Leveraging Vision, Mission, Culture, Commitment

Over the period of their life-time, companies are forced into an Identity crisis over the deviation of its operations from the basic idea that caused its birth.

Any business is essentially a commercially viable value proposition. However, with changing times and new opportunities, new value propositions come up and sometimes not in line with the original. Ensuring the stakeholders do not lose focus, requires that the organization systematically re-discover/re-define the nature of the identity of the business - the corporate identity.

BCG studies indicate that a clear identity rejuvenates the share-holder value of the company. RoI - Return on Identity.

Major companies like Apple, Bayer, GE have all successfully undergone such processes of re-discovering their Identity -jargonized as Vision, Mission, Culture, Commitment. However, in most cases such transformation is only peripheral to say the least and is not manifested in the tactical management and operations of the business.

A 3 point frame-work for the same as put in place by Bayer has been highly successful in averting a crisis like situation for the company.

• Assessing the relevance of your Identity
• Integrating your Identity into strategic decision making
• Integrating your Identity into day-to-day operations

Daniel Stelter and Ulrich Pediun feel that a systemized approach in this regard serves as a monitor to retain the Corporate Identity - that serves as the source of all differentiation of the company in the market-place.

The process begins with a soul-searching to answer 4 critical questions:

• Can the company's identity be described in a few words ?
• Does the identity match with the key success factors of the business?
• Does the identity define the direction of strategic decisions?
• Is the identity integrated with key processes?

GE, perhaps the world's most diversified company has transformed its Identity of a 'strong performance culture and consistent portfolio management' into standizeded processes for even operationalizing its M&As.

Eight Business Technology trends to watch : McKinsey Report

Business model innovation is as important as Technology innovation in surging ahead of competition. A recent McKinsey study identifies EIGHT Business Technology trends that can potentially transform Businesses. These trends fall within three broad areas of business activity:

Managing relationships

• Distributing Co-creation: Decentralizing innovation. Eg: Like LINUX was developed. Such models to extend to the creation of physical goods as well.
• Using consumers as innovators: Eg: Like the knowledge resource Wikipedia. This model to extend to industries as diverse as Fashion and Apparel. Internet, Web 2.0 technologies to play the enablers.
• Tapping into a world of talent: Integrate and manage the work of an expanding number of outsiders. Opens up many contracting options for managers of corporate functions. New talent deployment models to emerge.
• Extracting more value from interactions: More efficient tacit interactions. Smarter and faster ways for individuals and teams to create value through interactions—that will be difficult for their rivals to replicate.

Managing capital and assets

• Expanding the frontiers of automation: Interlink “islands of automation” and give managers and customers the ability to do new things.
• Unbundling production from delivery: Disaggregating monolithic systems into reusable components. Raise utilization rate of capital and therefore RoIC. Offers access to resources and assets that might otherwise require a large fixed investment or significant scale to be competitive.

Leveraging information in new ways

• Putting more science into management: Getting into the skin of customers. Eg: Google's internal market for ideas. Intel's 'prediction market'. Amazon's CRM abilities.The quality and quantity of information available to any business will continue to grow explosively as the costs of monitoring and managing processes fall.
• Making businesses from information: 'Information is wealth'. Exploit imperfections in the market forces. Eg: Real Estate market.
  

Impressive Quotes

This post is a collection of selected quotes that are inspiring and insightful. An awesome read, this is a careful compilation from a book that I constantly sip into for wisdom and peace.

Their utility comes more in the insights they bring into tasks that are more of a rigmarole in our busy routine lives along with the time-tested wisdom they impart.

"Excellence is never an accident"

"If the grass is greener on the other side of the fence..
it is time to fertilize your lawn!"

"Imagination is more important than knowledge"

"If you want to feel rich...
just count all of the things you have... that money can't buy"

"The best things in life aren't things"

"If you play it safe in life,
you've decided you don't want to grow anymore"

"The man on top of the mountain did not fall there"

"Creativity is finding new things...
or expressing old truths in new ways"

"What the caterpillar calls 'the end'... the butterfly calls 'the beginning'"

"You are young at any age...
if you're planning for tomorrow"

"Faith is not trying to believe something regardless of evidence.
Faith is daring to do something regardless of the consequence"

"To forgive calls upon your love...
To forget calls upon your strength"

"I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul
by making me hate him"

"Success can be another form of failure...
if we forget what our priorities are"

"He who makes a mistake and fails to correct it...
makes another"

"If you try to improve another person by setting a good example...
then you are really improving two people"

"There is no substitute for intelligence...
the only thing that comes close to it is silence"

"You cannot control the length of your life...
but you can control the width and depth"

"This is the final test of a gentleman...
his respect for those who can be of no possible value to him"

"It's not hard to make decisions
when you know what your values are"

"Nothing is all wrong.
Even a clock that has stopped running...
is right twice a day"

"People who cross their bridges before they come to them...
have to pay the toll twice"

"In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins...
not through strength but by perseverance"

"Winning is a habit.
Unfortunately, so is losing."

"The bigger we get...the smaller we have to think.
Customers still walk in one at a time."

"Stress is what happens when your gut says, 'No'...
but your mouth says, 'Of course. I'd be glad to' "

"We cannot change the wind...
but we can adjust the sail."

"If it weren't for the rocks in its bed...
the stream would have no song."

"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on...
after others have let go."

"In the confrontation between the stream and the rock,
the stream always wins...
not through strength...but by perseverance"

"Life can only be understood backwards...
but it must be lived forwards"

"The right to be heard is constitutionally guaranteed.
The right to be listened to must be earned."

"Life is like riding a bicycle...
you don't fall off unless you stop pedaling"

"What is the difference between school and life?
In school, you are taught a lesson and given a test.
In life, you are given a test that teaches you a lesson."

"Opportunity's favorite disguise in trouble"

"Be early if you are a bird...
and late if you are a worm"

"If you want your dreams to come true...
the first thing you have to do is wake up"