I’ve been looking forward to Sophie Devonshire’s new book for quite some time. When it came, it was brilliant. I read it at speed, maybe inspired by the title.
Actually it’s around two years ago that I sat down with Sophie in Carluccio’s Richmond to talk about her vision for the book. I downloaded all my thoughts, ideas, experiences. She listened politely. And then off she went to interview some of today’s great business leaders, and from those insights she has shaped a fresh and engaging proposition for business leaders.
Sophie is a super engaging business leader herself. Her obsession with speed and acceleration in business is infectious. She recently became CEO of The Caffeine Partnership, working alongside my friend Andy Milligan, and together they lead this unique business consultancy which works with leaders to find more purpose and pace. You can also join her Superfast community for more, and read the ‘Pacesetter Profiles’ online at superfastthebook.com or follow @s_devonshire on Twitter.
Leading with speed
The back cover captures the book’s core idea: “In today’s fast-paced world, leaders need to move at speed. The rate of innovation and change in organisations and the challenges of impatient investors or shareholders mean leadership decisions must be quick, smart and deliver real impact.
Superfast provides cutting edge inspiration and a host of exciting ideas about how to accelerate performance in an agile and thoughtful way, shedding new light on leading in a world which is fluid and uncertain. You’ll learn the practical solutions to leadership questions which the most savvy global leaders employ, and map your own shortcut to personal and professional success.
Leadership is not just about moving fast, however. Superfast will show you how to use your time in the smartest, most efficient way possible – slowing down when necessary to get decisions right and accelerating elsewhere to unlock growth.”
Here are some of the key messages:
The need for speed in business. Pace can drive performance. Leaders need to move at speed.
Today’s business environment is changing fast, so leaders need to better balance agility with resilience. Purpose and pace are required.
Leaders need to use time as smartly to achieve the most impact as efficiently as possible.
But it’s important to be responsible as well as responsive. Sometimes you need to slow down to get things right.
The pace race: repeated pace setting is an essential leadership practice.
Time is finite but energy isn’t, so manage your energy, not just your time.
Purpose drives pace: a true mission creates accelerating power and a great filter for ideas. Define it. Love it. Live it.
Structure for speed: create fast frameworks. Delete levels and empower frontline staff.
Editing is expediting: superfast means less. Aim for minimalism, reduce decisions for others, make it easy and create constraints.
Human understanding: know your audience, your team, and yourself.
Truth matters: candour and honesty help resolve conflict.
Hire smart, fire fast: take the time to find the right people and then get them in fast. Hire people who can decide, then delegate. Say hello to the best and goodbye to the worst. When you know, let them go.
Coincidentally I’m with Matt Brittin, Google’s boss in Europe, in Denmark this week. I’m interviewing him about his ideas on leadership at the Thinkers50 European Business Forum. He said “Leading at speed is essential in a world of accelerating change, complexity and uncertainty. When the one thing you’re sure of is that things will change, the way we lead people has to change too.”
“In life, the idea is to be happy. So, I believe in calm, simple, low-profile life. You live simple, you train hard and live an honest life. Then you are free.”
Eliud ‘the philosopher’ Kipchoge is a Kenyan long distance runner who has won medals at Olympic and World level. He grew up on a farm where he worked hard and often cycled from his home to Kapsabet, lugging several gallons of his family’s milk to sell at the local market. He also used to run to school every day, covering the 3km twice a day. Eliud grew up close to Patrick Sang and wanted to be like him in the future. Patrick Sang agreed to write training programs for Eliud Kipchoge and they developed a very strong relationship which brought them many successes.
He came to prominence in 2003 by winning the junior race at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships, setting a world junior record over 5000 metres on the track and then becoming world champion at the 2003 World Championships in Athletics. An Olympic 5000 m bronze for Kenya followed at the 2004 Athens Olympics and he took another bronze at the 2006 IAAF World Indoor Championships.
A series of silver medals came, starting at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics before another runner-up placing at the 2008 Summer Olympics. He was fifth at the 2009 World Championships but again reached the podium at the 2010 Commonwealth Games; he was second behind Moses Kipsiro in both the 5000 m and 10,000 metres. In addition to this he has won four medals at editions of the annual IAAF World Athletics Final.
His 3000 metres best of 7:27.72 ranks him among the top ten at the distance and his 5000 m best of 12:46.53 makes him the fourth fastest ever in the event.
After missing the 2012 London Olympics, Eliud Kipchoge decides to switch to road running. In September 2012 he makes an impressive half marathon debut in Lille by running 59:25. Eliud Kipchoge made his marathon debut in the 2013 Hamburg marathon, where he ran a fantastic race and finished first in a new course record of 2:05:30. He ran his second marathon in Berlin where he finished second in a huge PB of 2:04:05 which made him the sixth fastest athlete ever on this distance. This time made him the third athlete ever (besides Gebrselassie and Tergat) who broke 12:50 for 5000m, 26:50 for 10.000m and 2:05 in the marathon. Since his fast race in Berlin, Eliud won the Rotterdam marathon and Chicago marathon in 2014.
One of Eliud’s biggest marathon successes was winning the prestigious London marathon in 2015, where he won the race in 2:04:42 by beating (former) WR holders Wilson Kipsang and Dennis Kimetto. In 2015 he also claimed the Berlin marathon title and ran a new personal best despite insoles getting out of his shoes. Thanks to these two victories, he won the Abbott World Marathon Major series 2015-2016. He started the new series strong with another victory in London marathon. He came very close to the world record by clocking 2:03:04. His 5 top marathons have an average of 2:04:01 now, which is the best in history. The Kenyan federation selected Eliud for the Rio Olympic Games. He started as the big favorite in the men’s marathon and lived up to the expectations and won gold. After a bronze medal in Athens and silver in Beijing, he has now won the most special medal of his career.
