Events Archive - Page 33 of 52

The ultimate masterclass for business leaders to explore and develop new visions and strategies, markets and business models, for the disruptive age.

The most innovative businesses see the world differently.

They don’t just seek to imitate the success of others, to compete in the markets of today, to frame themselves by their relative differences to competitors. Instead they play their own game.

I call them “gamechangers”, and here in Dubai, I will be previewing the World Expo 2020, and taking inspirations from companies all around the world who are shaking up markets, embracing radical new ideas, and changing the game.

So what’s the “game”? Well, in simple terms, it’s the market.

These companies go beyond innovating their products and services, their customer experienes and business models. They seek to innovate how their markets work.

Think of it like a sports game. How could you change the game? It could be anything from the pitch dimensions to rules of play, the team composition to the measures of success, the role of the referee to the participation of fans. Even the name of the game.

Now look at today’s most disruptive innovators – 23andMe to Alibaba, Zespri to Zidisha – they reframe, reimagine and redefine the market on their terms – who is it for, why people buy, what they pay and get, and how they work.

I’ve met and profiled over 250 “gamechanger” companies on my travels, in almost every sector, and in every part of the world. Corporate giants and start-ups, from Dubai to Berlin, Colombo to Qingdao.

There is no one way to change the game, but there are definitely some common traits:

Audacious – Gamechangers are visionary and innovative, but also daring and original; they seek to shape the future to their advantage.
Purposeful – They seek to make life better, in some relevant and inspiring way; they have a higher motive than just making money.
Networked – Gamechangers harness the power of networks, digital and physical, both business and customer networks, to exponentially reach further faster.
Intelligent – They use big data analytics and algorithms, machine learning and AI, to be smart and efficient, personal and predictive.
Collaborative – Gamechangers work with others, from ecosystems to platforms, social networks and co-creation, to achieve more together.
Enabling – They focus not on what they do, but what they enable people to do; and thereby redefine their marketspace, find new opportunities and redefine value.
Commercial – Gamechangers take a longer-term perspective, adopting new business models, and recalibrating the measures of progress and success.

Do you have a future mindset?

Today’s business leaders need a future mindset. That sounds obvious, but isn’t.

Most leaders have a “fixed mindset”. They keep stretching the old models of success. They stay loyal to the model that made them great, seeking to squeeze and tweak it for as long as possible. They seek perfection – to optimise what they currently do – which leads to efficiency and incremental gains.

Instead a “future mindset” is prepared to let go of the past. To explore the future, to experiment with new ways of working and winning. Failure is a way to learn, and innovation becomes the norm. Change is relentless inside, as it is outside. Innovation is their lifeblood. Like Jeff Bezos loves to say “it is always day one”.

With a future mindset, the CEO needs new attributes:

Sense maker – to interpret a fast and confusing world, to see new patterns and opportunities, what is relevant and not, to shape your own vision.
Radical optimist – to inspire people with a stretching ambition, positive and distinctive, to be audacious, to see the possibilities when others only see risk.
Future hacker – they start from the “future back”, with clarity of purpose and intent, encouraging ideas and experiments, leveraging resource and scale.
Ideas connector – da Vinci said innovation is about making unusual connections; connecting new people, new partners, new capabilities and new ideas.
Emotionally agile – whilst organisational agility is essential, emotional agility matters even more; to cope with change, to be intuitive in making sense, and making choices.
Entrepreneur at large – keeping the founders mentality alive, hands-on working with project teams to infuse the mindset, to be the catalyst and coach.
Having grit – “gamechanger” leaders need to go against the grain, to persist but know when to move on, to have self belief and confidence, guts and resilience.

The future is a better place to start

Start from the “future back”.

Trying to evolve in today’s complex and confused world is unlikely to lead you towards a bright and distinctive future. It will extend your life a little longer, but it will be tough and uninspiring, with diminishing returns.

Instead jump to the future. I tend to start with five years ahead, although it may differ by company. 5 years is long enough to change the world, but close enough to be real. Start by creating a positive, collective and inspiring vision of the future market. What will it be like? What will people want? Why? How? Where? Then consider how to win in this new world.

This is where “moonshot thinking” can be really useful. “Why be 10% better, when you could be 10 times better?” 10 times more profits, more customers, more quality, reduced cost, reduced time. Whatever. By giving yourself a “How could we do it 10x better” challenge you take a new perspective, solve problems in different ways.

Be inspired by ideas from other places.

Explore how ARM or GE, Inditex or Netflix, Glossier or Novo Nordisk have changed their markets. Choose any of my 100+ “gamechanger” companies! How did they do it? How did customers respond? (Remember, they often serve the same customers as you!). You can’t learn much from competitors, but you can learn a lot from relevant parallels.

Copy. Adapt. Paste.

Customer insight also matters. Deep dives and design thinking, exploring the emerging trends and deviant behaviours. This can enhance and validate your ideas, but the problem with most customer insight is that it is filtered by our current world. You need something to disrupt your thinking.

I have a great box of disruptive techniques. Some are really simple – like break then remake the rules, like imagine its free then find a way to make money, like reverse polarities and many more. The point is to disrupt your conventional thinking.

From this, ideas rapidly emerge. You need lots of ideas about the future. But these are fragments of the real answer. The real creativity comes in fusing together into bigger “concepts”. These could be customer solutions, or new ways of working, new revenue streams, or new business models, and new market scenarios.

Once you have a clear and collective ambition for the future, it’s time to work backwards. “If this is how we want to be in 5 years, where do we need to get to in 3 years, and then in 1 year? Therefore what do we need to start doing now?” You develop a “horizon plan” for your business; a strategy roadmap if you like, but developed backwards.

The important thing is that by working backwards, you have jumped out of the morass of today. You’ve avoided the assumptions, limitations, problems and priorities of today’s thinking. You have a more inspiring “gamechanging” future, and have started to map out the steps to get there. Most likely with different priorities in the short-term too.

Of course the steps on this journey might change, but it’s going to be an exciting adventure.

Change the way we think, resolve the conflicts

In today’s busineses, we have created artificial divides in how we think and operate. Digital and physical seem like two different worlds, global and local seem like alternative strategies that cannot combine, many still struggle to align value to customers and shareholders in a mutually reinforcing way, and short and long-termism continues to confuse our priorities.

Our thinking within business, has created separate and apparently conflicting approaches. The opportunity is to make the combination of both approaches world – “fusions” if you like – to be innovative in the way you combine apparent opposites.

Digital and physical are two sides of the same coin.

There is only one world, unless you believe Ray Kurzweil, and it is the real one. It’s human and physical. Digital technologies are incredibly powerful, enabling people to connect, to work, to learn, to play in new ways. From mobile phones to blockchains, 3D printing and augmented reality, digital allows us to do more, do it faster, do things we could never do before. But it’s still about humanity.

Start with people. How can you enable them to achieve more? To live better, to have more fun, to do better for the world. Whatever matters. I work closely with Richard Branson and his Virgin teams. Their mindset is to “start from the outside, and then work in”. Design a better customer experience. Built on your ambition and insight, and then explore how you could deliver it with new and existing capabilities.

Global and local are opportunities for every business.

I love Amazon’s “Treasure Truck” … Most of us have never connected with Amazon beyond the website and the delivery guy. Amazon is huge, global and anonymous. But the Treasure Truck is real. It travels around the country, bringing its pop-up store to local neighbourhoods, fun and games, bargains and demos. For Amazon, it’s a chance to make real connections, listen to people, and to be local.

We can all see a backlash in society against relentless globalisation, huge corporations, and social inequality. We see a lack of trust in brands, and know that authenticity matters. Etsy shows us that even the smallest and most local artisan businesses can also be global. For every business, local and global markets are within reach, however it’s also about combining scale and standardisation, with relevance and individuality.

Ideas and networks should be the core of your business.

Gamechanger businesses need a compelling idea, a core purpose, an inspiring proposition, that can spread fast and contagiously. In a digitally-fuelled world, the most innovative businesses embrace “ideas and networks” to drive exponential impact – like WhatsApp creating $19bn in three years, Airbnb $40bn in 9 years, Alibaba $476bn in 18 years, Amazon $740bn in 23 years.

Think about that concept of “exponential” … The power of networks – be it franchisees, or distributors, or customers and users – lies not in the number of members, but in the connections between them. Networks have a multiplying effect. Exponential. Consider, for example, Rapha, the sportwear brand that brings together people with a passion for cycling, who conveniently meet at their “Cycle Club” stores, and buy their premium gear. A fantastic “ideas and networks” business.

Finally this idea of short-term and long-term being in conflict with each other.

Jeff Bezos never has this problem, nor Elon Musk, nor Richard Branson. They focus on the long-term, recognising it will require some years of investment to get there. They all of course lead privately-owned companies. But every public company has the same ambition to innovate and grow. And so do most of their investors, actually.

