Its time for risk consultants to be players with the team on the line. Learn how to achieve innovative advantage using the case studies.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
SME's Way Forward
Many SMEs operate successfully from an operational and a financial perspective but sustainability needs innovation and professional discipline. There is always a gap in implementing ideas in a better way with improved planning and prioritising. Strategic Risk Consulting can improve their discipline in applying priorities and identifying planning schedules for projects and help them maintain focus on priorities on an ongoing basis.
SMEs make both cost and time savings as a result of an improved business planning and prioritising strategy. Timely implementation of projects can be crucial as it would result in significant direct and indirect cost savings. This will also allow SMEs to reach the market sooner than anticipated resulting in opening up of newer opportunities which they might miss otherwise.
In Strategic Risk Consulting, on-going communication and a high level of commitment is required. A broader comprehension of issues and a reality check on any proposed way forward or actions requires both communication and commitment. Assurance that SMEs are heading along the right track in a highly professional manner is provided.
To gain competitive edge, it is crucial for SMEs to utilise knowledge efficiently and to enhance their innovation potential. Managing Intellectual Capital and reporting it to customers and stakeholders systematically is becoming increasingly important for future-oriented organisations. Conventional balance sheets and controlling instruments have lost some of their value because Intellectual Capital, i.e. value-adding knowledge, internal processes and structures along with important relationships with customers and stakeholders are becoming more and more important. The systematic management of knowledge and innovation potential will help SMEs transform from traditional enterprises into "learning organisations".
Strategic Risk Consulting provides measures of a successful transformation such as process maturity, organizational benchmarks and best practices. Recommendations are made for implementing specific models, tools, and procedures that can most usefully be adapted by SMEs. Effective transformation is always purpose-driven. SMEs should bring change by introducing innovative products, services and processes. Innovative Financing, Innovative Designing, Using Innovative Materials, Innovative Approaches, teaming with Innovative People and striving for continuous improvement.
Strategic Risk Consulting starts with identifying and discussing crises, potential crises, or major opportunities in light of the market, organisational and competitive realities. Identifying and engaging a group with enough power to lead the change and getting the group to work together like a team is the second essential step. The third step is creating a vision to bring the change, developing strategies for achieving the objective and constantly communicating the new vision and strategies.
Get rid of obstacles, change the culture, systems or structures that undermine the change vision. Encourage risk taking and non-traditional ideas, activities, and actions. Hire, promote, and develop people who can implement the change vision. Generate short term wins and reward people who made the wins. Consolidate small wins for producing more change. Rejuvenate the process with new projects, themes, and change agents. Achieve better performance through customer and productivity oriented behavior, better leadership, and more effective management and ethical corporate governance processes. Develop means to ensure leadership development and succession.
So what's the message for SME leaders? Read on. . .
If fear stands between you and something you want to achieve, the only route is through it. As you approach your goal, your fear will diminish and your confidence will increase. Don't fear for making mistakes as they are opportunities for learning. Mistakes can also provide impetus to carry out a change you may have wanted to make for some time, but lacked the motivation to carry through. When you have made a mistake, think of the words of Walt Disney. "You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you."
This will inspire you to leave the beaten track occasionally and drive into the woods. You will certain to find something you have never seen. You will create new insights about science of doing successful business. However, you need to invest. You need to invest your mind. You need Interest and Curiosity, the two batteries for your flashlight, without which you cannot search for knowledge. No Google can search it for you.
Professionals & Managers who have no curiosity or interest, or very little of either, are the one who are suffering from boredom. They fail to find correct solutions. The problem with them is they have seen everything with their eyes, but not with their minds. An active mind cannot fail. Mind is spurred to activity only by a healthy interest and a searching curiosity. The managers seek the path of least resistance and keep distance from anything that they cannot grasp or understand. The results are not up to mark or are substandard.
Leadership is all about results. You achieve results when you can move masses than when you can move leaders. I mean solution is not always about changing the leadership.
Let us make some difference and leap into a more interesting world which will turn your curiosity and transform you into a more curious and innovative businessman. Although there are numerous stories of successful people; nobody knows how they have got the right opportunity. Curious people have their pick of opportunities. The right opportunities find them.
How many ideas you are currently working on? What is the value of Intellectual Property showing up on your Balance Sheet? Are you enjoying experimentation? Or are you busy reading change management books? Don't just become ready for the change but have a role in bringing it. Let curiosity prevail for the new and the unknown among your customers and employees.