A new project started for Eliud after the Olympics, the Nike Breaking2 project. After seven months of preparation, Eliud tried to break the 2 hour marathon and write history on the auto race track in Monza. He showed the world that the 2 hour barrier can be broken in the near future by running 2:00:25.
After Breaking2 Eliud went on to win the Berlin Marathon in a time of 2:03.34.
Eliud’s performances places him in an illustrious list with Haile Gebrselassie and Paul Tergat, as they are the only three athletes who have run sub 12:50 for 5.000m, sub 26:50 for 10.000m and sub 2:05:00 for marathon. Eliud Kipchoge really believes in the old school mentality where athletes start with track and cross country races before they move to the marathon. His years on the track from 2003 to 2011 helped him to became a strong marathon athlete. His best memory of these years is his gold medal at the 2003 World Championships, he beat Kenenisa Bekele and Hicham El Guerrouj and that’s where his life on the track started.
I first came across Eliud in 2003, running in the 5000m World Championships final in Paris. It was billed as a race between world record holders Hicham El Guerrouj and Kenenisa Bekele. But it was a smiling, unknown Kenyan who sprinted away to victory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMZdOdriRdk
13 years later, he stepped up to the marathon and became the Olympic Champion running away from the field in Rio. Having spent many of the recent years in the shadow of Mo Farah, he had now found his perfect distance over 26 miles. Fluent, comfortable, focused, confident. He was a true Olympian.
Then came Nike’s fantastic Breaking2 event staged in perfect conditions at Monza in Italy. The aim being to use the best technologies and conditions to try to break 2 hours for the marathon. Kipchoge was the only one who got close, a tantalising few seconds outside of the barrier. But a fabulous effort.
And behind the scenes, as captured by his management agency, Jos Hermens’ Global Sports Communications …
In early 2018 he spoke at the Oxford Union, showing how articulate and thoughtful he is, as both a man and athlete.
Mental challenge … “The world is actually full of challenges and we need to challenge ourselves. I took a challenge to run that fast. It consumes a lot of energy especially mentally. But I took myself and accepted to be challenged and I challenged the time.”
Self-discipline … “Self-discipline starts with you. It’s no other person. It starts with you. Start to examine yourself…Self discipline is doing what’s right instead of doing what you feel like doing. That’s the meaning of self-discipline.”
Think positively … “After accommodating self discipline in your mind, self-discipline can help you to actually get three things. It can save your feelings. Get you back on the course when you try to think otherwise, self discipline can help easily come back and think positively. It helps you do the right thing in the moment for long-term benefits.”
Stay focused … “Don’t make excuses. When you have decided to do something, do it. No excuses. Then you are self-disciplined.”
Long-term … “Make discipline your lifestyle. Discipline is not a one-time event. Self-discipline is like building your muscle. It’s like going to the gym. You can not go to the gym today and build your muscle. You should get a program and go slowly by slowly. That’s the way to build your muscle and that’s the way you can have discipline.”
Slave to passion … “Only the disciplined ones are free in life. If you aren’t disciplined, you are a slave to your moods. You are a slave to your passions. That’s a fact.”
Plan and prepare … “I believe in a philosophy that says to win is actually not important. To be successful is not even important. How to plan and prepare is critical and crucial. When you plan very well, then success can come on your way. Then winning can come on your way.
Think positive … “In any profession, you should think positively. That’s the driver of your mind. If your mind is really thinking positive then you are on the right track. ‘Pleasure in what you’re doing puts perfection in your work.’ That was a quote by Aristotle.”
Team is everything … “I am here because of teamwork. I am here because sport is a mutual interest. I am here to talk about my success because I am really about teamwork. Teamwork actually helps a lot. Remember in sport, what you have is Hero’s Formula. If you are a hero, then you have a formula and that says 100% of myself is nothing compared to one percent of the whole team. And vice versa. 1% percent of the teams is nothing compared to 100% of myself. And that’s the meaning of teamwork.”
Be consistent … “The law of consistency says you should get motivated. Motivation makes you move. Motivation makes you to go forward.”
“When you bring motivation and discipline (together), then you can be consistent. When you combine it all together, they say if you want to grow, consistency is the key. I’m confident in saying that consistency is key if you want to grow in a new profession. Be it sport. Be it law. Be it all sorts of professions. If you are not consistent, you can not go anywhere. Consistency makes you to grow.”
Be uncomfortable … “Accept change…I know it is not really comfortable to adopt change but change in life of a human being or life of any profession is really important. But change can not be forced.”
Believe in yourself … “Personally, I believe in what I am doing. To run a big marathon and win, it takes five months. When I am on the starting line, my mind starts to think of what I have been doing for the last five months. I believe in my training. I treat myself as the best one on that line because my mind is telling me that I am the best and I believe in what I am doing in the last five months. I can run free. I can run free and that’s what actually has helped me to be successful.”
And then he translated the simulated Nike event into a real marathon performance, at the Berlin Marathon 2018, running away from the field to break the world marathon record.
In a world of so many great sporting performances, where records pass rapidly from name to name, and a huge number of incredible talents come from the running heartlands of East Africa, it is easy to forget even the best runners. However Kipchoge stands out amongst them all.
As Nike says in its typically immortal advertising lines … “Don’t just be the fastest marathon runner in the world. Be the fastest in history”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDSWksKgAts
IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer, thinks of itself as a low-tech company. But the company’s innovation strategy, still taking shape, involves working with design firms, academic partners, and consumers for help discovering opportunities and needs for the home of the future — and the furnishings that will fill it.
“What we do is we create, we test, and we explore, over and over and over,” said Eva-Carin Banka Johnson, a project manager at IKEA’s Future Home innovation incubator. To test ideas and prototype designs, IKEA built a model apartment in southern Sweden, near where the company was founded, Banka Johnson says. It invites local families to actually live in the apartment and document their experiences with the experimental furnishings.