The reality is that any company’s stock market performance is based on its future earnings potential, not its past. The better you can engage with equity analysts, journalists and investors themselves to explain why you will deliver a better future worth waiting for, then you get their support. If you don’t engage them in your future vision, plans and innovations, then they will default to looking for short-term evidence. It’s really in our hands, to work together to create a future we want to invest in. And to share the greater risk and rewards.

Time to embrace your future mindset

We live in an incredible time … More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years … remember? I know that sounds a little crazy, but think about Hyperloop in 3 years, a tipping point to electric cars in 5 years, Mars missions in 8 years. They are all real, and possible.

Digital platforms connecting buyers and sellers in new ways, blockchain having the potential to transform relationships and trust, 3d printing having the potential to transform value chains to deliver anything personalised and on-demand, AI and robotics giving us the capabilities to be superhuman in our minds and bodies.

These are just some of the fantastic new capabilities that enable us to innovate beyond what we can even imagine today. The future isn’t like the future used to be. We cannot just evolve or extrapolate the past. Today’s future is discontinuous, disruptive, different.

It is imagination that will move us forwards … unlocking the technological possibilities, applying them to real problems and opportunities, to drive innovation and growth in every industry, in every part of our lives.

Imagine a world where you press “print” to get the dress of your dreams, the food of your fantasies, or the spare parts for your car. Instantly, personalised and on demand. Think then what does that mean if we don’t need the huge scale of manufacturing plants, warehousing and transportation. Maybe we will even subscribe to the IP catalogues of brands, rather than buy standard products, in the ways we currently subscribe to Netflix.

Time to embrace your growth mindset … Unlock your Einstein dreams and Picasso passion … Embrace your Mandela courage and Ghandi spirit. Be more curious, be more intuitive, be more human. Ask more questions. Don’t be afraid to have audacious ideas, to challenge the old models of success, and turn future ambitions into practical profitable reality.

How else did Zespri reinvent the Chinese gooseberry as the kiwi fruit? How else will SpaceX reach Mars by 2025? How else did Netflix came to be, or NuTonomy, or Nespresso, or Nyx?

This is why 23andMe’s Anne Wojicki wont give up in her quest to make DNA analysis available to everyone, and to ultimately find a cure for cancer. And it’s why Jack Ma didn’t give up as he rose from $1000-per year English teacher to technological royalty.

The secret is the future mindset.

To realise that the future is malleable. So we need to grab hold of it, and shape it in our own vision. To our advantage.

This is what “gamechangers” do.

Masterclass agenda:

Day 1 : Exponential Growth

0900 – 1100 : Winning in a fast-changing world

Making sense of fast and connected global and local markets, inspired by the world’s most disruptive businesses right now

Change drivers, global trends and new opportunities
Emerging markets, powerful millennials, and new women
Resolving the paradoxes of a changing world, eg global v local
Exponential and disruptive thinking – what they really mean
Thinking bigger, thinking different, 10 times not 10%
Ideas and networks – using the assets of a connected world
Case studies include Alibaba and Bytedance, 23andMe and JioPhone

1130 – 1330 : Developing “gamechanger” strategies

Shaping your business, and your market, to your advantage

Creating a higher purpose, future vision and better brand
Being digital and physical, to create reach and richness
Exploring the future of banking, retail, tech and more
Applying the best ideas from other places – copy adapt paste
Changing the who, why, what and how of your business
Case studies include ARM and Lemonade, Tencent and Tesla

1500 – 1700 : Accelerating future growth

Defining your direction and priorities for growth, and developing a strategy that combines vision with agility

What is the role of strategy in a fast changing world?
“Future back” thinking rather than “Now forwards”
Making the right choices of where and how to compete
Blue oceans, adjacent markets and emerging trends
Horizon planning, mapping out the growth roadmap
Defining the deliverables – short, medium and long-term
Case studies include Amazon and HaloTop, Syngenta and Softbank
Output from day 1: My strategy roadmap for growth

Day 2 : Disruptive Innovation

0900 – 1100 : Customer and design thinking

Finding the best new insights to engage customers with more powerful value propositions

What really matters to customers and consumers today
Asking the right questions, in order to find better answers
Exploring the deeper and more emotional aspirations
Understanding your customer’s “job to be done”
Focusing on the benefits that engage and enable people
Case studies include Umpqua Bank and Harley Davidson, Grab and Nintendo

1130 – 1330 : Recoding the 21st century business

Driving innovation in every aspect of your business. Exploring new ways to work, new ways to make money

Exploring 10 different ways to innovate your business
Starting outside in to design new products and services
Developing a portfolio of innovations, big and small
Exploring new ways of working – create and make
Exploring new ways of working – sell and support
Case studies include DHL and Maersk, Netflix and Nespresso

1500 – 1700 : Developing new business models

Defining the business model to deliver your faster growth, by aligning innovations across your business

What is a business model?
36 different business models to choose from, our create your own
How business models transform business and markets
Reflecting on your strategy, and what needs to change
Developing a new business model for your business
Aligning the components, to be practical and profitable
Output from day 2: My business model for growth

Day 3 : Winning Leaders

0900 – 1100 : Leading relentless change

How to make change and innovation happen effectively

The 4 roles of leaders in driving innovation and growth
Change formula to deliver the strategy roadmap
Making change happen, making the case, making it stick
Aligning structure, partners and processes to deliver
Building agility to adapt to change, and pivot if needed
Case studies include DBS and WeWork, Uniqlo and Microsoft

1130 – 1330 : Delivering more impact

Delivering innovation in your market and customers worlds

Engaging customers through active collaboration
Delivering experiences which enable people to do more
Working with social influencers to harness networks
Actively managing the business portfolio and performance
Delivering revenue, profit and growth as value creation
Accelerating growth, to achieve exponential impact
Case studies include Glossier and Rapha, EcoAlf and Nestle

1500 – 1700 : Daring to be more

Being a bold, brave and brilliant business leader

What is great leadership?
What is the role of leaders today, the 4Cs to deliver fast growth
Inspiration from Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma and Elon Musk
My business – how will I drive innovation and growth?
My team – how will I amplify the potential of my people?
My self – how will I change in order to change my world?
Output from day 3: My personal action plan

More ideas from Peter Fisk …

The most innovative businesses see the world differently.

They don’t just seek to imitate the success of others, to compete in the markets of today, to frame themselves by their relative differences to competitors. Instead they play their own game.

I call them “gamechangers”, and have spent the last 24 months running competitions around the world, to find and rank the world’s most innovative companies by sector and geography.

So what’s the “game”? Well, in simple terms, it’s the market.

These companies go beyond innovating their products and services, their customer experienes and business models. They seek to innovate how their markets work.

Now look at today’s most disruptive innovators – 23andMe to Airbnb, Brewdog to Buzzfeed, Casper to Coursera – they reframe, reimagine and redefine the market on their terms – who is it for, why people buy, what they pay and get, and how they work.

I’ve met and profiled over 250 “gamechanger” companies on my travels, in almost every sector, and in every part of the world. Corporate giants and start-ups, from Abu Dhabi to Berlin, Colombo to Qingdao.

There is no one way to change the game, but there are definitely some common traits:

Audacious – Gamechangers are visionary and innovative, but also daring and original; they seek to shape the future to their advantage.
Purposeful – They seek to make life better, in some relevant and inspiring way; they have a higher motive than just making money.
Networked – Gamechangers harness the power of networks, digital and physical, both business and customer networks, to exponentially reach further faster.
Intelligent – They use big data analytics and algorithms, machine learning and AI, to be smart and efficient, personal and predictive.
Collaborative – Gamechangers work with others, from ecosystems to platforms, social networks and co-creation, to achieve more together.
Enabling – They focus not on what they do, but what they enable people to do; and thereby redefine their marketspace, find new opportunities and redefine value.
Commercial – Gamechangers take a longer-term perspective, adopting new business models, and recalibrating the measures of progress and success.

Do you have a future mindset?

Today’s business leaders need a future mindset. That sounds obvious, but isn’t.

With a future mindset, the CEO needs new attributes:

Sense maker – to interpret a fast and confusing world, to see new patterns and opportunities, what is relevant and not, to shape your own vision.
Radical optimist – to inspire people with a stretching ambition, positive and distinctive, to be audacious, to see the possibilities when others only see risk.
Future hacker – they start from the “future back”, with clarity of purpose and intent, encouraging ideas and experiments, leveraging resource and scale.
Ideas connector – da Vinci said innovation is about making unusual connections; connecting new people, new partners, new capabilities and new ideas.
Emotionally agile – whilst organisational agility is essential, emotional agility matters even more; to cope with change, to be intuitive in making sense, and making choices.
Entrepreneur at large – keeping the founders mentality alive, hands-on working with project teams to infuse the mindset, to be the catalyst and coach.
Having grit – “gamechanger” leaders need to go against the grain, to persist but know when to move on, to have self belief and confidence, guts and resilience.