Are you curious about the new technology that has launched recently in the market? Are you curious about the new financial product which can enhance your financial freedom? Are you interested in any new segment of the business? Do new management methods evoke your curiosity?
Now question is - do departmental heads within your organization has similar curiosity and interest. Boredom makes people old before time; curiosity you will find, is the best substitute for mythical "fountain of youth".
Every project that you take up or for every complex aspect of your business, you need curious and interested people. Have you ever hired an outside consulting firm to add value to your business? Find out the level of curiosity for the assignment among those who will be executing it for you. Be it a big 4 or a big consulting giant, you need to know it. Don't take the risk of working with a half committed team with teammates who are least interested in your organization, your people, your technology, your business or the assignment itself.
Are you bringing the change? Check the level of curiosity among your employees, consultants and customers? Create curiosity and interest. Main drivers of Execution are Interest and Curiosity.
When you want to exercise 'innovation' option of the risk management, you need to invest in creating required interest and curiosity among all the stakeholders. You need escaping velocity when you want to fly to Moon. Yes, its rocket science.
What you have done so far in this regard? If you think curiosity can kill the cat then ponder on what Albert Einstein wants to say. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Contact us to know more about innovative knowledge application services that can transform your business curiosity. Or just click anywhere on this site to know our curiosity. Its contagious.
What do you think about a popular organized retail chain which changed its ERP system thrice during last seven years? Some individuals with the retail organization had opposed to the frequent change by the top management. Is this really bad a strategy considering our living in this era of exponential time where shift happens at the speed of Internet?
After technology acquisition, technology adoption along with required organizational innovations is the next logical step on the technology capability ladder. Capability convergence is the end goal while technology acquisition is the initial first step. However, technology dynamism can be visualized as the youth and vigor displayed by a firm in moving up and down the steps as shown above in the picture.
To the adopting organization, benefits resulting from adopting a new technology may include increased productivity, efficiency, improved processes, cost savings, improvement in market share or entry to new market et cetera. To an individual in the adopting organization, benefits derived from such change may be improved job performance and the associated rewards or benefits.
However, when new technology threatens earnings through corrupt practices, then its utilization is perceived as negative. It is also perceived as negative when the change requires sustained dose of consciousness, motivation and hard work to change routines and to come out of one's comfort zones. Also, when confidence is less in mastering the new technology, negative attitude of user group is derived. Thus it's important to know the root causes of resistance to change.
There is difference between decision of the firm to adopt a new technology and decision of its employees to adopt it. The firms' decision to adopt an innovation or a new technology may be motivated by 'rationalism', 'bandwagon pressure' or 'forced choice'. Rationalism assumes that firms choose and adopt new technologies freely based on fit with its strategy; under bandwagon pressure firms adopt innovations to imitate its direct competitors. The choice to adopt a particular technology may also be due to various forces like internal and external customers, government, vendors or consultants.
Technology Adoption is thus the receiving organisation's collective decision to accept the new technology and implement it sincerely by making necessary changes within the organisation and across the organizations. Management decision to adopt a new innovation or technology has to be supplemented by employees' positive attitude towards the new innovation.
It is very critical for organization to adjust itself to a new technology; the new technology must have a certain fit with the firm's organisational structure, processes, values and beliefs. Innovation imposed on organization without internal receptivity is bound to fail. Internal resistance results from incompatibility between the nature of innovation and the existing configuration of interests and resources.
Thus two issues of critical importance in technology adoption are opposition to the new technology from employees and difficulties in understanding and adopting the best practices.
The darkest blue is the zone of the tacit best practices.
Risk management means exploiting opportunities and not just controlling the damaging impact of the risks. Risk management is not about mitigating every risk identified rather it is about achieving the optimum. Innovation can bring the greatest value to the business, but it is probably the least understood risk management option.
Now look at the risk map below for a global confectionery company named balbury's that manufactures chocolate and sells it through its company and franchised outlets around the world. Balbury's mission is to be first thought in minds of people for gifting and celebrating.
The management sees a loss of appetite for its product range to be the major risk to its business success. After that, they see breakdown in quality control at franchises to be a major risk. Balbury's loose product has to be maintained at a set temperature and hygiene is a crucial factor for customer confidence.
After the risk assessment, the companies have various options to manage a particular risk. However, a lot of companies simply think of what they will physically do to manage the risk, or else they allocate it to the risk owner to think it over. Thus, the marketing director of Balbury's might have been told to come back with a strategy for dealing with loss of appetite for the product.