Novel design elements the company has tested have included electrical outlets that slide along a track in the wall to make them more accessible, and movable partitions to let residents create what Banka Johnson called “pop-up” rooms within the apartment.
Those ideas came from home visits in the area, where IKEA representatives observed some of the issues residents faced in existing homes. “People have problems with their electric cables,” she says. “Everybody has that.” And many families that have members frequently coming and going, as in joint custody arrangements, reported they had space in their homes that simply went unused when the children weren’t there.
“When the kids are not there, you want to use the space for other things,” she says. “Also, it can be quite emotional. One mother said that when her child is not there, she’s constantly longing for the child because she sees all their stuff.”
Banka Johnson says the company often learns a great deal from observing people outside the mainstream, whether they are living with physical disabilities or economic constraints. IKEA has even done home visits in poor areas in India, a country where millions of people are moving into cities and into the middle class.
“If we solve these people’s needs in such a way that it’s affordable for them to buy [our products], then we get solutions that are good for all of us,” she says. IKEA regards those groups of customers as “extreme users,” who can nudge the company in useful new directions.
The company has also worked with outside researchers like the MIT Media Lab on new ways to observe and measure people’s interactions with its prototype furniture. Collaborations with the design firm IDEO and researchers from two Swedish universities have led to a concept kitchen for 2025 and a “future-living lab” called Space10, located in Copenhagen’s hip meatpacking district.
At Space10, designers have demonstrated everything from tools that turn waste heat from cooking and appliances into energy for charging electronics, to novel furniture built from existing IKEA parts. The lab even hosted a project exploring the future of meatballs— one of the signature items at IKEA’s beloved in-store restaurants. Could meatballs made from algae, nuts, or insect protein more environmentally-sustainable than meatballs made the old-fashioned way?
And to explore how digital technology will play into its future products, Banka Johnson says the company has run hackathons with a variety of tech-savvy organizations. It has also created product catalogs from the future, in order to help make emerging technologies more concrete and relatable. The cover of such a catalog carries the line, “Experience the new IKEA catalog — now with holograms!” Inside are products like a food storage unit that can automatically re-order groceries, a countertop that can guide cooks through recipes, and a drone for monitoring your garden’s health. (Click to enlarge the catalog page at right.)
“IKEA’s a very low-tech company, and we have just recently started to wake up and see there’s a world out there,” she says. “We need help, and we are now getting that help.”
For the complete IKEA slide presentation
Technology is not good or bad, but it does bring incredible new capabilities. The question is how can we unleash these fantastic new technologies to make a positive difference to our world, to solve problems in innovative ways. Even better, when the world’s most engaging brands embrace these technologies how can they create attractive and profitable solutions, that also have a positive impact on our society too.
The recent World Economic Forum used the phrase “creating a shared future in a fractured world”. Maybe this is a vision that can galvanize world leaders, corporate bosses and regular people to come together and share a single positive future outcome? Is it possible that such actions are already underway all over the world but at a grassroots level? #Metoo, #timesup and #innovationforgood are all conversations driving us toward action, and technology is front and center in enabling this shared vision and making it a reality.
Yes, robots and AI could outplace, displace and possibly even replace workforces all over the world, but there are so many positive and catalyzing innovations today that I choose to view the glass as half full. Innovation for good was a major topic of panel discussions at Davos this year. Innovations that are serving humanity and improving human conditions are shared throughout the summary document — from improving education in our schools and workforce skills in the most rural areas of the world to changing deep-seated beliefs by using the power of virtual reality to build empathy through experiences.
Here is just one example from the WEF-AM18 report of how VR empowered positive change deep in the Amazon: “Awavena, created by Australian artist Lynette Wallworth, is a virtual reality journey deep into the Amazon. It tells the story of Hushuhu, the first woman shaman of the Yawanawa tribe. It took the courage of the dying male shaman to break with centuries of taboo and give Hushuhu his blessing. Since then, the Yawanawa tribe has seven female and seven male chiefs.”
Innovations will create opportunities we haven’t even imagined yet. Understanding some of the possibilities may open our minds to new ways of working or helping you create your own innovations for good. I’ll share several to get your brainwaves flowing.
Her are some examples of incredible technologies that are changing the world for the better:
AI fighting poverty
We’ve all heard about how artificial intelligence could have great potential benefits for society, but these benefits stretch beyond the workplace or our homes. According to a recently published New York Times article, AI might be able to combat the longstanding war on poverty: “Poverty, of course, is a multifaceted phenomenon. But the condition of poverty often entails one or more of these realities: a lack of income (joblessness); a lack of preparedness (education); and a dependency on government services (welfare). AI can address all three.”
AI could offer better job matching for lower-income workers, it could help identify needed job skills and it could aid in custom skills training or retraining to prepare lower-income people for better jobs. This technology can remove much of the guesswork as to how to improve humanity overall and support those living in extreme poverty.
This humanoid body enables QTrobot to teach facial expressions, emotions and body language to children with autism. Taking some pressure off of parents and aiding therapists to keep children with autism engaged in learning will provide great relief to both.
Songs of violence
Thousands of songs around the world in every language promotes violence against women. Many parents do not realize how much offensive music lyrics are permeating our culture and making gender-based biases and violent acts seem commonplace. Violence against anyone is not normal. But we are not always licensing to the lyrics intently; we love the beats, but we don’t always pay attention to the context of the song.
Using artificial intelligence — and the widely used music platform recently acquired by Apple — Shazam and advertising agency FCB teamed up to identify songs with violence and match them with testimonies from women who suffered the same kind of abuse for the world to read. Making these atrocities more public and showing the relationships between the lyrics and the acts of violence makes the world more aware and helps people take personal action on their own accord to stop licensing, buying and sharing likes to songs that influence bad behavior.
