Category Archives: Value Creation Dynamics

The New Virtual Enterprises Building Blocks

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© Copyright IBM Corporation 2021

I have to say I loved reading this from the IBM Institute for Business Value. It provides a greater fit with much of what I was struggling to articulate in a recent post “Missing the building blocks of ecosystem design in the Energy Roadmap by IEA“; I can relate to what the IBM report conveys as the future way to organize and undertake business or to bring together all the parts of the Energy System roadmap suggested in the recent IEA report.

The report “The Virtual Enterprise – The Cognitive Enterprise in a virtual world.” gives a new view to managing in both virtual worlds and enterprises. I do recommend reading it.

To quote Mark Foster, Senior Vice President, IBM Services: Continue reading →

Missing the building blocks of ecosystem design in the Energy Roadmap by IEA

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https://theconversation.com/humanitys-sustainability-is-no-excuse-for-abandoning-planet-earth-80699

I have been reading a groundbreaking report,  the world’s first comprehensive study on how to achieve a“Net-Zero by 2050: a roadmap for the global energy system“(referred to as NZE here in this link). It is produced by the International Energy Agency (IEA)

Why is this so important? Well, it is about the most dramatic change in our Energy Systems globally and emphasised that this decade is pivotal to reaching the targeted goal of net-zero by mid-century. Each decade will bring dramatic change to all of our lives. Our planet is under significant threat of global warming that will impact how we can live and perhaps survive.

This 2050 target is in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement, the foundations of global consensus to limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5c. This requires nothing short of a total transformation of the energy systems, a complex “beast” that provides us with the basic energy sources we need to survive, live, build and grow.

The report sets out a cost-effective and economically productive pathway, resulting in a clean, dynamic and resilient energy economy dominated by renewables like solar and wind instead of fossil fuels. The report also examines key uncertainties, such as the roles of bioenergy, carbon capture and behavioural changes in reaching net zero.

The Energy System is a complex Ecosystem. Continue reading →

Sustainable Value Creation

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Sustainability has become a hot topic in the corporate board rooms across the globe in the past year. The World Economic Forum held a virtual forum for business leaders to determine a set of Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics – universal, comparable disclosures that focused on people, planet, prosperity and governance on which companies can report, regardless of industry or region. This was held in January 2020 with a direct result of a consultant paper “Toward Common Metrics and Consistent Reporting of Sustainable Value Creation being produced and discussed going forward.

This consultative work continued with a White paper in September 2021, “Measuring Stakeholder Capitalism Towards Common Metrics and Consistent Reporting of Sustainable Value Creation. 

Recently, this had a following on with a beneficial further white paper in March 2021 called “A Leapfrog Moment for China in ESG Reporting“, which provides all involved or interested in Sustainability to refer to. I will be coming back to this particular report at another time. What caught my attention was singling out China and how many of their leading organizations are undertaking sustainability into their corporate goals, plans and operations.

Within these three documents, you gain a handy set of insights to build a sustainable pathway. Continue reading →

Looking beyond ESG

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I have been undertaking some investigative work on sustainability. It is fascinating to read, evaluate and recognize how each business is tackling its response to this. Sustainability has become increasingly important when facing a climate crisis and a rapidly changing world where nature is significantly under threat. It is we, the human race, that has prompted the crisis but have the power to change this into a more equitable world.

You get the growing sense that various stakeholders around our businesses are placing pressure on organizations to respond far more to managing sustainability, especially the large, more global ones. The growing concerns will form around Governance, Strategy, Risk Management and Metrics and Targets for distinct disclosures relating to their business.

Business tends to fall back on the broad ESG themes

Business tends to ask the question, “How do we offer sustainability pathways to drive business value? Now that is a very targeted positioning, and you naturally ask the follow-up questions. Questions to naturally frame this are “how do we reduce costs and risks?  “to strengthen the trust with stakeholders” and “find the new growth opportunities”.  These perhaps give a sustainability pathway internally but do these really tackle the bigger external issues such as climate challenges, environmental degradation or social inequality. Is that the role of the business or Governments and institutions set up to balance and defend, like the UN or the WEF.

Business often gets caught in its own world searching for customer impact, making sure it is empowering its people, applying technology appropriately and having a growth mindset. These are very business goal-driven and, if applied well, do deliver a more sustainable world but is this enough in today’s world? I think this is too narrow, we need to really step outside and view how our purpose builds into the external issues, that we all face, recognizing a significant crisis is ahead.

Much as I can relate to the ESG approach, I am not confident it is pushing hard enough as a framework. Continue reading →

IoT and Sustainability: How economic growth and sustainability fit together.

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So, what is the future for humanity, and where does technology with a purpose fit? Can we envision a new era of sustainability powered by IoT?