Rather than the marketing director to think it over alone, the choices should be discussed openly in a strategy meeting. Choices can be as follows:
Avoid: get out of the business or get out of a line of business or out of a country. Outsource: transfer the operation to an expert in that field. Accept: live with it and do nothing. Monitor: keep a weather eye on the situation. Measure: work out a key performance indicator to track. Control: put a new or improved control in place. Insure: cover the potential loss with a policy. Hedge: reduce risk by covering several options. Innovate: grab opportunity out of consideration of risk.
One of the high risk issues for Balbury's is quality breakdown in the franchises. If risk realizes, then it could affect its global brand badly. The company could threaten to withdraw the franchise from any operator who does not meet the standards; in addition, it could send inspectors to tour the franchised operations. Or, it might get franchisees to complete regular quality self-assessments.
The other high risk issue is more difficult to address. Loss of appetite for the product initially seems something that the company may be unable to do anything about. Where risks are deemed "uncontrollable" in this or some other fashion, then there is usually scope for the "innovation" option. The simplest form of exercising innovation option is reversal. Instead of "loss of appetite for the product", the risk is restated as objective - "increased appetite for the product". The team then has to come up with a strategy that could make the new objective statement true.
Increased appetite could come from a high level of new product development leading to the launch of new products: they could produce ice-cream versions of their chocolate products, develop "Diwali ki Mithai" concept to support the "celebrate" concept, make chocolates with messages inside etc. The strategy could be articulated then as something like "achieve 25% of sales from new lines" and this could be measured and reported on.
Let us take some more examples of the innovation option of risk management:
The kirana retailers found "fresh stores" a major risk to their future business. Fresh stores came with strategy of rapid expansion offering better services at reduce prices. The solution could have been, to aggressively change the present state of affairs by integrating small kirana businesses or creating stores for readymade or homemade vegetables or food stuffs or coming up with new ways of making delivery etc. Instead of trying to defend against the apparent risk that "fresh stores will take business away from us", the reverse of this could have been proposed like "Fresh Store will bring business to us".
An agro chemical business looked at its risk map to its utter disappointed that the high risk issues were outside of their control as they were related to regulation of the sector they were in. "We are regulated" was then reversed to "we are not regulated" making expansion into unregulated, but related, sectors as their business priority.
A small web 2.0 consulting firm expressed one of its biggest issues as "business people might not take us seriously". This was the biggest risk to their securing greater business. Reversing the issue as "business people take us seriously" led to development of a balanced scorecard to express their strategy, how they would achieve it, and how they would measure it.
Aren't you ready yet to exercise the innovation option of risk management?
I could hear words like VBM (Value Based Management), EVA (Economic Value Added), Cost Reduction, Value Creation very loudly from the direction where I saw two business managers in stylish suits having a hot discussion. I heard the one in blue suit saying; all our future decisions about capital allocation have to be based on the value creation criteria. Thus, we should know how to add value to our businesses and how to shift our strategic focus to realize higher value.
The other one in the brown suit said we have already adopted various best practices like Total Productivity Management (TPM), Total Quality Management (TQM), Business Process Restructuring (BPR), Six Sigma, and several other global best practices. We have robust governance practices and disclosure standards. We know our customers' needs better. We are actively doing international M&A and investing in future technologies. We have adopted a hybrid approach which seems in coherence with today's dynamic environment.
The one in blue suit remained silent for a while and then said every person, every organization and even government nowadays is a product of a coalition and the forces that are always at war. The war is between the Trivial Many and the Vital Few. The Trivial Many comprise the prevalent inertia and ineffectiveness. The Vital Few are breakthrough procession of innovation and effectiveness. However, the war is difficult to observe as it is the same person, the same unit and the same organization which produces both the forces. All we can see is the over all result i.e. the net effect of both the forces at work.
At the most, we only remove businesses that are most unpleasantly unprofitable whereas we put only minor efforts to increase the extremely profitable business. This is a dreadful compromise, based on our misunderstanding. We all say small is beautiful but complexity too is our sponsored thing. Believe me or not as we sponsor complexity, it also sponsors us. And, therefore we are skewed towards larger and complex organization instead of most profitable ones.
Each value seeking organization can become very much more valuable, but the crux of value creation is a process of innovation and substitution. The entrepreneurs shift the economic resources from low productivity areas to higher productivity areas. This same act is called Arbitrage by the modern financiers.
