric-to-invisible-cars. Accessed 15 Oct. 2019.

 

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The game is on. After year’s of market domination by Netflix, the streaming market is currently going through rough waters. Company after company, they’ve all announced their own streaming service. Walt Disney Corporation just started its exclusive trial of Disney+ in The Netherlands, after it will be launched in US and Canada November 11th. Apple will launch its Apple TV+ this November 1st. And all this is happening in a streaming landscape where Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Youtube Premium, HBO Now/Max, CBS All Access are already fighting for market share. Next year, both Comcast’s NBCUniversal and and AT&T’s WarnerMedia will launch new streaming platforms. It’s quite crowded, to say the least.

So what might be the key to success that decides who’s winning and who’s losing this war? The first step in winning the game might be all about channels.

Last Monday, Apple did something quite clever. They announced that, if you buy a new iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you will get one year of Apple TV+ for free. This means that dozens of millions of people will be automatically subscribed to Apple’s streaming service in the coming few months.

Disney might do something similar with Disney+. What if, if you buy an entrance ticket to one of its Disney Theme Parks, you get a trial version of Disney+? Or Comcast’s NBCUniversal, that already owns 22 million paid TV subscribers in the US and could provide pre-installed free trials to all its customers right on their own tv boxes?

Obviously, the second step is to retain those customers. That is where content comes in. If the content is not appealing enough, trial consumers will not resubscribe. Yet, content, previously distributed by the incumbent streaming services, such as Netflix or Amazon Prime, is now brought back to its owners, such as Disney and Warner. It will be harder than ever to find a streaming service that airs all your favourite films and series.

Interesting to look at in the coming years, is if the long tail in the industry will become shorter again. Producing high-quality content is capital intensive. And as the landscape is becoming more and more dispersed, each streaming service might have a smaller piece of the pie. How will streaming services execute their content strategy? A few very expensive blockbuster films and series, or a lot of cheaper ones created for the niche? Each streaming service will decide for their own what suits them.

What do you think that will decide who will win this streaming war? Or do you think there will be only losers in the end?

 

 

References and further reading:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-01/the-streaming-video-on-demand-war-is-going-to-get-bloody

Why Consumers Are Already Losing in the Streaming Wars

https://www.statista.com/statistics/497279/comcast-number-video-subscribers-usa/

The war for streaming video has officially begun