Innovate or Else
By Rick Docksai
At WorldFuture 2012, consultant Jim Harris warns about being blindsided.
Futuring is not just about building the future, but also about being prepared for the future that others are building.
Confectionary giant Mars Inc. suddenly lost huge amounts of revenue about four years ago. Why? Was it other candy companies stepping up competition? No: It was due to the proliferation of SMS messaging, and young people preferring to spend money on mobile texting services than on chocolate bars.
At “WorldFuture 2012: Dream. Design. Develop. Deliver,” management consultant Jim Harris, author of Blindsided, cited Mars’ dilemma as a prime example of the unanticipated changes in environment that can “blindside” a business and catch any business off guard.
“When these trends begin to shift, companies best get in early on the change, rather than wait until it rolls over on them,” he said.
No business or organization can predict what new challenges will emerge in years ahead, he pointed out, but they can make sure that they will be as responsive and adaptable as possible. The key, he said, is innovation.
“Innovation is the flipside of blindsiding. Innovation is the solution, is the antidote to avoid being blindsided,” he said. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
More game-changers for business might be all around us, he went on to say. And whether you’re in the confectionary industry or not, you’ll want to keep on the lookout for them. He suggested a few of them.
In Kenya, for instance, only a quarter of the population has a bank account. Enter the new app MPesa, account on your mobile phone and you can text funds to family members or other contacts. The size of the transactions are tiny, and the mobile company (Safari) takes a cut that is miniscule compared to what mobile phone companies would take as part of the transaction. Given how MPesa raises its impoverished users’ standards of living by helping them conduct commerce, it’s not far-fetched to think that it might eventually make its way to communities in the industrialized world.
“Think this could roll over the world of western banking as we know it?” Harris asked.
Medical care is ripe for blindsiding by medical tourism, he added. Many heart patients might decline a $100,000 triple-bypass operation in the United States and go instead to an accredited hospital in India, where they could obtain the same procedure for $10,000.
India is also the scene of a new sub-compact, fuel-efficient car, the Nano. A buyer can get one new for $2,500. Harris noted that in the first two weeks following its debut, the company sold two-thirds of a year’s worth of production—could this take the whole automotive world by surprise?
Open-source software is yet another game changer. Harris cited Malaysia, which instituted a Microsoft-Word-like Open Office program. Its code would have cost $10 billion for software professionals to assemble, but Malaysia did it for free, with all coding contributed by volunteers.
Harris reserved particular plaudits for open-source knowledge sharing, which he said businesses everywhere need to find ways to utilize. It can only help, he argued, to be able to draw more information and perspective from more people, but too many businesses are sticking to vertical leadership modes that utilize only the know-how of the few executives at the top.
“The democratization of information, of knowledge, is a powerful trend,” he said. “We have a nineteenth-century management model in a twenty-first-century reality. Corporations need to work in new ways to unleash that hidden talent and potential.”
Nor is it a coincidence that every one of the potentially radical innovations that Harris described has emerged in developing countries, places that most established industry professionals would be inclined to ignore. The nature of blindsiding changes, according to Harris, is that they can arise from where one might least expect them.
As a corollary, he told his audience, any established industry must continue to stay on top of newly emerging trends, or else it will surely be taken by surprise. At the very least, it will short-change its customers. He offered Ford as a case in point: Ford’s turn-of-the-century Model T got 25 miles per gallon, and a Ford SUV today gets an even paltrier 17 miles per gallon. Hence, U.S. car buyers’ dependence on fossil fuels only continues to grow, despite the advent of hybrid technologies that could mitigate it.
“If every car in North America got the same efficiency as my Prius, there would be no need to import oil into North America,” he said. “We have all the resources we need to solve the problems facing our world. It’s merely a matter of priorities.”
For more information, contact: Jim Harris, Strategic Advantage, www.strategicadvantage.com.
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Comments
Moving Away from TRIBALISM!
Perhape this is the most profound post that had ever been published! Then again perhaps it is not! ...OH WELL YOU DECIDE!