3D printers for the human body
An interesting outcome of autonomous transportation of the future is the potential reduction of organ donations due to lower accident rates. Enter 3D printers like the one used at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine for replacement tissues and organs. Custom-designed 3-D printers have the ability today to keep cells alive. These cells are then used to print organs that are strong enough for a transplant. Clinical trials are already in process so the prospects of 3-D printed organs replacing donor organs by the time autonomous vehicles are mainstream is a viable reality.
So many great “innovations for good” ideas are emerging. I challenge myself and my teams every day to consider what more we can do with our technologies and the minds around our conference room tables. I challenge you to consider what your company could do by leveraging all the competencies you have in-house. Whether your products and solutions are technically advanced or not, consider what you could do to innovate something that promotes “creating a shared future in a fractured world.” It’s the only way for people to coexist and thrive in the transformative world of robots, AI and the onslaught of technologies blanketing our world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJY4V4DzSp0
Some of the world’s most influential tech business leaders were recently asked how they thought technologies could be focused for more positive impact, whilst still achieving their business goals. Indeed the win-win is when the impact is profitable and positive, and therefore has a sustaining business model.
Charities too have embraced technologies for direct social benefits. Of course charities still need a business model, to secure funding, to manage their costs, and maximise their impacts.
LearnStorm is Khan Academy’s free, back-to-school program that gives teachers a powerful way to jump start the school year. By combining growth–mindset activities and lesson-aligned practice, LearnStorm drives mastery of core academic skills, motivates classrooms, and builds students’ confidence.
Inspired by UK charity Comic Relief Tech for Good campaign, Alexandra Rose and Neon Tribe have worked together to update part of the Rose Voucher scheme, moving the reimbursement of market traders from paper vouchers to a digital system, saving time and money and helping the project to expand.
Our oceans are dying, but you can help save them. All you need to do is run. Adidas Parley was a collaboration which started with the purpose to rid the oceans of plastic waste, and turn it into new threads, ultra strong fabrics for running shoes.
Sweden-basedTrine is a crowdfunding platform that enables individuals to invest in solar energy projects in Africa, with the opportunity to earn a return on investment of up to 6%. Its solar energy projects have already helped to reduce over 50,000 tonnes of CO2 and have provided more than 170,000 people with electricity. Trine helps investors to build an ethical investment portfolio while benefiting the planet, as well as supporting local businesses and families in rural areas who don’t have access to clean energy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWAQS2qxQVk
Waste shark is an aqua drone that swims through the water cleaning it of trash. Inspired by the whale shark, the WasteShark aquadrone swims through water to collect trash out of rivers, ports, and marinas. The WasteShark also has other capabilities that aim to create a better water environment.
Apple and Stanford University collaborated on a global study using the Apple Watch to detect abnormal heart rhythms. Apple has teamed up with Stanford Medicine to use data garnered from a new Apple Watch app to determine whether a user is experiencing abnormal heart rhythms.
Solar power has been an elusive idea for millions of Africans because of its high cost and slow technology, but could become one of the cheapest sources of power. In Kenya’s Machakos County M-Kopa is providing affordable power using solar energy and changing lives.
Chatterbox was created to find meaningful work for the underutilised talent of refugees. It does this by arranging language lessons taught by native speakers. Founded in 2016 by Mursal Hedayat, a refugee from Afghanistan. who fled the country as a three-year-old in 1994. She arrived in the UK with her mother, a civil engineer who spoke four languages but struggled to find work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K3VexuIpe0
Morocco’s Atlan Space has developed AI-guided drones that can search the seas for environmental crimes. The system uses distributed deep learning technologies to verify whether boats in the oceans are acting as authorised, and to classify different species of marine life and identify every individual in the category. The autonomous network of aerial vehicles can then provide intelligence on illegal fishing and oil spills to intervention teams.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g3EtWSquU8
California-basedZipline operates drone services that deliver blood, vaccines and medicines to difficult to reach areas, saving lives, reducing disease and improving healthcare. Currently operating in Rwanda and Tanzania, the company provides medical care for all who need it, no matter how remote they are or how difficult the terrain.
According to Dublin-based Aid:Tech, 30% of Official Development Assistance (ODA) money is lost each year. The Aid:Tech solution uses a ‘smart card’ to create a digital identity comprised of a recipient’s ID, electronic cash, social welfare entitlements, and health and dental records to help governments, NGOs and charities better distribute aid funding.
Dr Sally Eaves focuses in on how we can enable disruptive technology to truly become ‘Tech for Good’. This talk aims to provide the inspiration around what technology can help enable, but also a provocative exploration, vision and call to action around how this can be achieved at scale:
A company’s workspace is a powerful image of its corporate might, but also a symbol of its culture, its approach to innovation, and its ambitions for the future.
Most famously, Apple Park officially opened in April 2017 as the new headquarters of Apple Inc. The campus, often called the “spaceship” thanks to its circular main building, houses thousands of Apple employees and incorporates renewable energy and green space to make a truly unique corporate space. The new campus serves as the primary headquarters of Apple, Inc, replacing 1 Infinite Loop, which is officially known as Apple Campus.
The distinctive circular design of the complex’s main building sets it apart from other tech headquarters, as well as other buildings in the area. Where the campus at 1 Infinite Loop was laid out like a university, Apple Park takes a more modern approach to its design. Precisely engineered curved glass panels are placed around the circumference of the building, with the levels of glass separated by massive, hollow concrete slabs that do the same.
Apple Park
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHi-WGFGWek
Facebook Campus
Alphabet’s Googleplex
Amazon’s Spheres
The last hundred years has seen a reincarnation of Asia. Of course Asia has been here before, and if we look over the last two thousand years, the centre of global business power has shifted westwards from China, to Europe, then North America, and then back again.
The more recent Asian business world has seen a combination of revolutions, revivals, rebirths and rapid rises. The continent now stands on more of an equal footing with the West than for many centuries. In 1917, China was divided and had suffered a series of political upheavals, India was impoverished and ruled from London and Singapore was a far-flung trading hub, also controlled by the Crown.