International Financial Markets are very quick to correct anomalies in valuation. For e.g. Exchange Rates. But the business organizations and individuals are generally found to be very poor at this sort of entrepreneurship or arbitrage, at shifting resources from low productivity usage to higher productivity usage, or at cutting the low value resources and buying the high value resources.
At first there is confusion as to what is more valuable and then there is resistance to change. It is easier to learn out of box thinking using popular nine dot puzzle but when it comes to reality and putting out of box thinking in practice, it is damn difficult.
Other said I don't believe you as today's business managers are smarter and they know how to solve nine dot puzzle using four lines, three lines and even one line.
I went ahead with my pad and pencil and asked the guy in brown coat to solve the new trick mentioned in The Game of Arbitrage -I , which he could not solve for next 2 hours.
I knew he was the same guy who resisted giving me 2 hours of his for sharing a revolutionary idea which could have reduced cost of monitoring risks and controls significantly for his multi unit organization.
Morale of the Story: Learn the Game of Arbitrage not just know the best practices.
As a leader if you are not ready to change, please bear in your mind that market shift will happen soon. Innovation is not just a buzzword used for seeking immediate attention of the business leaders. Innovation is connected to efficiency and value. It's a response to the dynamic business environment of today's time. If you are not bothered or concerned then there is high possibility of your missing the bus. Mr. Akshar, Manager with an innovative risk consulting outfit told to Mr. Ank, Senior Manager with one of the big risk consulting outfit.
Mr. Ank told him that we don't have enough time to reflect and innovate. It appears to me that Research and Development work has not been given more importance for long as we are more into serving our clients' immediate and primary risk management needs emanating from statutory enactments. More than 80% of our revenue is thus generated from financial risk assessment and process documentation work.
Mr. Ank told Mr. Akshar that we are part of a specialized group and our department does not deal with innovation. Possibly our strategic and technological risk department takes care of this service segment. Our major challenge is smooth administration of our 500 plus staff.
Mr. Ank asked Mr. Akshar how is your organization positioned and doing risk consulting business when business leaders seems to be very conservative and innovation in risk management has never been a priority with them.
Mr. Akshar exclaimed as to why Mr. Ank and his company are hiding their faces from innovation.
Mr. Akshar told him that Innovation is Innovation and it should not be a responsibility of one department alone. Boutique firm culture makes it possible to have a vivid picture of innovation. Remember that innovation is a hot topic among the business leaders nowadays. It a premium risk consulting segment and needs high customization while addressing demands of emerging organizations facing new challenges of new world economy. Innovation in Risk Consulting is all about knowing trick of the trade and applying new solutions for the desired results.
Smart CEOs and CFOs have come with new ideas of doing businesses and innovative risk consultants have come with idea of managing business risks in newer ways. Entrepreneurship drives the success of innovative organizations. Unlike many risk consulting outfits where quality is a big problem, our activities are mainly driven by the business results, quality and value that we seek for our clients.
Internal Audit partner and his client, the CEO had arranged pow-wow among their teams to encourage an open discussion on the bitter auditor-auditee relationship. At the pow-wow, the marketing manager made a remark that although one should never minimize findings or neglect ones obligation to report accurately, too many internal auditors needlessly drive a wedge between themselves and their auditees by presenting findings in a way that belittles the auditee instead of treating findings, analysis, presentation as an opportunity to address problems and to facilitate improvements. The purchase manager added that internal auditors always act as policemen and come with backing of authority.
To this, one audit manager answered that the business managers will have to begin to look internal audit as an objective consulting group and not just an independent assurance group. Answering to the concerns of the marketing manager, he said that part of the problem is that internal audit also has a stereotype like business managers and an education process is needed for both, the auditor and the auditee. He also said that our source of authority is our ability and independence whereas business managers think that we are in the organization to appraise them for their performance and thus our reports with suggestions are treated as report with coercion by them.
The CEO said that Internal Auditor should keep management informed of the progress of their work along the way. Letting management know what they are finding allows them to take action and fix problems while the audit is still in progress. We need 'No Surprises'. Also, internal auditors don't leave considerable time open in the audit schedule so that we can make special requests.
The IA partner replied that our terms of reference and scope should be clearly interpreted as the management inevitably try to prevent audit encroachment onto the 'management patch' and thus try to restrict us to the policeman's role, whereas we view our role as that of the independent reviewer covering all areas and levels of operations, decision making and governance. We agree that Internal Auditors should employ a just-in-time approach in setting up their audit plans for adjusting special requests of its clients, but at the same time, they expect from auditees to co-operate and respect their time.