Every form of "TRIBALISM" separates you from the HUMANITY of being human!......Gang Warfare. is "TRIBALISM" in the HOOD!" ...It harkens back to the primitive instincts of animals as well as humans, "FEARING" the unknown. and fearing and contempt for those that are not exactly like us. and the primitive urge and feeling that it is either "us or them!"... "We must conquer or kill them or they will do it to us!" is their battle cry! ... It is this form of "SEPARATISM" that is the cause of humans dividing themselves from humanity and thus becoming less human! ...
These fearful animal like human creatures mask their fear of the unknown and unfamiliar by declaring themselves as being brave and courageous in their glorious struggle against their many perceived enemies!
The political "RIGHT WING" of the political spectrum represents this manifestation of human separatism and the "glorification of WAR!" .... They seldom VOLUNTEER to do or die in their glorious battle, but they are courageously willing to encourage others to fight and perhaps die doing battle with those that are... "not exactly like us!"
"Nationalism" is a form of "TRIBALISM" that separates nations and people in the same way as do all competing groups, that are organized to become winners and not losers. Inside a competitive world that rewards success and penalizes failure, because in a world of scarcity where their is not enough to go around what you have that most others do not, ....gives you prestige and status, that your competitors envy and wish that they too, could be as successful and have as much of what is scarce and therefor of what is valuable, as do you!
Let's face it, about 1% of the world population has formed a "OLIGARCHY" that controls not only our economy, here in the good ol' USA but everywhere in every nation on the planet! Those of you that still think that small business is the engine that runs our economy is living in the past, and has their head screwed on backwards! We are living in a GLOBAL ECONOMY!
The Global Economy signals the end of the "Nation State" and the beginning of the Fascist Global Rule by the largest crony capitalists on the planet that will create a "Planned Economy" that will guarantee the largest rate of profit to the "Global crony capitalists Oligarchy" and they will achieve this high rate of profit by a massive exploitation of workers and consumers.
The control of prices by manipulating supply and demand, will allow our crony corporate masters to artificially create scarcity inside the marketplace so that they can create high prices for artificially scarce and necessary commodities, this predictable manuever will guarantee the highest rate of profit to the crony members of the oligarchy, and will create a massive exploitation of the 99% of the world's population!
Those that are on the LEFT WING of the political spectrum. that are capable of understanding the anatomy of change, understand or should understand, that every thing that exists will eventually change to the opposite of what formerly existed. History never repeats it's self because all new changes in the basic nature and character of what is new has the elements within it's total structure of maturing and growing by the process of a evolving understanding of negative forces, and what positive forces are necessary so that moving toward the future will always become more relevant, mature and positive than what existed in the no longer relevant and decadent past!
The global planned economy that will be planned to enrich only a 1% of the world population, will inevetably be changed by the exploited 99% of the world population, to the opposite of a planned economy for and by the 1% of the world population, ... to a planned economy that is planned to enrich the entire world population without discrimination.
Due to the "revolutionary" change in our global technology it has become crystal clear that it has become necessary for the people of the planet EARTH to "cooperate" rather than "compete" for what is necessary to survive and thrive. The planet"s people and it's resources can only be SAVED from obvious extinction by cooperation and global planning.
The advancement of world technology in this our modern age has created the possibility for the first time in human history, of ending forever the condition of material scarcity and human deprivation that existed within the confines of "Tribalism" "Feudalism "Nationalism." and all forms of "Separatism."
The integration and unity of all cultures and people on the planet will enlarge, enhance and add to the common good of all living things on the planet earth. Our material freedom and individual freedom will no longer be stunted by fear, primitive superstition and religious and National Bigotry," This will be so because IF we advance into the future all "Earth Beings" will naturally become "Social Scientific cooperative Human Beings." Free at last to work together, and also contribute as unique individuals, to advance the human race for the betterment of all human kind on the planet earth.
It is "HUMAN NATURE" to adapt to necessary change and when the nature of the planet's surroundings change from that of "COMPETITION," under the conditions of scarcity, to "COOPERATION" under the conditions of material abundance, the HUMAN FAMILY will at long last realize it's full potential as human beings!
All human kind should be looking forward to the coming era in human history when it will be possible to have a world administration of only things and not of people! ,,,,When that happens, people will be truly FREE!
It is the custom of all living things to adapt to necessary change, or forever become extinct!