An exchange recently between Dr Peter Körte, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Strategy Officer of Siemens AG, with Martin Powell, Head of Sustainability & Environment Initiatives at Siemens Financial Services, tackled these questions in a discussion facilitated by Oisin Lunny as the host.

During the Hannover Messe week (12- 16th April 2021), this exchange took place as part of Siemens events in a specially constructed virtual environment. I would recommend finding time to visit this three-day event as it will be available for some weeks. It really is worth it; sign up here, sie.ag/3tnhVD4, to gain access.

So, can IoT and Sustainability fit together to give us real economic growth? Continue reading →

The infinite possibilities with Siemens Industrial IoT.

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I recently listened to a great topic from a panel of experts that certainly opens all our thinking to all the possibilities ahead of us in the Industrial IoT world.

At the Siemens Digital Enterprise Virtual Experience, held in the Hannover Messe 2021 week, entitled “Infinite opportunities from infinite data”, one specific panel discussion stood out.

When you have three leading experts offering insights into a new world of industrial possibilities, you do expect some exciting opinions from each of these leaders in their specialized area.  You hope and get some fascinating insights.

The discussion was between Rainer Brehm, CEO Siemens Digital Industries Factory Automation, Raymond Kok, Senior Vice President, Cloud Application Solutions and Derek Roos, the Co-founder and CEO of Mendix, the low-code application and development platform, facilitated by Sebastian Wolf, the Senior Marketing Director for Siemens MindSphere.

IT and OT have been notoriously hard to bring together, can this be a game-changer? Continue reading →

Accelerating Innovation comes from Ecosystem thinking

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Just a reflective moment I am sharing here on the place of Ecosystem thinking.  We need to recognize the changes we need to undertake, even in a world of infinite possibilities. We chose to explore new ways of working; new solutions to difficult challenges need a new approach to accelerating innovation through ecosystem thinking.

In my view:

“Today and in the future, to take where we are in our technology and digital understanding and feed it greater human ingenuity, we give it intelligence, real new intelligence not just the artificial stuff. When we combine the collected knowledge found in a network of collaborators, we can dramatically advance the solutions sought by unlocking previously intractable problems.”

The new environment offers us infinite possibilities
 Continue reading →

Creating A Unique Nested Hydrogen Ecosystem for the Energy Transformation

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Ecosystems hold a certain fascination for me. The ecosystem approach can tackle and help resolve some of the more complex issues we face.

We increasingly use the word “ecosystem” to describe our environment that we operate with, but we are often diluting its true positioning.

Truly unique ecosystems are hard to find and certainly to manage. One I really feel reflects a collaborative model worth explaining is the ones that are forming around Hydrogen as the alternative energy vector based on renewables. To replace or become a significant part of any entrenched energy system requires a system design approach. This part of the energy transition fits within the ‘greater’ energy system design.

Let’s look at this with some context and then clarify that approaching Hydrogen needs a unique Ecosystem design. We are presently building a unique ‘nested’ Hydrogen Ecosystem within the Energy Transition. It is interesting to explore, firstly here and then in a follow-up post on one of its specific parts. Continue reading →

The Power of Innovation Ecosystems

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Powerful networked ecosystem

We are entering the world of innovation ecosystems where broader, more complex innovation challenges, through greater collaborations can be achieved.

So to help, there is a dedicated site to building the arguments and exploring options for your future here in collaborative designs and you have found it!

Collaborative Ecosystems are forging a new direction and momentum for innovation to travel and tackle more demanding innovation that requires the capabilities of more than one to deliver what is becoming increasingly possible through technology and the network effect we see through our growing connections.

For many today, innovation is simply not working, it remains a disappointment for a variety of reasons, especially for those leading organizations required to be seeking out new growth, operating in increasingly volatile and tough markets where disruption and copying are increasing the pressures. Something has to change and it is this recognition that it can come from managing innovation in ecosystems that can provide part of the answer. Continue reading →

Thinking About Relationship and Network Management

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By looking outside we open up. More and more demands are being placed on us via our customers, suppliers, our regulators and a host of other stakeholders all wanting to contribute into our existing knowledge. The ability to collaborate, to cooperate is coming by purposefully designing ecosystems and platforms

We struggle to adapt to these new external pressures as the more we engage outside we realize there are (often) stark differences in approaching problems. This adaptation demands a very different approach to anyone organizations structures, processes and systems. They need to adapt to and support these changes in working within an ecosystem designed one.

We all need to be more flexible, adaptable and agile so our resources grow their capacity to absorb and strengthen the competency and capability in new more dynamic ways. To design in ecosystem thinking needs a very different approach.

Continue reading →