The CFO said that both auditor and auditee have their own perception regarding one another's needs. Also, they have an expectation as to the nature of their relationship. I have closely seen both the sides in my life. This bitter relationship soon motivates young internal auditors to seek career elsewhere. This is also one of the reasons; the audit industry is seeing a huge turnover of young professionals. Internal auditing's success in the next millennium will depend on providing its audit clients with unique and exceptional services. We need to listen to each other innovatively. Such pow-wow is definitely a step in this direction. The pow-wow continues...
Mr. Anjani, Canta Coffee Company's CEO had quit the troubled coffee chain after a short one-year stint. He was the third successive top-level official to have exited this group-owned coffee chain in a span of two years. The core of Canta's problems included an indiscriminate expansion strategy, steep overhead costs, high employee churn, new competition and high prices. Recently, the group sold off its stake in the chain.
Knowledgeable people are the key to corporate success. The corporate houses which cling to yesterday's haphazard means of developing organization and their people suffer from corporate dyslexia. In this era when executives are turning entrepreneurs or joining competition for higher perks, it is important to know about the next big opportunity as well as innovative organizational dynamics and business frameworks which can overcome this so called corporate dyslexia.
There's a scene in Alice in Wonderland when Alice comments that everyone in the domain of the Red Queen seems to be perpetually running. The Red Queen responds that Alice must live in a very slow place indeed, for in her world everyone must run simply to stay standing.
If you are a business leader, chances are you know the feeling. Like the Red Queen, you live in a world in which continual changes in technologies, markets and organizational forms require your firm to be in constant motion just to keep in place. Understanding the paradox of the Red Queen involves recognizing that, unlike in the tidy world of economic and organizational theory, in the real world there is no equilibrium. If you are doing a good job causing problems for your competition, you are sowing the seeds of problems they will cause you down the line.
Drawing from a recent happening where Mr. Ram, MD & CEO of a book store retail chain, who moved out to create a new business model, where client companies will become virtual organizations, outsourcing essentially all of their management activities. This new concept venturing in future retail practices will manage complete gamut of activities like, project roll out, human resources planning, marketing, store designing and M&A consulting etc. These kinds of changes disrupt the market and over time, alter the basis of competition.
Thus to overcome this corporate dyslexia, the business leaders should keep in mind that today's innovation is tomorrow's noose. Organizations that don't keep changing eventually become punished for being really good at what used to be rewarded. In 1980s, for example, Bank of America's efficient brick-and-mortar operation became a liability as automatic teller machines and electronic funds transfer emerged to allow people to get their money more easily.
Nevertheless, competition is one of the best forces for organizational learning and improvement. Dealing with the troubles of competition allows you to build the capacity of your organization. Good business models arise from trial and error and even the road to microprocessors and the Internet were fraught with early misjudgments about the utility of personal computers and linked networks.
Business leaders must therefore face the Red Queen head on. One way of doing so is to get in on early diffusion of the product, which can often give a firm an advantage. Establishing product teams, phase reviews and cross-functional mechanisms can all speed the rate at which an organization is able to respond to the market. But it's not just about going fast. The art of strategy is about understanding your industry well enough to know a promising innovation from a blind alley.
Leaders should focus on connecting strategy planning teams with those who are involved in product and service development and are actually in touch with customers. In the end you want to think of yourself as the architect of a system that is trying to engage, not eradicate, competition.
Just to share with you, Google has acquired feedburner.com. Do you know what this company is? Ok, if you are subscribed to my case studies and getting emails as and when I update this section of my site, it's a service by the feedburner.
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, not the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. - Charles Darwin
Mr. Kolah, who is working as a Finance Manager, has taken initiative to bring change through innovation in his organisation. Although his bosses have approved the project to be taken up which is real beneficial for the organization, their attitude is not conductive for the proposed project and change management. They instructed him to hire a renowned consulting company whereas Mr. Kolah thinks that the new consulting projects need more energetic, entrepreneurial and innovative consultants. He has tried hard to convince them but failed to change their attitudes.
Attitudes are a collection of value and beliefs around certain subject. Most people try to change other person's attitude without any success. Attitude cannot be changed without changing incorrect values and beliefs first. Unfortunately, we normally have little success in changing attitude. Telling some one to change his attitude never works. Never. Let us consider this specific values and how beliefs create an attitude.
The bosses of Mr. Kolah are biased towards new consulting company as an agent to innovation and change management. Such a resistance is an attitude.