The future is a better place to start

Start from the “future back”.

Be inspired by ideas from other places.

Copy. Adapt. Paste.

Of course the steps on this journey might change, but it’s going to be an exciting adventure.

Change the way we think, resolve the conflicts

Digital and physical are two sides of the same coin.

Global and local are opportunities for every business.

Ideas and networks should be the core of your business.

Finally this idea of short-term and long-term being in conflict with each other.

Time to embrace your future mindset

How else did Zespri reinvent the Chinese gooseberry as the kiwi fruit? How else will SpaceX reach Mars by 2025? How else did Netflix came to be, or NuTonomy, or Nespresso, or Nyx?

The secret is the future mindset.

To realise that the future is malleable. So we need to grab hold of it, and shape it in our own vision. To our advantage.

This is what “gamechangers” do.

Article: The 10x Leader
Article: Amplifying Potential
Book: “Gamechangers: Are you ready to change the world?“
Book: “Business Genius: A more inspired approach to leadership”
Workshop: “Gamechangers Program: Leading for smarter innovation and profitable growth”
Workshop: “Inspiring Leadership … future, people and change“
Download a summary of Peter Fisk’s keynote “Gamechangers”

Design thinking is a process for creative problem solving.

It has a human-centred core. It encourages organizations to focus on the people they’re creating for, which leads to better products, services, and internal processes.

When you sit down to create a solution for a business need, the first question should always be what’s the human need behind it?

In employing design thinking, you’re pulling together what’s desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable.

It also allows those who aren’t trained as designers to use creative tools to address a vast range of challenges.

The process starts with taking action and understanding the right questions. It’s about embracing simple mindset shifts and tackling problems from a new direction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KLralTJcRo

Why?

It can help you or your team surface unmet needs of the people you are creating for.
It reduces the risk associated with launching new ideas.
It generates solutions that are revolutionary, not just incremental.
It helps organizations learn faster.

How?

Empathy — Understanding the needs of those you’re designing for.
Ideation — Generating a lot of ideas. Brainstorming is one technique, but there are many others.
Experimentation — Testing those ideas with prototyping.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPfJQmpg5zk

What?

Captures the mindsets and needs of the people you’re creating for.
Paints a picture of the opportunities based on the needs of these people.
Leads you to innovative new solutions starting with quick, low-fidelity experiments that provide learning and gradually increase in fidelity.

When?

Product design
Service and experience design
Business design
Leadership
Organizational change

The great beauty of design thinking is that the essential elements combine to form an iterative approach. It may not always proceed linearly, but there’s a roadmap to help move you toward your solution.

It starts with identifying a driving question that inspires you and your team to think about who you’re really designing for, and what they actually need. Next, you gather inspiration—what other solutions out in the world can help you rethink the way you’re working? Use that to push past obvious solutions, and arrive at breakthrough ideas. Build rough prototypes to make those ideas tangible, and find what’s working and what’s not. Gather feedback, go back to the drawing board, and keep going. And once you’ve arrived at the right solution, craft a story to introduce it to your colleagues, clients, and its users.

Some of those steps may happen several times, and you may even jump back and forth between them. But that roadmap can take you from a blank slate to a new, innovative idea.

I’m back in Copenhagen to help some of the best female business leaders to develop themselves, to rethink their priorities and to find new personal and professional achievement in a rapidly changing world.

Agenda

0915 – 1030: Session 1. Be more

Connecting the Dots – making sense of a changing world, the challenges for leaders, and the best new ideas to create the future
Launching your Moonshot – using the 10x not 10% mantra, to define your personal ambition, purpose and goals for success

1100 – 1230: Session 2. Be the future

Accelerating the Future – discovering what’s next, learning from Asia and next generation leaders, changing how businesses think and work
Recoding the Business – articulating a better model for business, driven by more purpose, engaging people deeper, driving exponential impacts

1315 – 1445: Session 3. Be the change

Riding the Change Curves – how to manage relentless change in organisations and markets, emotional resilience, and becoming invincible
A Manifesto for Leadership – what matters most in the future world of business, embracing tech and humanity, working and leading better

1500 – 1630: Session 4. Be extraordinary

Stepping up to Lead – having the courage to do more, to step beyond the comfort zones, to take people with you, to achieve more
Finding your Awe – inspired by the Viking culture, awe is about combining great fear and courage – having the courage to create a better future.

We will look more deeply at some of the great female leaders around the world, shaking up business and shaping the future. From Anne Wojcicki leading the future of healthcare with 23andMe, to Mary Barra reinventing automative with GM, and Zhang Xin, the self-made richest women in China.

We will explore the attributes required to be a successful business leader in today’s world. The need for vision and intuition, empathy and engagement, creativity and collaboration, care and humanity, and much more. Of course men can have these attributes too, but they are certainly less “macho” characteristics, and more typically associated with female approaches.

It starts by finding more purpose. Business and personal purpose. Purpose is the “why” of doing business – why you exist, what contribution your business makes to the world, or put it another way, what would the world be like without your business. Purpose becomes a guiding force, a North Star to inspire you, whilst mission and strategy are driving forces to get there.

Here is my recent keynote on The Future is Female.

And here are some of the great Nordic female leaders:

Filippa Knutsson, Founder, Filippa K.

Filippa Martina Knutsson is a Swedish fashion designer. She is the owner of the fashion brand Filippa K, founded in 1993, and runs it with her former husband Patrik Kihlborg. She has been called “a household name” and “a superstar” in Sweden and much of Europe.

She has been immersed in the clothing and fashion industry for many years. Having spent her formative years in London, she returned to her native Sweden to work in her family’s fashion business. She later came together with two business partners to establish the Filippa K line in 1993. Based in Sweden, in just over 20 years the brand has expanded to fashion outlets in 20 markets and 50 brand stores across the Nordics as well as in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland.

The men’s and women’s lines can also be found at over 600 of other retailers worldwide. In 2014 turnover exceeded EUR 70 million. Ms Knutsson has been deeply involved in orchestrating the success of the Filippa K fashion lines and supervises all of the brand’s creative aspects, including conceptualization, design, retail concepts and brand communications.

Mette Lykke, CEO Too Good to Go

Lykke leads the Danish waste food business Too Good to Go. She was previously Vice President of Under Armour, International Digital and the co-founder & CEO of Endomondo. She and two business partners co-founded the fitness tracking app Endomondo in 2007 and by 2014 had grown the community-based venture to reach 20 million registered users. As chief executive, she successfully orchestrated the company’s acquisition for $85M by the US-based athletic apparel manufacturer Under Armour.

What happens when you take three business consultants and a gypsy? This isn’t the start of a joke. She revealed that an unexpected encounter with a gypsy showed her that following her dreams could take her to places she’d never believed possible and that passion for what she does is the real measure of her success.

She showed she could walk the talk when she traded in a comfortable position at the international consulting firm McKinsey for the risks of entrepreneurship. Ms Lykke and two business partners co-founded the fitness tracking app Endomondo in 2007 and by 2014 had grown the community-based venture to reach 25 million users. As chief executive she successfully orchestrated the company’s acquisition for USD 85 million by the US-based athletic apparel manufacturer Under Armour, where she is now vice president.

Before her steep rise to business success, Ms Lykke worked as a journalist and researcher for a major Danish daily newspaper while pursuing a master’s degree in political science at Aarhus University. She was later recruited by McKinsey & Co as a management consultant. The rest, as they say, is history. In 2013 she received the Female Business Owners’ Inspirational award and in 2012 was granted the Founder of the Year award by the Nordic Startup Awards series, which celebrates startup ecosystems based in the Nordics.

Pia Vemmelund, Managing Director, Momondo

With more than 25 years under her belt in the travel industry it’s no surprise that Pia Vemmelund has worked her way to the top of one of the fastest-rising online travel and destination service providers, Momondo. Before joining Momondo, Vemmelund spent 19 years with the Scandinavian airline SAS, where she held several positions, including Director, Commercial Intelligence and Sales Support. In 2007 she moved to Momondo and took on the hefty portfolio of commercial manager with responsibility for sales, online marketing, finance and administration. By 2012 she had become the company’s managing director and was made a member of the board in 2013. As Momondo chief executive Ms Vemmelund has played a central role in securing financing for the venture. In 2014 she helped negotiation a USD 130 million investment in Momondo by the venture capitalist Great Hill Partners. She is also a board member of Greenland Travel and the Danish online bargain aggregator Bownty.

