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Creator Of Apple, Tesla Retail Stores: Somebody's Going To Disrupt Retail Energy Industry, Will It Be An Outsider?

May 18, 2017

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Copyright 2010-17 EnergyChoiceMatters.com
Reporting by Karen Abbott • kabbott (at) energychoicematters.com

Somebody is going to revolutionize the customer experience in the retail energy industry, and the only question is whether it will be an existing market participant or an outsider, leading retail strategy and customer engagement expert George Blankenship told attendees at DNV GL's Energy Executive Forum.

As a vice president at each respective company, Blankenship led the creation of the Apple stores, and later did the same at Tesla, which disrupted how customers buy technology and cars, respectively.

"Think about what Amazon is doing," especially with its Prime membership, Blankenship posited.

"Here's a 'what if' for you, sometimes people need a stimulus to do something. What if, and this is just a 'what if,' but what if you got up tomorrow, and you looked at The Wall Street Journal, and it said: CEO Jeff Bezos Announced Today That Amazon Will Be Offering Whatever-It-Is-Your-Business-Does To All Its Prime Customers Later This Year."

"You'd sort of have to react, you'd sort of have to do something, and I think innovation is the way to do it," Blankenship said

Blankenship asked, "So the question is this. Who in this room is ready to close their eyes, envision the possible opportunities in the next 10 years, and then make a difference in your industry forever?"

"Somebody's going to do it," Blankenship said

"You've got to watch people who are in the industry but you also have to watch people who are outside the industry," Blankenship said

Blankenship noted that 10 years ago, Apple was not in the phone business. Ten years ago, if someone had a phone in their pocket, it was likely a Blackberry, Motorola, Palm, or Nokia.

"Apple came in from outside the industry and redefined the industry," Blankenship noted

"Somebody's going to do it in your industry, somebody's going to do it. The only question is this: will it be you?"

Discussing the success he had in leading Apple, Tesla and the Gap to leading retail positions, which was due to each fundamentally changing the customer experience which was prevalent at the time, Blankenship said the keys to changing the industry are:

• You've got to have an innovative mindset

• You've got to simplify everything, simplify what you're working on -- everything. From what you're working on to how you communicate it

• You've got to have courage, you can't listen to what others say, you've got to do what you know deep down inside is the right thing to do

• Alignment: you've got to have a message, and that message has to be clear, all the way from the top, all the way through the bottom. When the message is clear, and it's simple and everybody understands it, incredible things can happen

• Celebrate both success and failure, because then people become even more inspired to try things

• And the most important thing is: take the first step. If you do all the other things but don't actually implement and you don't actually move forward, who cares. You gotta take the first step

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