In 2017, India and China are now two of the world’s largest economies, and Singapore is now the world’s best place in which to do business. The Asian Tiger economies of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea continue to roar and inspire others to do so, and Asia today has the strongest economic outlook of any region in the world, according to a 2017 IMF report.
So who are some of the Asian companies to inspire our thinking? Both in understanding the opportunities for growth in Asian markets, but also to take a new mindset for leading business and delivering innovation back to our own organisations.
Alibaba
Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba says “the department store and supermarket you know today will not be the same tomorrow” reflecting on Alibaba’s innovations to date, and how Chinese and global consumers are changing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhlvtcBwxPM
Here is Alibaba’s concept of “New Retail:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=336YkwayCD4
Ofo
At 25, Dai Wei is CEO of one of the world’s biggest bike-sharing companies, worth over $1 billion. But when he and his Peking University mates first came up with the idea, well, his dad was like parents everywhere:
Here is an introduction to Ofo, and how it works:
Samsung
Dr. Injong Rhee, Samsung Electronics CTO & EVP of Software & Services, Mobile Communications Business, talks about the next generation of technologies and how they will continue to shape the products and services we want:
Some of the new Samsung’s innovation coming to you by 2020:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sks6u6F1XpY
Tencent
Tencent is like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Paypal all in one company. At the heart of that ecosystem is WeChat, now twice as big as WhatsApp. David Wallerstein is Tencent’s Chief eXploration Officer, and talks about WeChat, QQ and gaming:
CNBC asks What is Tencent?
DBS Bank
Singapore’s DBS Bank CEO Piyush Gupta talks about how technology impacts banking and explains the power of smartphones, supercomputing, and cloud computing:
DBS has been voted Asia’s most innovative bank. What their latest ad:
Huawei
Richard Yu, CEO of the Huawei Consumer Business Group talks at CES about Huawei’s plans for 2018 and the major trends shaping the mobile industry, including some personal opinions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7YyzoI1yyo
Here’s a clip from Huawei’s Innovation Day “Innovating for a Digital Asia Pacific”:
Uniqlo
Uniqlo (and parent company, Fast Retailing) founder Tadashi Yanai is fascinated by failure. And he’d rather be a tough boss, than a nice one. Here are 5 things to know about Japan’s richest man:
The Uniqlo brand has established a position for fashion, low cost and quality:
Xiaomi
Lei Jun introduces the latest innovations from Xiaomi, the tech business that created the MiPhone, and is often compared to Apple. However he has a very different vision for growth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkWwlrv5DwE
CNBC steps back to ask “What is Xiaomi?”
Toyota
Toyota CEO Akido Toyoda introduces a vision that will transform the automaker from a car company into a mobility company – from the fixed mindset of quality obsession, to the growth mindset of future-back innovation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z02cKMEwM9o
Here is Toyota’s innovation-powered view of the future:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IyPVK31j2o
Haier
Yoshiaki Ito, CEO and President of Haier Asia, explores how consumers are more connected than ever, which changes their relationships with brands and each other, and how Haier is embracing this:
And example of Haier’s innovations, built around “think big, keep it small”:
Innovation in large companies was typically about 3 things – strategies that included the need for innovation, innovation processes typically built around a structured linear approach with stage gates, and how to build an innovative culture.
And then came a tsunami of small businesses, who seemed to be able to innovate better. What did they do? They thought more holistically about innovation and how it applied to every aspect of business. It started with the leader, typically an entrepreneur, and everything from the business model to the branding, the people to recruit and the investors to satisfy, was oriented around doing it better and different.
Whilst classic innovation theories from Clay Christiansen to Chan Kim, Disruptive Technologies to Blue Ocean Strategy, are still useful, innovation concepts have been moved on rapidly by the likes of Eric Ries and Alex Osterwalder, the Lean Start-Up to Business Model Generation. Relevant to big and small companies alike.
So here are some of the most useful innovation concepts to embrace:
Business model innovation
Business model innovation refers to the creation, or reinvention, of a business itself. Whereas innovation is more typically seen in the form of a new product or service offering, a business model innovation results in an entirely different type of company that competes not only on the value proposition of its offerings, but aligns its profit formula, resources and processes to enhance that value proposition, capture new market segments and alienate competitors.
Big companies will become more competitive than ever and in this HBR blog post, Scott Anthony, states that three trends are behind this shift:
“Three trends are behind this shift. First, the increasing ease and decreasing cost of innovation mean that start-ups now face the same short-term pressures that have constrained innovation at large companies; as soon as a young company gets a whiff of success, it has to race against dozens of copycats. Second, large companies, taking a page from start-up strategy, are embracing open innovation and less hierarchical management and are integrating entrepreneurial behaviors with their existing capabilities. And third, although innovation has historically been product- and service-oriented, it increasingly involves creating business models that tap big companies’ unique strengths.”
Scott Anthony is one of the leading innovation minds and I think he is spot on with this. Big companies are about to kick small company butt when it comes to innovation.
Open innovation
Many people ask what open innovation is. I suggest that you view open innovation as a philosophy or a mindset that you should embrace within your organization. In a more practical definition, open innovation is about bridging internal and external resources and act on those opportunities. The value proposition (better innovation to market faster) this gives companies that get it right is simply too good to miss out on.
Henry Chesbrough said “Open innovation is a paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as the firms look to advance their technology”
Open innovation is often viewed as an umbrella term that also includes crowdsourcing, user-driven innovation and co-creation. In order to avoid too much confusion on semantics, I suggest that we focus on what really matters here; bring external resources into your innovation process.
The lean startup
Eric Ries, the key thought leader on the lean startup methodology, states that this is a movement that is transforming how new products are built and launched. His initial focus was start-ups, but he is definitely right in also pursuing this for big companies.