Azita Shariati, CEO Sodexo Sweden & Denmark

Iranian-born catering industry dynamo Azita Shariati leads the Swedish and Danish operations of the French-based multinational company Sodexo. The company’s Nordic operations employ 11,000 people and have a turnover of SEK 7.5 billion. Ms Shariati has earned every ounce of the respect and accolades she now enjoys, having worked her way up to the chief executive position during a relatively brief nine-year career with the company. During her impressive rise to the top of the organization she held roles such as sales director and country manager, Sweden. A passionate advocate of gender balance and multiculturalism, when she was appointed vice president in 2010, she famously set a challenge for the company to employ women in 50 percent of senior management positions by 2015 – a target that was later achieved. As a result, she was named Sweden’s most powerful business woman in 2015 by the weekly business magazine Veckans Affärer. In granting the award, the publication cited Ms Shariati’s inclusive leadership based on her advocacy for gender balance and diversity and her recognition that she has the power to change society.

Hilde Midthjell, Owner, Dale of Norway

Hilde Midthjell is a serial Norwegian entrepreneur with a background in medicine and a distinct flair for business. Ms Midthjell is currently main owner and board chair of Dale of Norway, a clothing company that produces outdoor lifestyle gear. The company is perhaps best known for its trademark lusekofte sweater, which features traditional Norwegian design and weaving methods. It has also been the official supplier of sweaters for the Norwegian ski team and winter Olympics since 1956. Prior to taking the helm at Dale, Ms Midthjell set up and ran a successful cosmetics company, Dermanor, part of the Dermagruppen group for more than 20 years. She sold the company for NOK 500 million. The cosmetics company now operates across the Nordics. She is also owner and chief executive of a series of companies, one of which is an investment firm through which she owns a controlling share of Dale of Norway and a minority stake in the sustainable tourism company Basecamp Explorer

Lotte Tīsenkopfa-Iltnere, CEO of Madara Cosmetics

A keen interest in sustainable living and home-made cosmetics led entrepreneur Lotte Tīsenkopfa-Iltnere to establish Madara Cosmetics, a manufacturer of organic skin care products, in 2006. Currently the company’s chief executive, Tīsenkopfa-Iltnere has expanded the product line and grown the reach of the business across northern and central Europe. The company posted revenues of 1.9 and 2.3 million euros in 2012 and 2013, respectively. In 2012 she was named one of the country’s top 25 women in business by Forbes Latvia and in 2014 one of the company’s facial products was named the best new cosmetic by the Latvian lifestyle magazine Pastaiga. Tīsenkopfa-Iltnere has also worked as a journalist and has studied Japanese language, culture and business in Latvia and Japan.

Björk Guðmundsdóttir, Musician and Entrepreneur

Widely known by her first name only, Björk has become a fixture on the international music scene during the 30 years of her career as a singer-songwriter, musician and producer. She has also championed environmental causes and has actively campaigned for environmental preservation in Iceland. In 2009 she collaborated with a venture capital firm to set up an investment fund to invest in green technology in her home country. In 2012 her net worth was estimated at more than USD 50 million. She is a lynchpin of the experimental music scene, yet has turned out a number of highly successful singles on mainstream music charts – reflecting her eclectic musical tastes and styles. Björk has had 30 hit singles in the Top 40 of global pop charts and has scored 22 Top 40 hits on UK charts. The Icelandic artist has been recognized with a number of music industry awards throughout her career. In 2011 she became the first artist to release an album, Biophilia, as a series of interactive apps, which were later inducted into the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

Today’s business world is no longer stable and predictable. It cannot simply evolve from the past and extrapolate into the future. Yet too managers hope that their old models will continue to work. They seek to replicate the success formula of the past, to continuously enhance and improve the status quo, and trust that their luck will continue into the future. We call this a fixed mindset. Instead they need to break free, with a growth mindset.

“The best way to predict the future is to create it”said Abraham Lincoln.

Markets are more crowded than ever before. Competition is intense, from across geographies and sectors, whilst customer aspirations are constantly fueled by new innovations and possibilities. Innovation is continuous and essential. Yet too much innovation is just improvement, keeping pace, not getting ahead. It is quickly imitated or redundant, the advantage is lost, and investment is squandered.

“This is the age of disruption … which is not simply about disruptive technologies, but dramatically changing how people think and behave” says Sebastian Thrun of Udacity.

New business models are the most effective way to transform organisations, to innovate the whole way in which the business works. Inspired by a new generation of businesses – Airbnb to Uber, Dollar Shave Club to Netflix – we see dramatically new business models in every market, through collaborative platforms, data analytics and personal recommendations, or subscription-based payments.

Airbnb makes money by helping you to make money out of your spare room, connecting host and guest, then taking a small fee from each. Nespresso makes great coffee, selling discounted machines, and then getting you to sign up to an everlasting and incredibly profitable direct revenue steam of coffee pods.

What if your business started leasing rather than selling, became part of the sharing economy? What if you simply facilitated an exchange between buyers and sellers and took a cut? How about moving to a subscription model, or a freemium model, or a referral model, or an advertising model?

We used to just think a business simply made things, and sold them. Now its much more complicated. Or rather, there are many more innovative ways to achieve success …

The term “Business Model” is over used and under defined. Business models explain how organisations work – how do they create value for customers, and in doing so how they create value for all other stakeholders. They can map the current business, or explore options for the future.

The approach originates from mapping “value networks” in the 1990s, understanding the systems across business and its partners through which value (both financial and non-financial) is created and exchanged – by who, how and for whom. I remember working with Pugh Roberts to create a multi-million dollar dynamic model for Mastercard which showed varying any one driver – such as interest rates, or branding – affected everything else. And thereby being able to test new ideas and optimise the model.

Business models represent the dynamic system through which a business creates and captures value, and how this can changed or optimised. They are a configuration of the building blocks of business, and their creative reconfiguration can be a significant innovation.

Business models became fundamental to business strategy, driven by them but often driving them. Hambrick and Fredrickson’s Strategy Diamond is all about aligning the organisation, achieving an economic logic between strategic choices. They help to align the business, matching the right strategies for outside and inside, using the proposition as the fulcrum, and profitability as the measure of success.

Business models can often appear very mechanical, lacking emotion and easy to imitate. In 2001 Patrick Staehler, in particular seeking to explain the new breed of digital businesses, created a business model “map” driven by the value proposition, enabled by the value architecture, creating economic value and sustained by cultural values. The last point here is most interesting, in that it captured the distinctive personality of a business, its leadership styles and ways of doing business. This is much harder to copy, and also sustains the other aspects.

Alex Osterwalder’s subsequent Business Model Canvas emerged as the most common template on which to map a business model. He popularised the approach so much so that his supersized canvas now features in workshops throughout the world, always with an array of multi coloured sticky notes as teams debate the best combination of solutions for each box. Whilst the canvas lacks the sophistication of value driver analysis and dynamic modelling, it is about testing hypothesise in each aspect, and how they could work together, and that respect works as a thinking model.

Business models have become a practical tool for rethinking the whole business, seeing the connections and then innovating the business. In fact they offer a great platform to facilitate new strategy and innovation thinking. That’s why we’ve created the Business Innovation Program, which combines design thinking, new business models and strategic implementation – a great way to engage your team, to think about new ways to grow, and to create the future, practically.

We explore at least 50 different business model templates which could transform your business. We start with the customer, to explore emergent needs and behaviours, shaping better propositions and solutions, then exploring how to deliver them commercially, and as engaging customer experiences.

Agenda

0900 – 1030: CHANGE, DISRUPTION AND GROWTH

Making sense of today’s world, the challenge and opportunity of relentless change
The future isn’t like it used to be, so we can’t keep doing what we used to do
100 companies changing the world right now. What can you learn from them?
Start with a future mindset, jump ahead, look forwards not backwards
Going beyond limits, how will you be the change, how will you achieve more?
Growth strategies – innovation beyond products, technology, and creativity

1100 – 1230: INNOVATING THE BUSINESS

Starting from the future back – create the future you want, then work backwards
Working from the outside in – rethinking solutions through customer eyes
10 types of innovation – products and services to business models and experiences
Ecosystems, from make or buy, to partner and connect, platforms and communities
Innovation multipliers – accelerate ideas further and faster to accelerate growth
Creating a growth factory – portfolios, self-tuning and the invincible company

1230 – 1400: BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATION

Business models – emergence of business models, 50 models to adapt and apply
Linking business models to strategy, business plans and organisation design
Rethinking your business model – what is it, and not – and different ways to define it
Mapping existing business model – simplifying how your business actually works
Innovating new business models – rethinking how your business could work better
Developing a business model portfolio – creating the invincible business

1530 – 1700: NEW BUSINESS MODELS IN BANKING

Innovation in banking – how are banks innovating, what are the new models?
Rethinking products and services – what would deliver the proposition better?
Rethinking channels and brands – how to build more inspiring connections?
Rethinking revenues and pricing – exploring alternative ways to make money?
Rethinking assets and resources – how to use what you have better?
Rethinking activities and partners – what do to do yourself, and by others?