Value: Security and Ego
Belief A: When consultants of know brand are around, I am secured. Belief B: Young consultants have no knowledge of business. Belief C: People other than big consulting are not trust worthy and lack infrastructure. Belief D: How young people are supposed to teach us on how to do business?
Attitude: People of a new consulting company might be OK, but they will not add value as I am not comfortable hiring them.
Solution is to target all incorrect beliefs first while dealing with attitude. Beliefs are sometime build on wrong values, premises and understanding. This is very true also with more experienced higher level management people.
In today's time when information and knowledge is growing at an incredible speed, the gray hair and experience might not be the major drivers for success and innovation. You need to pump in new blood in the process and increase the velocity to escape the gravity of orthodox thinking. Incorrect reasoning, attitude and state of mind of a person should not be a barrier for successful creation of better organizations of the coming times.
I was discussing innovation with CEO of a fortune 500 company recently in an informal meeting. As we were discussing, he mentioned that they have hired a named consulting company recently for implementing enterprise wide risk management system in their organization using latest control frameworks. He mentioned that there is no Rocket Science involved and consultants are just creating some kind of laundry list of risks, controls, activities and tasks and then plotting them in various fashions. It was apparent that he was not happy with the consulting project going on in his company but was not sure what was lacking.
I mentioned to him that as per recent survey by IBM on innovation , many of CEOs' top obstacles are within their own control. It is apparent that the majority of issues reside somewhere inside their own organizations. Culture, budget, people, process and technology were cited as some of the most significant hurdles. For CEOs, this is a classic case of good news as well as bad news. Because the issues are internal, CEOs have more control over them. However, these hurdles compound the challenges CEOs face.
Leading organizations to be more innovative is becoming more and more difficult. As massive change bears down on CEOs' organizations, their employees, stockholders and Boards are growing increasingly impatient for results. And when those results are not forthcoming, consequences can be severe. And, these are reflected in high turnover of CEOs in past few years.
He told that he might leave the job by the year end and may start his own entrepreneurial business. We debated on the issue for some time and then we started talking about business and technology integration which we both thought is of great importance. He told me there are lots of gaps in integration which are frustrating and he wanted to improve, but didn't know how to do it and found the task too complicated.
For adding humor to this serious discussion, I said you now need to employ something which involves Rocket Science. What is Rocket Science? With a spark in his eyes he said let us create a background to explain the term within the business context. When your mission is to reach other part of the continent in few hours, you faced with a force called turbulence approaching the speed of sound. Solution is to understand the science of aerodynamics and streamlining. Using the same principle, the business world has streamlined its business processes. When your mission is moon or mars, you are faced with powerful centrifugal force called gravity of the Earth. You need to escape this force and to achieve an escaping velocity you need to know the Rocket Science.
Innovation is not just about challenging the existing but beyond. What if you mission is to reach other galaxies within different time space and dimensions and you need to approach the speed of light or tachyon. This is even beyond the Rocket Science.
Globalization and technology advances are lifting competition to new heights, while creating unprecedented opportunities to differentiate. Financial markets are demanding ever-faster growth. Growth and perhaps even survival depends on innovation. Similar to implementing a corporate strategy, becoming more innovative means making deliberate choices filtering the plethora of options you have as a CEO and concentrating on those few actions that can truly make a difference.
That day in evening, I was again reading the final paragraphs of the survey by IBM on innovation :
Has your innovation agenda expanded beyond products/services/markets innovation and operational improvement to encompass your business model, the emerging basis for competition? How much of your innovation is bold versus routine? How would your business model be different if you started with a clean sheet of paper? What would you do if you were getting into your current business as a start-up? What capabilities do you have that might fundamentally change the value chain in another industry? Do you continuously explore new technologies that could change your business? Is technological change an input to your strategy development process?
I wanted to add one more question: Can you think of something which involves Rocket Science and beyond?
Many SMEs operate successfully from an operational and a financial perspective but sustainability needs innovation and professional discipline. There is always a gap in implementing ideas in a better way with improved planning and prioritising. Strategic Risk Consulting can improve their discipline in applying priorities and identifying planning schedules for projects and help them maintain focus on priorities on an ongoing basis.
The management sees a loss of appetite for its product range to be the major risk to its business success. After that, they see breakdown in quality control at franchises to be a major risk. Balbury's loose product has to be maintained at a set temperature and hygiene is a crucial factor for customer confidence.