Some of the key ideas behind the methodology are: fail fast – fail cheap, “Can we build a sustainable business around this set of products and services?” and develop a minimum viable product to begin the process of learning as quickly as possible.
Social innovation
Yes, this is one of my favorite personal topics, but it is also something that is picking up interest among clients, in blogs/media and at conferences. The intersection of social media tools and (open) innovation is still at the very early stages, but it will become increasingly important as open innovation takes hold. One reason is that the future winners of innovation know how to make communities (virtual and physical) work and a social media will be a key driver for this.
Reverse innovation
Reverse innovation is an interesting concept / book that helps us understand what it means to develop in emerging markets first, instead of scaling down rich world products, to unlock a world of business opportunity. Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble based their concept on these three key elements:
1. You must innovate, not simply export, if you want to capture the mammoth growth opportunities in the developing world.
2. The stakes in emerging economies are global, not local. Passing up an opportunity in the developing world today may invite formidable new competition in your home markets tomorrow.
3. Legacy multinationals must rethink their dominant organizational logic if they are to win in an era of reverse innovation.
Cutting-edge data acquisition technology is leaping from racetrack to train track as McLaren Applied Technologies agrees a unique collaboration with Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (SMRT), Asia’s premier multi-modal land transport provider.
For the first time in Asia, race-bred condition monitoring and predictive analytics solutions will join the push to attain greater levels of customer experience and deliver a world-class transport service.
McLaren calls it intelligent maintenance.
Applying Formula 1 technology
Competitiveness in Formula 1 is built on knowledge. During a grand prix weekend, the McLaren race team monitors the performance and reliability of its cars in real time via a network of just 300 embedded sensors, collectively capturing millions of data points. Each data point plays a pivotal role in helping the team paint a digital picture of the health of the cars.
Capturing, connecting and analysing that data enables the team to make more informed strategic decisions in the moment – and derive insights that will shape ongoing developments for better performance in future events.
The collaboration between McLaren Applied Technologies and SMRT is a significant step in our mission to transfer our proven motorsport technologies to the field of public transport, delivering advantage by maximising vehicle availability, capacity utilisation and multi-modal connectivity. Innovation is the key to meeting passengers’ expectations in a world of ever-growing demand.
Engineers from SMRT and McLaren Applied Technologies will now work together on a proof-of-concept intelligent maintenance solution for SMRT’s fleet, adapting our race car condition monitoring technology to rail. The two applications are not so different as you might imagine. The inside of a racing car is among the most hostile environments in which electronic components are expected to operate: a confined space subject to extremes of heat and vibration, and one that’s constantly moving, presenting further challenges in transmitting the data.
An SMRT train presents similar spatial constraints and durability requirements, since it is also in motion throughout the day and night, travelling underground through the metropolitan area, and subject to high ambient temperatures and constant humidity as well as frequent rain. In a public transport market conditioned to excellence, achieving high levels of customer satisfaction is therefore an ongoing challenge.
Intelligent maintenance
Intelligent maintenance forms part of SMRT’s ongoing commitment to meeting that challenge. By combining McLaren Applied Technologies’ wealth of expertise in data capture and analysis with SMRT’s decades of experience in optimising the passenger experience in Singapore, the partners aim to derive actionable intelligence based on dynamic vehicle monitoring, ultimately delivering more optimised maintenance regimes.
“In Singapore,” says Desmond Kuek, SMRT President and Group CEO, “SMRT have pioneered the development of rail condition-monitoring sensors to minimise disruption of our commuter service: optimising train performance by detecting and rectifying emerging defects early.
“We are collaborating with McLaren Applied Technologies to elevate this capability further, combining our engineering expertise in rail with their proven capabilities harnessing sensors, telemetry and software in motorsport.
“We aim to adapt and install McLaren’s motorsport technology on board our first proof-of-concept SMRT train by Autumn 2018. When implemented fleet-wide, we expect to bring about enhanced safety, reliability and comfort for commuters on our rail network.”
McLaren’s approach
At McLaren Applied Technologies we see intelligent maintenance as transformative because it enables service providers to adapt better to changing real-world conditions. Again, knowledge is the key: remote condition monitoring provides a richer insight into the performance of individual components, and our simulation technology enables us to model their service life with greater fidelity as we capture and analyse that operational data. Those insights can facilitate more optimal service schedules, making better use of maintenance capacity and reducing the likelihood of trains being unavailable for customer use.
“This unique partnership with SMRT will deliver advantage for Singapore by maximising vehicle availability and maintenance capacity of their world-renowned service,” says Dick Glover, Acting CEO, McLaren Applied Technologies.
“At McLaren Applied Technologies we harness our expertise in precision data capture, visualisation and real-time operational interventions to create inspired outcomes for the manufacturer, the operator and ultimately for the passenger.
“We are excited to take this first step in Singapore with SMRT, working together to adapt our proven motorsport technologies to optimise fleet performance and provide continuous improvements to the passenger experience.”
This partnership between McLaren Applied Technologies and SMRT is just the beginning of our journey together. While the alliance focuses on fulfilling intelligent maintenance for SMRT’s fleet in Singapore, the potential exists for us to develop a proof-of-concept for an intelligent vehicle solution suitable for adoption elsewhere in Asia – and even on a global scale.
“The collaboration with SMRT is part of our commitment to the global transport industry and its customers,” says Paul Bebbington, Director of Public Transport, McLaren Applied Technologies, “to digitally enable future transport systems and accelerate the path to intelligent mobility.”
Raconteur’s new study on business innovation is an excellent summary of approaches, technologies and organisations that are transforming business:
Business innovation is when an organisation introduces new processes, services, or products to affect positive change in their business. This can include improving existing methods or practices, or starting from scratch. Ultimately the goal is to reinvigorate a business, creating new value and boosting growth and/or productivity.
Why does business innovation matter?