1700 – 1830: DEVELOPING YOUR NEW BUSINESS MODEL

Your products and services – what would deliver your proposition better?
Your channels and brands – how to build more inspiring connections?
Your revenues and pricing – exploring alternative ways to make money?
Your assets and resources – how could you use what you have better?
Your activities and partners – what do you need to do yourself?
How would you change Bancolombia’s business model? Where will you start?

New article: Who are the Gamechangers of Latin America … the most innovative companies, from Agua Bendita and Cliengo to Rappi and Selina?
Article: The 10x Leader
Article: Amplifying Potential
Book: “Gamechangers: Are you ready to change the world?“
Book: “Business Genius: A more inspired approach to leadership”
Workshop: “Gamechangers Program: Leading for smarter innovation and profitable growth”
Workshop: “Business Innovation Program = Design Thinking + Business Models + Strategic Execution“
Practical Tools: Stanford d.School’s Design Thinking Process Guide
Download a summary of Peter Fisk’s keynote “Gamechangers”

Grupo Bancolombia Annual Report 2018

We live in an incredible time. More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years.

New technologies are transforming the ways in which we live and work. Technologies enable incredible change. It is how we unlock their potential that matters.

The most innovative businesses see the world differently.

They don’t just seek to imitate the success of others, to compete in the markets of today, to frame themselves by their relative differences to competitors. Instead they play their own game.

I call them “gamechangers”, and have spent the last 24 months running competitions around the world, to find and rank the world’s most innovative companies by sector and geography.

So what’s the “game”? Well, in simple terms, it’s the market.

These companies go beyond innovating their products and services, their customer experienes and business models. They seek to innovate how their markets work.

There is no one way to change the game, but there are definitely some common traits:

Audacious – Gamechangers are visionary and innovative, but also daring and original; they seek to shape the future to their advantage.
Purposeful – They seek to make life better, in some relevant and inspiring way; they have a higher motive than just making money.
Networked – Gamechangers harness the power of networks, digital and physical, both business and customer networks, to exponentially reach further faster.
Intelligent – They use big data analytics and algorithms, machine learning and AI, to be smart and efficient, personal and predictive.
Collaborative – Gamechangers work with others, from ecosystems to platforms, social networks and co-creation, to achieve more together.
Enabling – They focus not on what they do, but what they enable people to do; and thereby redefine their marketspace, find new opportunities and redefine value.
Commercial – Gamechangers take a longer-term perspective, adopting new business models, and recalibrating the measures of progress and success.

Do you have a future mindset?

Today’s business leaders need a future mindset. That sounds obvious, but isn’t.

With a future mindset, the CEO needs new attributes:

Sense maker – to interpret a fast and confusing world, to see new patterns and opportunities, what is relevant and not, to shape your own vision.
Radical optimist – to inspire people with a stretching ambition, positive and distinctive, to be audacious, to see the possibilities when others only see risk.
Future hacker – they start from the “future back”, with clarity of purpose and intent, encouraging ideas and experiments, leveraging resource and scale.
Ideas connector – da Vinci said innovation is about making unusual connections; connecting new people, new partners, new capabilities and new ideas.
Emotionally agile – whilst organisational agility is essential, emotional agility matters even more; to cope with change, to be intuitive in making sense, and making choices.
Entrepreneur at large – keeping the founders mentality alive, hands-on working with project teams to infuse the mindset, to be the catalyst and coach.
Having grit – “gamechanger” leaders need to go against the grain, to persist but know when to move on, to have self belief and confidence, guts and resilience.

The future is a better place to start

Start from the “future back”.

Be inspired by ideas from other places.

Copy. Adapt. Paste.

Of course the steps on this journey might change, but it’s going to be an exciting adventure.

Change the way we think, resolve the conflicts

Digital and physical are two sides of the same coin.

Global and local are opportunities for every business.

Ideas and networks should be the core of your business.

Finally this idea of short-term and long-term being in conflict with each other.

Time to embrace your future mindset

Time to embrace your Musk mindset … Unlock your Einstein dreams and Picasso passion … Embrace your Mandela courage and Ghandi spirit. Be more curious, be more intuitive, be more human. Ask more questions. Don’t be afraid to have audacious ideas, to challenge the old models of success, and turn future ambitions into practical profitable reality.

How else did Zespri reinvent the Chinese gooseberry as the kiwi fruit? How else will SpaceX reach Mars by 2025? How else did Netflix came to be, or NuTonomy, or Nespresso, or Nyx?

The secret is the future mindset.

To realise that the future is malleable. So we need to grab hold of it, and shape it in our own vision. To our advantage.

This is what “gamechangers” do.

Article: The 10x Leader
Article: Amplifying Potential
Book: “Gamechangers: Are you ready to change the world?“
Book: “Business Genius: A more inspired approach to leadership”
Workshop: “Gamechangers Program: Leading for smarter innovation and profitable growth”
Workshop: “Inspiring Leadership … future, people and change“
Download a summary of Peter Fisk’s keynote “Gamechangers”

Water solutions

Complicated. Invisible. Unsexy …

Industrial innovation is rarely popularised and held up as the best practice examples in reimagining and reinventing how things work. It’s much easier to envision the potential of funky coffee machines, electric scooters, intelligent cosmetics or driverless cars. Yet inventions – from the steam engine to the telegraph, the semiconductor to the world wide web – have transformed our lives. Their associated innovations, typically in solving the problems of everyday life, have created entirely new industries.

Aerofarms

AeroFarms is on a mission to transform agriculture by building and operating environmentally responsible farms throughout the world to enable local production at scale and nourish our communities with safe, nutritious, and delicious food.

Arm Technologies

From providing the IP for the chip to delivering the cloud services that allow organizations to securely manage the deployment of products throughout their lifecycle, Arm delivers a complete Internet of Things (IoT) solution for our partners and customers. It’s rooted in our deep understanding of the future of compute and security.

Corning Glass

For more than 165 years, Corning has combined its unparalleled expertise in glass science, ceramics science, and optical physics with deep manufacturing and engineering capabilities to develop life-changing innovations and products.

DHL Logistics

To maximise the value of your supply chain, you need a reliable logistics partner whose excellent support is available wherever you need it – whether that’s locally or on the other side of the world. One with a thorough depth of knowledge of your market and its dynamics, who works to the highest standards and brings you the benefit of unrivalled environmental and safety credentials, along with state-of-the art technology.

Icon Build

Icon creates printers, robotics, and advanced materials that are revolutionizing homebuilding. With the Vulcan II printer they’ve developed the 3D printing robotics, software, and advanced materials capable of 3D printing entire communities with up to 2,000 square foot homes. Using this technology, Icon can print a custom home, and we can do it quicker, with less waste, and at a lower cost than traditional homebuilding methods.

Lanza Tech

Imagine if you could take carbon emissions and convert them to fuels and chemicals, cleaning our air and giving carbon a second chance. LanzaTech seeks to displace 30% of crude oil use today and reduce global CO₂ emissions by 10%. By recycling carbon from industrial off-gases; syngas generated from any biomass resource (e.g. municipal solid waste (MSW), organic industrial waste, agricultural waste); and reformed biogas, LanzaTech can reduce emissions and make new products for a circular carbon economy.

Maersk shipping

Shipping has traditionally been a paper-intensive and largely manual process. It’s still challenging to track where a container might be in the world and which government agency might be holding it up. When it comes to auditing, it can take weeks of intensive effort to gather the paperwork generated throughout a journey from factory or field to market. Last year IBM and Danish shipping conglomerate Maersk announced the limited availability of a blockchain-based shipping tool called TradeLens which now encompasses almost half of the world’s cargo container shipments.

Microsoft business

Microsoft Services can help you innovate and deliver industry-leading, personalized customer experiences to today’s customers with solutions like AI, smart assistants, and bots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Qbq3CT1pA

3M Smog Granules

3M Smog-reducing granules harness the power of the sun to turn roofing shingles into a pollution-fighting surface. When the sun hits the granules, the photocatalytic coating transforms the smog pollution (nitrogen oxides) into water-soluble ions that safely wash away with rain

Valio, offering the taste of Nordic nature since 1905, is a brand leader and the biggest dairy business in Finland and a major player in the international dairy ingredients market. Our product development follows in the footsteps of Nobel Prize winner A. I. Virtanen, and the company holds over 300 patents in 50 countries. Valio seeks strong growth in international markets and has subsidiaries in Russia, Sweden, the Baltics, USA and China.

