A six-person payment start-up launches a solution in eight weeks. A large incumbent is still aligning stakeholders and trying to reach consensus.
Guess who wins the customer.
Across industries, complexity is quietly becoming a corporate tax, slowing decision-making, suffocating innovation and weakening responsiveness precisely when agility matters most. From fintechs disrupting banks to insurtechs challenging traditional insurers, some of the most successful challengers today are not necessarily winning because they are bigger or smarter. They are winning because they are simpler.
As a strategist, I spend a significant amount of time helping executive teams create strategic clarity. One thing has become increasingly apparent: many organisations are drowning in their own complexity. We have all sat in meetings that could have been an email. We have all seen decisions delayed because “one more stakeholder” needs to provide input. We have all watched organisations produce 120-page strategy documents that very few people actually read.
The irony is that while markets are accelerating, many organisations are slowing down. The concept of complexity often masquerades as sophistication. But in reality, complexity has become a structural disadvantage.
Large organisations naturally accumulate complexity over time. More governance. More reporting. More products. More systems. More approval processes. Much of this emerges with good intentions: to manage risk, improve oversight or support growth. Yet over time, these layers create what I would call “organisational interest payments”: an ongoing leakage of time, energy, speed and adaptability caused by accumulated complexity.
Follow the leaders
Like financial debt, the problem is not always immediately visible. But eventually the interest payments become crippling. A simple customer request suddenly touches six departments. A decision that should take one day takes three weeks. Employees spend more time navigating internal bureaucracy than solving customer problems. In some organisations, the market is moving faster than the business can decide.
Take Capitec Bank. While traditional banks historically competed through breadth, complexity, and product layering, Capitec built much of its success around simplicity. Simpler pricing. Simpler banking products. Simpler customer experiences. Customers did not need a finance degree to understand its fee structures.
Similarly, in the US, Lemonade fundamentally challenged traditional insurance models through simplicity and speed. Customers can sign up digitally within minutes, submit claims via an app and avoid much of the friction associated with traditional insurance processes. In a world where consumers increasingly value convenience and immediacy, simplicity itself becomes part of the value proposition.
Even outside financial services, the pattern repeats itself. Apple has long understood that simplicity is not accidental, it is designed. Steve Jobs famously obsessed over removing friction, simplifying interfaces and eliminating unnecessary complexity. The result was not “basic” products, but intuitive ones.
In South Africa, Checkers provides another compelling example. Sixty60 succeeded not because online grocery delivery was a new idea, but because the experience was exceptionally simple. Customers immediately understood the value proposition: groceries, delivered fast, with minimal friction.
Rewarding clarity
Simple organisations can move faster because there is less friction slowing them down. Fewer approval layers. Clearer accountability. More focused priorities. Simplicity enables responsiveness, and responsiveness matters enormously in disruptive environments.
But simplicity is not only an internal advantage. It is also a customer advantage.
We live in a world of constant noise. Endless notifications. Advertising overload. Infinite choices. Consumers are exhausted. In behavioural economics, this is often referred to as “decision fatigue”: the deteriorating quality of decisions after prolonged mental effort.
In a famous study by psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper, consumers were more likely to purchase jam when presented with fewer options rather than dozens of choices. Too much choice created paralysis.
The same principle applies everywhere.
Restaurants with overly complicated menus often create anxiety rather than excitement. The best presentations are usually the simplest.
Customers do not reward complexity; they reward clarity.
This is why some challenger brands resonate so strongly. “Open an account in five minutes.” “One monthly fee.” “Insurance in minutes.” Clear messaging cuts through market noise.
By contrast, many incumbents communicate in layers of jargon, caveats and technical language that customers neither understand nor trust.
Of course, simplifying organisations is not easy. Complexity rarely emerges because people are incompetent. In many cases, it is a rational response to growth, regulation, acquisitions or risk management. Every new process solves a problem. Every governance layer exists for a reason.
The problem is that complexity accumulates silently.
Over time, organisations become over-managed and under-adaptable. Simplification then becomes emotionally difficult because complexity often protects power structures. More layers can create the illusion of control. More reporting can create the illusion of productivity.
But activity is not the same as effectiveness.
Overcoming complexity
So where should organisations start?
- Ask: what can we stop doing? Most organisations focus obsessively on adding: more strategic initiatives, more meetings, more KPIs. Very few systematically remove.
- Identify where decisions are getting stuck. In many businesses, the issue is not decision quality, but decision speed.
- Pressure-test your value proposition. If customers cannot explain what makes your offering valuable in one sentence, it is probably too complicated.
- Challenge legacy processes. Ask: if we were building this organisation from scratch today, would we design it this way?
- Simplify communication relentlessly. The ability to explain a strategy simply is often evidence that leaders actually understand it.
But importantly, simplicity is not about dumbing things down. It is about removing friction so organisations can focus energy where it matters most.
Which brings us back to the title: keeping it simple, stupid.
The phrase may sound blunt, but that is precisely the point. In a world obsessed with adding more – more processes, more meetings, more products, more complexity – simplicity has become deeply undervalued.
The companies that win the next decade may not be those doing more, but those disciplined enough to do less, better, faster and more clearly than everyone else.
In the age of disruption, simplicity is no longer merely an operational principle. It is becoming a competitive advantage.
Andrea Reinecke, a Gibs faculty member, is a strategist, lecturer and board-level adviser with expertise in private equity, corporate finance, M&A and strategy advisory. She combines rigorous analytical capability with commercial pragmatism, supporting organisations in crafting future-fit strategies, driving performance and unlocking sustainable growth.
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