Business innovation matters for one simple reason: value. In order for your business to thrive, it is crucial to be continually innovating and improving. Successful business innovation means finding new revenue opportunities, optimising existing channels and, ultimately, generating higher profits. It should also give companies an advantage over their competitors.
Three models of business innovation
There is more than one way to innovate and organisations of different ages and sizes will have different reasons for embarking on a process of business innovation. For some it may be a case of re-assessing the ways in which the business generates revenue, for others it may be necessary to move into a different industry altogether – or even to create a brand new one! Before embarking on any innovation cycle, it is important that organisations understand the various different business innovation models available to them.
1. Innovate your revenue model
If increasing profits is the main driver for business innovation, many organisations may choose to change their revenue model as a first port-of-call. This can involve re-assessing the products or services offered or taking another look at the company’s pricing strategy. Innovation does not have to be radical, sometimes changing even one element can yield significant results.
2. Innovate your business model
This model of business innovation requires organisations to identify which of their processes, products or services could be improved to boost the company’s profitability. Innovation in this case could refer to forming new partnerships, outsourcing specific tasks or implementing new technologies.
3. Innovate your industry model
Arguably the most radical model of business innovation, ambitious organisations can choose to change industry completely for the purposes of innovation – or even create a whole new industry for themselves. Indeed, companies can win a new lease of life by following examples such as Virgin’s move from aeroplanes to broadband.
Three industries embracing business innovation
1. Legal services
Cambridge-based law firm, Taylor Vinters, has partnered with artificial intelligence-focused startups Pekama and ThoughtRiver. At the same time, it has sold off other elements of its business, such as regional real estate, that were deemed a distraction from core aims.
The firm’s managing partner, Ed Turner, explains: “Assuming it’s an accepted proposition that fundamental change is going to be necessary, it’s important to understand the purpose of your organisation and why there’s a need for it in the future. Having a clear understanding of that is absolutely essential, particularly in the mid-market.”
For Taylor Vinters, the focus is now on entrepreneurship and innovation, with tech partnerships forming an important part of the firm’s offering, opening doors to a whole new client base.
2. Packaging
When it comes to business innovation, the packaging sector offers some of the most exciting examples around. Public opinion and global expectations of sustainability, health, and convenience dictate packaging design and currently the tide is turning against plastic. This has encouraged retailers and manufacturers to explore alternative materials and led to the rapid development of fibre-based materials and creative inventions, such as biodegradable seaweed pouches for ketchup.
New technology has also allowed companies – particularly those in the food and beverage sector – to innovate and adapt to meet new demands. Online grocery retailer, Ocado has embraced “co-botics”, where robots work alongside human employees. Robots deliver pallets of goods to humans who pick out the specific customer orders. It is likely that this is where the future of automated packaging lies, delivering a superior performance than could be achieved by either robots or humans working alone.
By keeping an ear to the ground, and an open mind when it comes to technology, the packaging sector has put business innovation at the centre of all operations.
Online food delivery service Just Eat is trialling seaweed sachets, developed by Skipping Rocks Lab, which are biodegradable within six weeks
3. Healthcare
It is not only the private sector which must be constantly looking to innovate. The NHS is one of the largest employers in the world and with increasing demand placed on it by the UK’s aging population, finding ways to cut costs and improve services is crucial.
To do this, the NHS is harnessing new technologies and making much better use of data. Along with implementing artificially intelligent chatbots to help patients self-serve, the NHS Blood and Transplant department has begun working with digital consultancy T-Impact to improve and automate its process for matching donated hearts with recipients. This has resulted in the world’s first allocation of a heart using a cloud-based system.
This streamlined process has removed 40 steps that were performed manually by staff, creating a 68 per cent reduction in NHS administration time. “These are the sort of improvements that well-run digital transformation programmes can deliver,” says Keith Stagner, chief executive of T-Impact.
What technologies are driving business innovation?
1. AI
The power and potential of artificial intelligence (AI) cannot be overstated.Almost every industry and realm of life is set to be transformed by it, with the estimation that by 2020, 95 per cent of all customer interactions will be carried out by some form of AI. When it comes to business innovation, it is one of the most exciting technologies available, with firms such as PwC estimating that it could add $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030.
“Everything invented in the past 150 years will be reinvented using AI within the next 15 years,” predicts San Francisco-based Randy Dean, chief business officer at Launchpad.AI.
It is already having a transformative effect in a number of industries. In sales AI can help strengthen pitches by detecting and reacting to consumer emotions. Japanese investment bank, Daiwa Securities, found that customer purchase rate increased by 2.7 times after they implemented AI technology.
In the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors, AI tools have been built which can sort and accumulate medical knowledge and data on a scale humans could only dream of. At one end of the spectrum sit dosage error deduction and virtual nursing assistants, at the other: genome sequencing. AI has brought the time and cost of sequencing someone’s genome, which is the unique arrangement of their DNA, down to 24 hours and just $1,000 respectively.
2. Ultrafast internet
It has long been acknowledged that time is money, and the most important tool for business innovation is one which can help organisations move faster.
In the UK, rural provider Gigaclear offers a fixed line service bringing speeds of 900 megabits per second (for reference, “superfast internet” starts at 24 Mbps), but in South Korea speeds of 2500 Mbps have already been achieved. And mobile networks will be transformed as well, with the advent of 5G making speeds of 1000 Mbsp possible on a smartphone.
To put this in the context of business innovation: it will now be possible to restore a medium-sized corporate server in a little over an hour, compared with 28 days before.
Businesses will be able to share data between remote facilities in near-instant fashion. For example, ProLabs is a connectivity hardware manufacturer with production facilities in Gloucestershire and California. Anthony Clarkson, chief technology officer of ProLabs, says: “Having ultrafast fibre connectivity has enabled our group to harmonise production by instantly sharing data, such as test reports and production templates, which are key to the production facility. This allows significant operational savings. None of this would have been possible on a traditional copper internet connection.”