Owned by 15 dairy cooperatives, comprising some 5100 dairy farmers.
4200 employees around the world.
Valio is Finland’s largest food product exporter. Valio butter, cheeses, yoghurts, milk powders and other products are used in 60 countries.
Valio pays all the profit from its operations to the dairy farmers.
The only dairy company in the world with a heritage of Nobel prize winning innovation.

Valio’s decision making structure includes the annual general meeting, board of directors and supervisory board. Valio is owned by 17 dairy cooperatives and run by our CEO Annikka Hurme. Valio has net sales of EUR 1.7 billion and is Finland’s biggest food exporter. Valio products are found in some 60 countries and account for 25% of Finland’s total food exports.

Valio has a track record of innovation

Valio has grown organically from humble beginnings. Product and technology exports and globally significant breakthrough innovation have always been a vital part of the business. The company has over one hundred years of experience in the international dairy industry.

Valio has grown in its home market of Finland to become the market leader in all dairy product categories. For Finnish consumers Valio is synonymous with milk, butter, cheese and yoghurt – and natural great taste. With market leadership in domestic and nearby territories Valio has been able to prove the effectiveness of new technologies and new products, enabling effective sales and licensing to oversees dairy and food industry partners.

Born to facilitate exports

The cooperative rapidly grew with over 150 members in 1910 and continued to swell alongside the growing demand for cheese during the Great War. The first Valio laboratory was founded in 1917 to foster cheese-making skills and support rising domestic market for milk products. As the nation of Finland emerged as an independent state in 1917, after years of Russian rule, so Finland’s dairy farmers rose with a clear vision to generate exports that helped shape the nation’s trade policies. At this time Valio started to grow as the major dairy producer in the domestic market.

The essence of Finns’ natural way of life

Valio is a part of the Finnish national consciousness and is woven into the daily life of Finns from birth. Milk is a common drink with the evening meal for all ages. The natural goodness and purity of Valio’s milk is an element of “Finnishness”. Finns value their healthy lifestyle – and their global reputation as a healthy society – and this is intertwined with their favourite dairy products and their beliefs and expectations of Valio.

Landmark research and export growth in the inter-war years

Further work yielded an AIV silage process that allowed the manufacture of high-grade emmental cheese that became a major Valio export. Virtanen received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the AIV silage method in 1945. In the 1930s Valio’s patented AIV silage method was licensed to Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, the UK, Ireland, Iceland, Switzerland, the US and Canada.

The UK was a major importer of Valio butter until its free market policy ended in the 1930s. Exports, for example processed cheese, to Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, Norway, Belgium and the US commenced during the 1920s and grew rapidly. The Finnish dairy industry was severely affected by WWII as thousands of farmers were evacuated from the Karelia region of Eastern Finland seized by the Soviet Union. Milk powder, cheese and butter exports started in the 1950s to countries, including Algeria and Morocco, with Valio cheeses popular in Germany and Italy. Milk powder 50’s.

International expansion with exports, subsidiaries and special technology projects

Midnight Sun was launched in 1962 in Northern England and Scotland and became the region’s leading butter within five years.

However, Valio’s export growth became steered by political developments with the EEC and EFTA. In the early 1970s a remarkable 95% of Finnish export butter was destined for the UK – but this ceased abruptly when the UK joined the EEC in 1973. In 1973 Valio became the first to package infant food in now-ubiquitous aseptic Tetra Brik packaging.

In the 1990s Valio was able to ride out the profound effects of Finland’s EU membership and increased competition in the domestic market. Advances in cold chain technology gave Valio a competitive edge in short shelf life products and cheese export sales hardened to Russia and the US. Valio’s Penguin and Smeds brands were popular in Lebanon, Egypt and Syria and, in 1984, Iran was Valio’s second largest export market after the Soviet Union. Throughout the 1990s Valio continued to develop its foreign subsidiaries in Sweden, Russia, the Baltics, and the US, as well as Switzerland, Belgium and the Middle East.

The recognized technology leader with experience in key markets

In the 1990s Valio’s dedicated R&D team developed patented Zero Lactose™ technology that has been licensed around the world since 2003. Valio was the first in the world to launch a totally lactose free milk with the real taste of milk, and is the market leader in Europe. Lactose free products employing Valio Lactose technology have already been launched in, for example, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, South Korea, Belgium, Holland, Russia and Norway.

Though the first Finnish milk reached China in 1926, Valio began milk production knowledge sharing and equipment sales in 1986 to Chinese agricultural leaders. In the 1990s Valio DEMI™ demineralised whey powder was sold to China, Taiwan and South Korea, with the product used for chocolate and ice cream – and globally by infant formula manufacturers. By 2001 Valio’s dedicated office in Shanghai was responsible for selling Valio ingredients and technologies.

Exports to Japan have been strong since the 1950s and, into the 2000s, Valio continued to export industrial powders and emmental cheese. In 2003 Valio had a market share for butter of 53% in St Petersburg and 35% in Moscow, with Finnish family favourite, Oltermanni cheese, the value leader in both the Russian metropolises.

21st century brands for global markets

Valio’s brand family are recognised for high quality, natural taste and healthiness. Over the years Valio has undergone a shift from exporting commodities, such as butters and cheeses, to branded products – particularly to nearby markets.

Meanwhile, thanks to Valio’s benchmark cold chain and traceability, fresh product exports started have also steadily grown since the 1990s. For more remote markets the focus today is on food ingredients, such as Valio Demi™ deminaralised whey powders.

Supported by unique award-winning technology, e.g. Valio Eila® lactose free, Valio helps dairy and food companies around the world produce great tasting products, loved by consumers.

Throughout over a century of change, growth and a huge variety of global projects, Valio has remained true its Finnish roots. The company has stayed at the vanguard of dairy innovation and sustainable practice, and is still a cooperative – owned by relatively small dairies and farms, all committed to keeping the happiest livestock and producing the purest milk.

Are you ready to change your world?

How will you embrace the best ideas and inspirations from the world’s most innovative companies, with the practical approaches to making sense of changing markets, developing better strategies, then aligning your business to deliver more innovatively, for profitable growth?

How do you develop innovation in a world that is volatile and unpredictable? How do you implement it strategically with limited resources, and ever changing competition? We explore the new roles of leadership, new models of innovation strategy, and how to implement things fast and effectively, to deliver most impact.

The Envision Lab is about your business, and your future.

Where do you think your industry is going? What do you think it should do now and next in order to be a winner in that future world? It brings together your initial ideas from the Gamechangers Project and accelerates them into sharper, smarter blueprints for the future of your business, ready for you to lead.

The Innovation Toolkit selects 20 useful templates to take you through the “thinking process” of innovation. We will go at high speed, applied to your future business. The focus is on the frameworks, and getting you started, exploring ideas and hypotheses, which you can test and improve over time.

Session 1: INNOVATION TOOLKIT, PART 1

Future Radar – how is your future world likely to change?
Inspiring Vision – what is the future you dream of creating?
Future Shift – what are the big differences from today?
Strategic Narrative – explain the shift, and why it matters?
Moonshot Thinking – what if you stretched yourself 10x?
Business Framing – how could you redefine your space?
Growth Compass – what are the relevant opportunities?
Opportunity Sizing – which opportunities should you go for?
Extreme Users – what are the extremes of this future?
Customer Insights – what might customers want?

Session 2: INNOVATION TOOLKIT, PART 2

Value Proposition – who’s the customer, and what do they want?
Disruption Drivers – what’s driving change, why is it necessary?
Rule Breakers – what are the conventions, and how could they change?
Parallel Ideas – the best inspirations from other relevant places?
Idea Storming – bringing together all the best ideas, more, more, more?
Creative Fusions – how could you connect these ideas in novel ways?
Innovation Filters – which are the best ideas to progress?
Concept Definition – shaping a bigger, richer, better concept?
Innovation Portfolio – how might this take shape over time?
Future Roadmap – starting future back, how will you get there?

