Jan 5, 2010 | Demand chains, Innovation
Evolving a demand chain requires great resilience from all parties involved, it is new territory every time it is addressed because all situations are different, and developing a set of rules for implementation has not yet been done well, almost not done at all.
A key is resilience.
What is resilience? The best definition, and one that applies in these circumstances is by Gary Hamel who defines it as “the ability to dramatically re-invent the way you do things in the face of changing circumstances”.
A good definition for when considering a demand chain initiative, as it is inherently a dramatic reinvention of the way things are in most industries.
Jan 4, 2010 | Change, Management, OE, Operations
Over many years, the best marketers I have come across have been trained as scientists, in a wide range of disciplines, many had no formal marketing training.
Took me a long time to figure it out, the scientifically trained people had as a part of their automatic response, a systematic process of collecting data, forming a hypothesis based on the data, testing it and looking for inconsistencies in the results, then forming a further hypothesis based on the better data to test. Kaizen or “continuous improvement” by another name.
It was an automatic, built in response that works really well in a marketing environment, particularly where many marketing people are inclined to see a problem and jump straight to a conclusion based on what has worked in the past, rather than a detailed examination of the root causes of the problem.
As I write this post, I am reflecting on the role of the “automatic” response being one that seeks to understand the cause and effect relationships underlying a problem, and how little we know about how to make our businesses embrace it across all functions and all challenges.
That would lead to systemic Kaizen, and should prove to be a potent competitive tool.
Jan 3, 2010 | Leadership, Management, Strategy
Is it just a date, or does it signify a new beginning?
A bit of both I suspect, and forecasting the future should be left to the ladies in tents at the circus, but a couple of things we know for sure:
Firstly, the infrastructure of the world economy will undergo a profound change over the next decade as carbon management emerges as the dominating political and economic factor after the turmoil in the Middle East, and the potential that has to blow up in our collective faces. How we manage it over the next decade will impact for generations, hopefully we can avoid the short-sighted, narrow, self interested and belligerent posture that created the middle east imbroglio in the equivalent decade a century ago.
Secondly, the world is now connected, the technical advances of the last decade will throw up huge opportunities to address the challenges and inequities we face globally, but will put many impediments in the way.
Are you ready for the ride?
