Blockchain case study  241

• A high ROI. It is forecasted to recover initial investment within 2 years

of the platform launch and be profitable from the third year

• Improvement on the potential to expand the marketplace to other

countries and get regulatory approval post the successful launch in UK

• Gaining a competitive advantage over their competitors.

Lessons learnt

Every transformational and strategic initiative has complex interdependen-

cies between multiple internal and external factors. Due to the complexity,

it is often possible to make mistakes or be a victim of uncontrolled risks/

issues. The most important step is to learn from them to make the strategic

initiatives better controlled in future. This will also answer the question of

what could have been done better?

The following is a list of lessons learnt from the IOSpeed transformation

journey:

• IOSpeed could have reviewed their strategy on time to avoid damaging

their brand image and losing customers and artists to their competitors.

• Balancing Run and Change budget is critical. IOSpeed should have

allocated their budget more towards change. Change budget incorpo-

rates innovation and other transformational initiatives to be competi-

tive in the market.

• Human capital is essential for any company trying to disrupt the mar-

ket with innovative solutions. IOSpeed should have made more efforts

to retain the employees by providing them skill uplift and also provide

them benefits based on the performance targets.

• IOSpeed had to spend substantial time to train the existing employ-

ees on innovative technologies and also hire new employees from the

market. This situation could have been avoided, or an impact could

have been reduced by running a capability uplift programme to uplift

employees’ skills.

• The IOSpeed leadership team should have selected the option to build

their own digital art marketplace rather than evaluating the third-

party platform. This could have saved time and money.

Summary

Human brain remembers and learns quicker when knowledge is applied to

create something real. This chapter was designed to exactly do the same

thing. In this case study, we applied most of the knowledge learnt through

this book and applied on a real use case through this case study.

This case study showcases how a struggling company tries to transform

itself through innovation and gain a competitive advantage in the market.

IOSpeed transformed itself by disrupting the market through innovative