Previous sessions:

Session 1: STRATEGIC INNOVATION by Peter Fisk

Download a summary of masterclass: Strategic Innovation

Innovation by Leonardo da Vinci … anatomist, sculptor, artist, inventor, architect
Growth strategies – innovation beyond products, technology, and creativity
Starting from the future back – create the future you want, then work backwards
Working from the outside in – rethinking solutions through customer eyes
10 types of innovation – products and services to business models and experiences
Blue oceans, design thinking, open and agile, lean and frugal, sprints and hacks
Innovating how we innovate – profiling your innovation DNA

Session 2: DISRUPT OR BE DISRUPTED by Peter Fisk

Download a summary of masterclass: Disrupt of be Disrupted

Disrupt or be disrupted – challenging the status quo, from tech to market disruption
Start with the right question – what is the problem you are trying to solve
What would x do – seeing the problem from different perspectives and cultures
Making unusual connections – seeing things differently, parallels and idea fusions
Ecosystems, from make or buy, to partner and connect, platforms and communities
Innovation multipliers – accelerate ideas further and faster to accelerate growth
Creating a growth factory – portfolios, self-tuning and the invincible company

Session 3: GAMECHANGING STRATEGIES by Peter Fisk

Download a summary of masterclass: Gamechanging Strategies

Gamechanging – what do we mean by “the game” and how to “change” it?
Reframing – change the why – rethinking the context, purpose, applications
Refocusing – change the who – rethinking the markets, audiences, occasions
Reinventing – change the what – rethinking the product, service, experience
Reconfiguring – change the how – rethinking the process, channel, payment
Innovation to impact – creating a “gamechanging” business strategy

We used to just think a business simply made things, and sold them. Now its much more complicated. Or rather, there are many more innovative ways to achieve success …

Session 1: BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATION

Business models – emergence of business models, 50 models to adapt and apply
Rethinking your business model – what is it, and not – and different ways to define it
Mapping existing business model – simplifying how your business actually works
Innovating new business models – rethinking how your business could work better
Developing a business model portfolio – creating the invincible business

Session 2: NEW BUSINESS MODELS

Rethinking products and services – what would deliver the proposition better?
Rethinking channels and brands – how to build more inspiring connections?
Rethinking revenues and pricing – exploring alternative ways to make money?
Rethinking assets and resources – how to use what you have better?
Rethinking activities and partners – what do to do yourself, and by others?

Session 3: BUSINESS MODELLING

Your products and services – what would deliver your proposition better?
Your channels and brands – how to build more inspiring connections?
Your evenues and pricing – exploring alternative ways to make money?
Your assets and resources – how could you use what you have better?
Your activities and partners – what do you need to do yourself?

Previous sessions included

STRATEGIC INNOVATION by Peter Fisk

Download a summary of masterclass: Strategic Innovation

Innovation by Leonardo da Vinci … anatomist, sculptor, artist, inventor, architect
Growth strategies – innovation beyond products, technology, and creativity
Starting from the future back – create the future you want, then work backwards
Working from the outside in – rethinking solutions through customer eyes
10 types of innovation – products and services to business models and experiences
Blue oceans, design thinking, open and agile, lean and frugal, sprints and hacks
Innovating how we innovate – profiling your innovation DNA

DISRUPT OR BE DISRUPTED by Peter Fisk

Download a summary of masterclass: Disrupt of be Disrupted

Disrupt or be disrupted – challenging the status quo, from tech to market disruption
Start with the right question – what is the problem you are trying to solve
What would x do – seeing the problem from different perspectives and cultures
Making unusual connections – seeing things differently, parallels and idea fusions
Ecosystems, from make or buy, to partner and connect, platforms and communities
Innovation multipliers – accelerate ideas further and faster to accelerate growth
Creating a growth factory – portfolios, self-tuning and the invincible company

GAMECHANGING STRATEGIES by Peter Fisk

Download a summary of masterclass: Gamechanging Strategies

Gamechanging – what do we mean by “the game” and how to “change” it?
Reframing – change the why – rethinking the context, purpose, applications
Refocusing – change the who – rethinking the markets, audiences, occasions
Reinventing – change the what – rethinking the product, service, experience
Reconfiguring – change the how – rethinking the process, channel, payment
Innovation to impact – creating a “gamechanging” business strategy

Masterclass 1: LEADING CHANGE by Peter Fisk

Download a summary

Making sense of today’s world, the challenge and opportunity of relentless change
The future isn’t like it used to be, so we can’t keep doing what we used to do
100 companies changing the world right now. What can you learn from them?
Start with a future mindset, jump ahead, look forwards not backwards
Going beyond limits, how will you be the change, how will you achieve more?

Masterclass 2: THE FUTURE BUSINESS by Peter Fisk

Download a summary

How is the 21st Century Business different from the 20th Century Business?
East and West, Tech and Human, Profit and Purpose, Start-up and Corporate
Paradoxes provide new opportunities … to reinvent how we work, how we win
Learning from Asia’s high growth markets, and doing business differently
Defining the DNA of the future business, and what it takes to be a great leader

Masterclass 3: DARE TO BE MORE by Peter Fisk

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Aurora … Create the future, like Masayoshi Son and Emily Weiss
Komorebi … Seize the best opportunities, like Anne Wojcicki and Wang Xing
Transcendence … Find more purpose, like Larry Fink and Yves Chouinard
Ingenuity … Innovate with humanity, like Devi Shetty and David Kelley
Syzygy … Transform your business, like Bernard Arnault and Jeff Bezos
Ubuntu … Achieve more together like Piyush Gupta and Zhang Ruimin
Awestruck … Be a better leader, like Pablo Isla and Tadashi Yanai

Introduction

We live in the most incredible time. More change in the next 10 years than the last 250 years. Technologies with the power to help us leap forwards in unimaginable ways. To transform business, to drive radical innovation. to accelerate growth and achieve progress in the broader world too.

Artificial intelligence and robotics will come together with new mindsets and business models to disrupt everything from entertainment to education, healthcare and travel. For businesses, large and small, it creates a new playing field, with many new possibilities. For people, young and old, it brings new challenges and opportunities. For leaders, it demands new perspectives, new values, and radical new thinking.

“Leading Change” is about having the courage to achieve more. It is about stepping up to see further ahead, to explore more radical ideas, to discover new talents, to seize bigger opportunities, to have more influence, and to positively amplify your impact.

It’s about daring to be more.

Going beyond the ordinary to achieve extra ordinary results. It requires new thinking, and new approaches. It demands change. It probably requires that you are the change. Leading yourself and your business to a new place, to win in today and tomorrow’s world.

“Leading Change” is about rising up to lead the future of your business … There are 7 elevations, 7 ways for leaders to raise their game, that we will explore:

Winning… to rise above the pursuit of progress through incrementalism, to develop a future mindset, a forwards orientation, redefining success and how to achieve it.
Sensing… to rise above the chaos of change to see the drivers of tomorrow, making sense of complexity and uncertainty, finding the best new opportunities.
Framing… to rise above the limitations of business as a profit machine, to capture a higher purpose, guided by the desire, strategies and choices, to make life better.
Creating … to rise above the obsession for technologies, whilst harnessing their intelligence and capabilities, to innovate more radically for people and society.
Delivering … to rise above the limitations of big and small, incumbent or start-up, transforming organisations, fusing brands and networks with speed and agility.
Teaming … to rise above what we each contribute separately, to harness the power of diversity and collaboration, people and platforms, achieving more together.
Leading … to rise up to be the leader of the future business, with courage to embrace change and progress, inspire and enable others, finding your own magic.

Consider some of the challenges of our changing world:

In the last 25 years, China’s share of global manufacturing output has grown from 2% to 25%. Over that time China’s GDP has grown thirty-fold.
In the last two decades, 9.6% of the earth’s total wilderness areas has been lost, equalling an estimated 3.3 million square km.
51% of job activities can be automated, only 5% of jobs entirely replaceable by machines. However more new occupations will emerge than those lost.
New digital technologies can enable a 20% reduction in global carbon emissions by 2030, equivalent to eliminating more than China and India’s CO₂
Car sharing could reduce the number of cars needed by 90% by 2035, resulting in only 17% as many cars as there are today.
CEO pay has risen 1,000% over the last 40 years, howeveraverage worker pay has increased by just 11%, essentially stagnating taking into account inflation
72% of people feel that companies have become more dishonest. 93% of CEOs believe it’s important to engender trust that their company “will do the right thing”.

How will you rise up to do better?

Idea 1. More change in the next 10 years than the last 250 years.

How will you shape the future of your business? From the steam engine to the telephone, automobiles and aeroplanes, space travel and digital revolution, the world has moved forwards rapidly since the industrial revolution. Today’s revolution, driven by aspects such of robotics and AI, will be just as dramatic, but much faster. The next decade’s accelerating change, proliferation of technologies, rapid speed of adaption, and the exponential impacts that result, will dwarf the scale of previous progress. How will we rethink and reinvent our worlds?

Idea 2. Infinite potential, significant choices

How will you seize the opportunities of incredible change? Markets rise and fall, collide and evolve. Power shifts economically and politically, culturally and collectively. Young, intriguing start-ups grab the attention, whilst the older incumbent companies struggle to respond and adapt. Technology, most significantly, disrupts the rules of play, and the possibilities by which we can win. The challenge and opportunities are immense, but where to focus is not obvious. You have more choices than ever before, in terms of who, where, what and how. Global or local? China or India? Online or physical? Human or machines? Make or partner? The choices of course, are not binary or separate, but a huge spectrum of options. How will you make the smarter choices, the right choices for your future?

