Last year my late employer's innovation &
strategy group surveyed recent management literature to determine what
they should be developing 'thought leadership' material on. Here's
their list of the 20 things that are keeping
executives awake at night. The 'Usual Solutions' column is my own
observations -- my ex-employer wouldn't be so candid about their
customers:
Issue
|
Usual
Solutions (since the dot-com bubble burst)
|
Increasing
Profitability, Productivity, Efficiency, ROI, Reducing Overhead
|
Cut costs, layoffs,
outsource, offshoring, bend accounting rules, lobby government for
subsidies & favours, smash unions, subjugate employees
|
Increasing
Growth, Lack of Innovation, Falling Prices & Commoditization
|
Acquire competitors, enter
new markets, change the packaging, create 'sequels', test market |
Finding &
Retaining Top People, Management Succession, Executive Compensation
|
Head hunters, executive
perks & stock options, other profit-based incentives
|
Improved Decision Making,
Managing Complexity
|
Increased specialization,
teams & communities of practice, collaboration tools, knowledge
management |
| Acquisitions &
Alliances |
Acquire competitors |
| Succeeding in
New Markets |
Replicate what worked
elsewhere
|
| Ineffective
Marketing Programs |
Change ad agencies
|
Regulatory
Constraints
|
Lobby government to
de-regulate
|
Economic
Uncertainty, Deflation / Inflation
|
Focus short term, lobby
government to fight inflation
|
Fickle &
Demanding Customers / CRM
|
Focus short term,
outsource production, sue customers
|
| Supply Risks |
Play suppliers off against
each other (Wal-Mart style) |
Competitive
Threats
|
Create oligopoly, buy, sue
& intimidate competitors
|
Litigation
Risks
|
Stonewall, intimidate by
countersuit, hire 'risk management' experts
|
Employee
Fraud, Theft, Incompetence
|
Minimize number and
authority of employees, deploy cameras and other security methods
|
Optimal
Capitalization & Legal Structure
|
Window-dress profitability
to reduce cost of equity, lobby government to fight inflation to reduce
cost of debt
|
Cash, Debt,
& Working Capital Management
|
Minimize inventory, factor
receivables, shift working capital to outsourcers
|
IT
Vulnerability
|
Hire consultants to assess
& address vulnerabilities
|
Taxes
|
Offshore holding
companies, complicated structures, lobby government for tax breaks, tax
avoidance schemes
|
Protecting
Intellectual Property
|
Patent everything, sue
infringers, lobby government to enhance protection laws
|
Creating and Operating New Businesses
|
Not much of this going on
these days
|
This list probably appears negative for two reasons: (1) executives
generally respond more aggressively to (and stay awake more worrying
about) threats and risks than opportunities, and (2) in the last decade
shareholders have become much more conservative and risk-averse, and
expect executives to manage 'their' businesses accordingly. That means
the enormous innovativeness of the 1990s is gone, as companies find
they can improve profits with less risk by cutting costs than by
introducing innovative improvements. It's not a viable long-term
strategy, because you can't cut your way to greatness, and because there's
a limit to how much you can reduce cost, and because with outsourcing
and offshoring in lieu of innovation you're not creating new value for
customers and you're reducing customers' ability to buy your product.
It's the 'race to the bottom' and we're almost there now.
What's most remarkable to me is the dramatic shift these issues and solutions demonstrate in the relationship
between big businesses and the 'five forces' they interact with:
employees, customers, suppliers, competitors, and communities. It's a
shift from the exuberant short-lived one in the 1990s of cooperation,
collaboration and empowerment, to the adversarial relationship of
litigation, intimidation and mutual distrust we see today. It's a shift
that closely parallels what has happened in the political sphere in the
US -- from what Lakoff
describes as the liberal nurturing parent worldview, to the
conservative strict parent worldview. And it's as bad for business, in
my opinion, as it is for politics.
Before we can restore the upbeat 1990s business climate, two things
need to happen:
- We need to oust the Bush regime, and replace it with a
government that encourages innovation, entrepreneurialism and small
business, instead of corporatism, oligopoly, and more rights for
corporations than for consumers.
- We need a citizen-consumer rebellion against corporatism,
and against businesses who lie to customers, sue customers, sell poor
quality, uninnovative products, mistreat employees, offshore jobs, and
are socially and environmentally irresponsible. That rebellion will
produce both changes in spending habits and new laws.
But in the meantime, those of us that advise businesses need to (at
least for now) set aside the 'nice to do' business improvement ideas of
the 1990s, and develop some hard-nosed new ideas that address the 20
stay-awake issues above in more creative and positive ways than the
'Usual Solutions' that prevail today. Because these
issues are real, and until we come up with better answers, the 'race to
the bottom' will continue.
Here are eleven of my ideas
for addressing these issues in more positive ways. Implementing these ideas
will be the business of my new businesses, Meeting of Minds and The Caring Enterprise Coach.
I'll be posting more on these businesses, and the eleven ideas below,
here and on their new websites soon. In the meantime I'd be interested in
your ideas on which of these ideas is most saleable, and to which
companies.
Issue
|
Dave's
Solutions
|
Increasing
Profitability, Productivity, Efficiency, ROI, Reducing Overhead
|
Personal Collaboration Technologies Suite:
A set of intuitive desktop tools that allow front-line workers to see
and hear each other and to work together without having to be in the same room.
Personal Productivity
Improvement Sessions: One-on-one tailored sessions with
individual front-line workers to assess and improve their effectiveness
in the use of information and technology.
|
| Increasing
Growth, Lack of Innovation, Falling Prices & Commoditization |
The Innovation Amplifier: A process
for assessing your business' current innovation processes and culture
and improving it using proven techniques and incentives.
|
Finding &
Retaining Top People
Improved Decision Making, Managing Complexity
Acquisitions & Alliances
|
Personal Content Management System: A
simple, configurable weblog-based application that allows front-line
workers to capture, organize, share and publish their own and others'
knowledge, and serves as a subscribable electronic filing cabinet.
Social Networking
Applications: The Expertise
Finder and other tools that enable front-line workers to find
the experts and knowledge they need to do their jobs effectively.
|
| Ineffective
Marketing Programs |
The Viral Marketing Toolkit: How
to use viral marketing to promote your products and services without
coercive and expensive advertising.
|
Economic
Uncertainty, Deflation / Inflation
|
Economic Scenario Builder: A
simulation tool that shows the impact of changing economic situations
on key business metrics.
|
Fickle &
Demanding Customers / CRM
Supply Risks
|
The Customer Handshake: A flexible
non-legalese purchase agreement and customer relationship model written from the customer's
instead of the supplier's perspective, which articulates simply the
rights, the responsibilities and the commitment of both parties to
mutual benefit from the transaction.
|
Cash, Debt,
& Working Capital Management
|
The Working Capital Monitor: A tool
for forecasting, managing and optimizing your business' cash and
working capital
|
Creating and Operating
Great New Businesses
|
New Collaborative Enterprise Incubation:
How to set them up, how to recruit members, designing the statement of
operating principles and related legal, financial and business advisory
services.
Entrepreneurship
Coaching: Comprehensive training and continuous assistance on
how to build and operate a small collaborative business successfully and
effectively.
|
Artwork by Germany's Joe Kurz from his 'Sleepless Nights' series.
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
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