Link: http://eamitabh.blogspot.com/2010/07/2020-vision-winning-strategies-for-next.html
From In The Business of Technology
The Fujitsu Executive Discussion Evening (EDE) on the 15th of July 2010 in London certainly lived up to and to a great extent exceeded my expectations. The agenda of 2020 vision focussed on the effects of globalisation, concerns over sustainability and significant change driven by new technology, as well as organisational models and customer behaviours. The speaker panel was an interesting mix with Futurist Rohit Talwar from Fast Future Research, Neil Cameron, ex CIO of Unilever and Mark Locke, chief architect for Fujitsu UK&I. They addressed questions such as what strategies will enable leading organisations to succeed through these turbulent times? What do they need to change now in order to achieve the agility and innovation required in the face of wholesale change?
Opening the session, Rohit Talwar of Fast Future Research outlined the context of turbulent outlook for the business environment globally. He identified a number of transformation trends such as new governance structures, new models of resource competition, new patterns of asset allocation and interestingly also commented on “uneven distribution of hope”. To counter these trends he advocated the concept of “strategic adaptability” and preparing for alternative scenarios. I personally am a keen advocate of portfolio approach to strategy. Rohit effortlessly took this concept to new level by describing a collection of strategic options such as cycles of growth, managed closure, exits, survival modes and temporary plays. To drive home the point then he supported this with a number of interesting examples and illustrations such as country alignment, environmental sustainability, supply-chain sustainability, relationship sustainability and open innovation. He aptly summarised his session by leaving us with value chain of Purpose, Vision >> Core Products, Services >> Delivery Models >> Organisation Model. This may turn out to be survival DNA of corporate world in next decade, who knows!
Neil Cameron, ex CIO of Unilever refreshingly spoke for 30 odd minutes without using a single powerpoint slide, certainly an achievement in today’s “thinking by powerpoint” culture. He leveraged his vast experience of managing IT function in large and complex organisation such as Unilever to highlight concepts of connected world, innovation measurement, reputation management, outsourcing, consolidation of industries and consumerism. He then moved on to make some predictions for the next decade highlighting Cloud, Video Search, Consumerism and the need for Business Strategy. He also warned the audience mix of CIOs, CTOs and IT managers that there will be no new money for IT in coming decade. He advised us to become CIOs and CTOs who are business aware who will need to carry different expectation with more accountability. He also had interesting projections for the CIO profile, linking it with COO or shared services role or innovation role with organisation. The mantra of survival and success he left with us was rather simple but effective formula of “Segment >> Focus >> Execute >> Execute >> Execute”
Mark Locke from Fujitsu presented CTO viewpoint of this theme and outlined Fujitsu predictions for the next decade. He outlined consumerism, sustainability, security and commercial models for delivering an intelligent society. He highlighted top 10 trends for the coming decade which included topics such as, Smartphones, Social Media, Spread / Change of Information, Business Service Consumption, Focus on choice, People ownership of IT and reducing buying monopoly of IT function. He also shared an interesting concept of human-centric society predicting service broking models of cloud-fusion.
The concluding QA sessions inevitably focussed on public sector IT pressures (read 25 to 40% cost reduction targets) and the speaker panel did a good job of addressing a set of questions by members of audience who must have been or will be affected by the mandate of change coming from Whitehall as well as the ever demanding private sector.
But as I left the Draper Hall and made my way back to the Bank Tube Station in London, walking past a number of by now customary Thursday after work drink gatherings…Rohit Talwar‘s concluding slide kept on going in circles in my mind…
The key to sustainable future for organisation in the coming decade is about three things — Strategic portfolio approach >> Focus on change drivers and >> Curiosity and Magnetism!