Idea 3. The paradox of “forwards versus backwards”

Are you doing what you’ve always done? Everybody struggles with this tension, spending too much time looking backwards, and not enough looking forwards. We pour over last year’s performance, learning from previous customers, talking about what we currently know, and rewarded for our past successes. We believe in the formula that got us to where we are, commercially and personally, afraid to let go of it. Yet the past is no longer a guide to the future. The future isn’t like it used to be, a continuation of today. It’s volatile, complex and ambiguous. Too many companies spend most of their time playing the old game, optimising their existing models, and trying to stretch the model which made them successful in the past. Are you looking forwards or backwards?

Idea 4. Pivot to the future

Start with a future mindset. New strategies, acquiring a few start-ups, and driving a program of innovation are not enough. They are typically framed in the context of the old world, the existing business, and an outdated mindset. Top-down business planning, stage-gate product development, and functional operations just don’t work in this new volatile and vibrant context. The old business thrived on stability and predictability, efficiency and repetition. What matters most is the mindset, the attitude to want to change, to be open to new ideas, to have a passion for the future, and to shape it in your own vision. A “growth mindset” is about exploring what’s next, whilst a “fixed mindset” seeks perfection, to optimise the status quo. Best of all, is a “future mindset” which embraces experimentation and growth, to see and shape the future to your advantage.

Idea 5. Build your future-proof business

Start-ups have all the advantages, don’t they? Corporate executives sit in their offices looking out with envy at the speed and agility of small companies, with their ability to start afresh with legacy infrastructures, to grab the new investment and focus on stretching and single-minded dreams, to inspire customers with their funky newness and new business models, and to easily for partnerships. Whilst “speedboats” have many advantages, the “supertankers” have their own strengths. Their challenge is to reimagine how they use their assets in new and powerful ways. Established audiences and diverse portfolios, established supply and distribution networks, experienced people and trusted reputations. The question is how to reimagine the business, to harness what exists and embrace the new. Start-ups and corporates both have advantages, it’s how they use them that matters. The future-proofed business combines the best of both speedboats and supertankers. Size is not the important thing. Transformation is not a one-off. Innovation and transformation are relentless in today’s world. Knowing what you will do next, and next, and next, matters. The future-proof organisation has a built-in appetite to keep reinventing itself.

Idea 6. Harness the power of ideas and networks

What makes a business successful? It’s certainly not about being the biggest company. Anybody can make lots of products, and sell them, usually at a discount. Equally, any company can have a great market share, if they just redefine the boundaries, or don’t care about profitability. So how did WhatsApp create $19 billion in 3 years with 17 people? Or Uber $66 billion in 6 years? Or Alibaba $470 billion in 13 years? They harnessed the power of addictive ideas – concepts, brands and experiences that spread rapidly across their target audiences. They harness the power of networks, in the form of platforms and ecosystems, affiliates and licensees, social media and online communities. The impact is exponential, in that it rapidly multiplies in reach and richness.

Idea 7. Be the radical optimist

Be curious and optimistic. Believe in a better world. What will it take to create the future of your business? If you don’t somebody will need to. Will your legacy be that you managed to postpone the demise of a sinking ship for a little longer, trying to survive in unchartered waters? Or will you be the navigator of incredible new voyages, with a fit for purpose boat, seizing the opportunities of new lands? Innovation today is less about products and services, more about markets and businesses. Transformation is probably a better word, because it demands holistic change. It also becomes relentless, not a short intervention, to get you to a new steady state, but a dynamic business for dynamic markets. Most of all, it starts with, and depends upon, you. Your mindset. Your transformation. Your leadership.

Idea 8. New technologies enhance our human and business potential

Is AI your rocket fuel to the future?Digital platforms like Alibaba and Airbnb bring millions of buyers and sellers together, big data analytics enable precision and predictive experiences like Netflix, 3D printing deletes factories and distributors from value chains, blockchain localises connections and decisions, robotics augments your capabilities, and perhaps most powerfully, AI can reinvent the very essence of what you do. Collectively they accelerate and converge, disrupt and transform every business function, across ever industry. Industry 4.0 is a revolution that challenges the existence of millions of businesses and jobs, Amazon can seem like the enemy of most retailers, Snapchat can feel like the insane distraction of our kids. Yet these technologies also create the possibilities to learn and live in new ways, for even the most traditional business, a local craftsman or a remote trader, to do more, better and cheaper, and go further and faster.

Idea 9. This is the Asian century. Time to follow the new Silk Road

Will you be the Marco Polo of China’s new Belt and Road? 5 billion people, two thirds of the world’s megacities, one third of the global economy, two-thirds of global economic growth, thirty of the Fortune 100, six of the ten largest banks, eight of the ten largest armies, five nuclear powers, massive technological innovation, the newest crop of top-ranked universities. Asia is also the world’s most ethnically, linguistically and culturally diverse region of the planet, eluding any remotely meaningful generalization beyond the geographic label itself. Even for Asians, Asia is dizzying to navigate.

Idea 10. Customers have new agendas, markets have new structures

What are the new drivers of value? Markets have super-segmented, driven by their individual needs, expectations and the ability of technology to engage each person uniquely. As trust in brands declines, they demand more value and greater transparency, and they turn to friends and peers for recommendation. They work on their terms not yours, requiring you to connect with their worlds – fusing public and private, digital and physical, personal and professional – changing contexts for purchase and the nature of value. Collectively as communities and society, their priorities have changed, beyond fairness and environment, demanding more, and rewarding those who deliver.

Idea 11. The paradox of “order versus chaos”

How do you make sense of all this complexity?Our inclination is to seek clarity, to put this new world into boxes, that make choices and targeting easy. But the world no longer lives in a convenient order, and any attempt to order it would miss the dynamic richness, and the new marketspaces. Day fuses with night, home with work, education with entertainment, rich with poor, male with female. There are no straight lines, instead we have brilliant ambiguities. The apparent chaos is the new order. Take customer insight for example, where the old method of seeking average insights about what we already know, is replaced by anthropological discovery, or “design thinking” to explore people in their changing lives. Sometimes it is about reducing chaos and complexity, to find focus and simplicity. Yet newness is often found in the complexity, outside of the old boxes.

Idea 12. Making sense of complexity demands a new worldview

What is your better worldview? When I asked Jim Snabe, chairman of Siemens and Maersk, how he makes sense of his business world, he paused. His first reaction was the obvious, to understand his specific industries, his customer and competitors, today. But then he reflected on the inadequacy of that current view. If what comes next will be different, then he needs to look differently for it, he said. Seeing the bigger picture, is one way to change our viewpoint, but it’s probably still not enough. We still put ourselves at the centre, and then explore the obvious adjacencies. Instead it’s about looking ahead, seeing the emerging patterns of change, the parallels and possibilities, how to react to them, to seize the best new opportunities first. Put simply it’s about being farsighted.

Idea 13. Start from the future, then work backwards

How do you find the best new opportunities?You start from the end point, and then work backwards. As a scientist I have always valued the power of hypothesis. As Einstein wandered through the Swiss mountains, he hypothesised a connection between energy and matter. It was then through experimentation that he proved the association and simplified it to a mathematical formula. Similarly, in dynamic markets, we should start with a hypothesis. This is a creative process. It is about asking profound questions, exploring alternative futures, looking beyond the boundaries of today. Ideas come from everywhere, from other industries or geographies, and from the margins where deviant behaviours and newness emerge. Developing a vision of what the future market will be like enables us to work backwards, and look at how it could evolve, and how we could be most influential in that, turning it to our advantage. This is more intuitive than analytical, requiring leaders to engage deeply in seeing and choosing the future they want.

Idea 14. Sensemaking becomes your competitive advantage.

The best surfers live for the biggest waves. Similarly, the best leaders thrive on radical change. Change that starts in the market and is positively embraced by the business. In the same way the surfers are constantly searching for that next big wave, scanning the global coastlines, travelling hours to get there, so business leaders should be watching the future. “Sensemaking” if you like, becomes the way to outthink, and ultimately outperform, the others in your current or future market, the way to attract customers who have a hunger for newness, and the way to make the right choices when complexity can seem overwhelming. It requires a holistic mind, one that can interpret likely cause and effect, that can use hypothesis and analogy. It requires a leadership team who have diversity of vision yet engage in a collective view of the future. There is no right or wrong, only possibility and choice. Perhaps most usefully, it requires a leader who can ask the right questions.

Do you have the belief of Eliud Kipchoge, to harness technologies like that of AlphaGo, that can transform businesses like Satya Nadella, with the beauty of Zhang Xin, letting go of the past like Mary Barra, creating the legacy of Jack Ma, and realising dreams like JK Rowling? And do it your way?

Find out more from the IE Business School Global AMP’s director Peter Fisk.