Tag Archives: Fourth Industrial Revolution

Sustainability is the new growth core

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Since the current COVID-19 pandemic, the recognition and evaluation of sustainability have taken a much higher place in the boardrooms of our larger organisations. Much of this initial focus will improve the reporting around the ESG goals and establish their own performance in more confident ways. I would argue these are the basic building blocks of a fundamental change, recognizing that sustainability will become the core of the future business design.

As we have embraced digital change, much of the business landscape has shifted. Business is being more informed through the data and analysis it undertakes; it has relearned how to react in sustaining crisis (dealing with the pandemic) and validated different aspects of its business, recognizing it can function very differently. The ability to manage and support remote workers, dealing with an ongoing business outside the office environment, be remote in servicing customers digitally, and provide solutions through connected enterprises’ design have each changed perception and the realization that we can sustain and still grow in more collaborative, open ways.

Sustainability is rising to be top or close to the top of a boards agenda. The growing concerns of several intertwined issues that are needing significant recalibrating. Where does our business fit within and alongside society, both in who we serve and society in general, coupled with realising that the planet is heading towards a critical crisis and what we can do to reduce these pressures? Continue reading →

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 Orchestration Role in Any Business Ecosystem Design

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This visual has held my attention for a reasonable time. It deals, in my mind, with orchestration well for reflecting the managing of a business ecosystem and how to organize the partners and parts within this.

Although its original intention was a digital orchestration, it tells the story for any orchestration of platforms or working within ecosystems that a business needs to manage.

Here, the model is a singular operating model, but applying it to a collaborative environment has most of the essential components that need true orchestrating.

There is a growing body of work about “orchestration” and its need in the business world. Orchestration has become synonymous with managing or dealing with (specifically) external partners. The need is to learn to cooperate to produce something different and original, usually in a platform and ecosystem arrangement.

I am continually reading about scale, modular structures, governance, the advantage of asset-light business models where the possibilities of speed and breadth of open innovation need to “kick in.” Orchestration can take on a lot, but we need to define the role a little more, in my opinion.

I often wonder if all this orchestration through ecosystem design does achieve that radical breakthrough or have become just another solution or coordinating mechanism and a convenient “tag” to attach to it to consider? Continue reading →

Grappling with complex ecosystems, energy transitions, and planet earth.

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Source: https://theconversation.com/humanitys-sustainability-is-no-excuse-for-abandoning-planet-earth-80699. Time to go? Shutterstock

It has been fashionable to “hang” any network of relationships with the ecosystem tag; it has become the de jour or trendy label to suggest this announced initiative indicates it is complicated and highly valuable.

Well, in all honesty, most ecosystem “tags” are only an extension of building out a more significant community than the one previously, looking to deal with increasing complexity and expecting commercial gain, well that alone is not an ecosystem approach.

Ecosystems fascinate me; they do have a significant opportunity to change what is existing for something new. The need is to balance the healthy interactions and the conditions for that environment to flourish. Of course, many people might argue, “so what is wrong with what we have got?” Often I can’t disagree with this view, we do replace what works seemingly well because of our need to leave our own “footprint” in the world.

In Business we have “stolen” this ecosystem concept from its original meaning: “An ecosystem is a geographic area where plants, animals, and other organisms, as well as weather and landscape, work together to form a bubble of life.”

In business terms, we have taken this into these larger communities that interact through their network connections; they are dynamic or aim to be better than the previous structure. Continue reading →

Compressing innovations time needs platforms and ecosystems

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We all facing this growing pressure of time. In our daily work, in managing product and service life-cycles, as well as constantly considering business model overhauls as they become ever more connected.

We are not in stable markets anymore but increasingly volatile ones. Innovation needs to be at the forefront of the changes occurring and it above all else needs to find solutions to compress its time from ideation to commercialization.

It is through acknowledging that platforms and ecosystems are today’s new order to deliver innovation. Platforms that connect into the customer needs within its broader ecosystem of design, so the innovation needed to be delivered is capable to match those needs. Innovation requires greater collaboration, a process that is connecting everyone involved in the process from discovery, to design, through to the final viable product, to be on the same platform and contributing their part to the final offering.

Let’s explore some of the parts of the new innovation order: Continue reading →

So are you considering a new platform business model? Good luck!

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You cannot escape the discussions around platform business models. Recently I saw that 50% of all organizations are either investing or considering a new platform business model. In a report provided by the IBM Institute for Business Value, released last year called “The Incumbents Strike Back” they really encapsulated the survey work they undertook in four topics that tell a story of today, or it certainly should do.

What’s required, now more than ever, according to IBM, is the fortitude for perpetual reinvention and these four topics tell the story of why these are important:

Firstly we are all “dancing with disruption” and it is the reinventors that are finding the way to balance the existing with the designs of the future. This was described as a “balance between stability and dynamism” and exploring the forces at play.

Secondly, reinventors are placing their “trust in the journey” as they are investing in design thinking, testing the assumptions and re-orientating their organizations to engage with their customers to create deep bonds based on trust, the path to personalization.

Thirdly, the whole value is changing based on “orchestrating the future” where organizations scale differently their partner networks, reconsider their value propositions and allocate resources more on business platform designs.

Fourthly, there is a liberating for “innovation in motion” where constant experimentation, getting close to customers and delving deeper into ever-evolving ecosystems of dynamic teams and partnerships are transforming their landscape.

Two really important points for me in this short report was the pull of the platform business model shown in the visuals provided Continue reading →