Who is responsible for business innovation?
In a 2017 PwC study of global chief executives, nearly 25 per cent had innovation at the top of their priority list for the year ahead, but is it really CEOs who can drive business innovation?
It is vital that business leaders foster an environment where innovation is a natural part of company culture. “It is vital that our organisations are able to attract people with the right tech skills, but also to develop those skills internally,” says PwC chairman and senior partner Kevin Ellis. “As well as recruiting people with digital skills, organisations need to focus on training their people to be adaptive, creative and critical thinkers.”
However, although top-down leadership of business innovation is crucial, there are key roles and departments whose collaboration and expert knowledge are necessary to affect the changes.
1. The IT team
In 2015, Raconteur launched a study of workplace innovation, in collaboration with Google for Work. This study revealed that over a quarter of respondents saw IT as the main driver of innovation – a view which has barely changed since. With technology at the core of business, those with the ability to master it have the power to spark change. Not to mention that the IT department has close working relationships with every part of a business, which allows them to drive innovation and improve collaboration across the organisation.
2. Chief data officer
Still a fairly new role, it is the generally-held view that most large companies will have appointed a chief data officer (CDO) by 2019.
Smart use of data is key to business innovation, and CDOs are responsible for highlighting where opportunities and threats lie. Richard Merrygold, director of group data protection at Homeserve says: “CDOs need to sell the benefits. The CDO role is one of looking for efficiencies, simplifying needs, demonstrating cost-benefits, and encouraging businesses to be open and transparent.”
Through their CDOs companies are becoming empowered, and the data they work with is fuelling their business innovation, where information is corralled, analytics are powerful and data use is nimble.
But it’s not a job title that’s been around for very long, emerging over the past decade or so as organisations realise the need to be more responsive to change.
The term chief transformation officer has a wide meaning: some CTOs see themselves as visionaries, while others are essentially project managers for an overhaul of an organisation’s processes, often through technological change.
Either way, a successful CTO could be exactly the person to take up responsibility for driving business innovation. “We’re all living through intense change, the pace of which is only accelerating,” says Jason Dormieux, global chief transformation officer at media agency Wavemaker. “Regardless of title, all companies need people whose obsession is around what products and services they can build in order to help their customers take advantage of the opportunities that this disruption brings.”
On Single’s Day on November 11, 2017, Alibaba processed 1.5 billion transactions, totaling about $25 billion. At its peak during that day, Alibaba’s technology platforms processed 325,000 orders and 256,000 payments every second. By comparison, Visa’s stated capacity at about that time was 65,000 payments per second globally.
Ming Zeng is Alibaba’s zong canmouzhang, the Chief Strategy Officer. He was a professor at INSEAD, president for Yahoo in China, and also has a PhD from Illinois.
In his new book Smart Businesss he dispels the common notion that Alibaba is the Amazon of China.
“Unlike Amazon, Alibaba is not even a retailer in the traditional sense—we don’t source or keep stock, and logistics services are carried out by third-party service providers. Instead, Alibaba is what you get if you take every function associated with retail and coordinate them online into a sprawling, data-driven network of sellers, marketers, service providers, logistics companies, and manufacturers. Alibaba’s mandate is to apply cutting-edge technologies—from machine learning to the mobile internet and cloud computing—to revolutionise how business is done.”
The business model that Zeng describes stands in sharp contrast to that of traditional business. It’s a C2B model that demands constant innovation. And a lot of work for all of its participants. But, as the title says, it’s “smart,” and the rewards are sometimes staggering.
Zeng argues that companies must move to a customer-to-business model driven by direct interaction with customers. C2B presages a future where an increasing number of products and services can be produced on demand at acceptable cost, enabled by enhanced network coordination and data.
To use data intelligence and operate as a smart business, you need a tight digital feedback loop between your firm and the customer. However, as pioneering firms have realized, and I have witnessed up close with many Chinese entrepreneurs, centering your business around direct interaction with your customers sets into motion a striking reorientation of all business activities. I call this change the customer-to-business (C2B) model. The C2B mindset turns the traditional business-to-consumer (B2C) concept of business on its head in profound ways.
Instead of long-range planning, smart business reacts immediately to consumer needs in real time.
When business decisions are driven by machine learning through feedback loops, the firm’s actions are signally dictated by the customer. “Customer first” is no longer just a slogan, but the starting point of the business operation. The entire customer experience should operate on demand. But for the experience, including the products and services themselves, to be truly dictated by the customer, the company and the network in which it operates must be agile and responsive. In practice, every function in the business must work on demand.
Making any one function of the business operate on demand is difficult. How do you economically prepare for the potential span of demand? When a firm starts with any given activity, it has to subsequently retool every aspect of its operations, from branding to product design to manufacturing. Once processes are functionally independent but smoothly and automatically integrated, firms can then create products and services in concert with users, with key production and design decisions informed by this interaction. In doing so, the entire firm’s operating model runs on network coordination and data intelligence.
Completely retooling one’s entire business and making all functions coordinate dynamically is a daunting prospect for any company. Nevertheless, a C2B company has immense competitive advantage. Those who manage to start down this difficult path will find that their efficiency and responsiveness begin to increase exponentially, while cost does not. I cannot give a specific action plan for how to reorganize a firm, as the process differs greatly from industry to industry and even from firm to firm, but I can share some advice on the principles of C2B.
Revealing the revolutionary practices that he and his team have developed at Alibaba, Zeng shows how to:
Automate decisions through machine learning
Create products informed by real-time data from customers
Determine the right strategic positioning to maximize value from platforms and suppliers
Repurpose your organization to further human insight and enable creativity
Lead your company’s transformation into a smart business
With insights into the strategies and tools used by leaders at Alibaba and other companies such as Ruhan and Red Collar, in a variety of industries from furniture making to banking to custom tailoring, Smart Business outlines a radically new approach to strategy that can be applied everywhere.
