Versatile Amphibian

Yesterday’s news cycle brought with it the announcement that Debenhams, a staple of the UK high street, was now in the control of its lenders . This kind of news is sad for the employees of Debenhams and certainly for its shareholders, but it is also a good opportunity for reflection. A business that can trace its history back to 1778 may be about to cease trading forever. For leaders in the retail and associated consumer industries, now is a good time to consider what lessons can be learnt from Debenhams and what could be done to seize the opportunity presented by its passing. I’m thinking about the topic of strategic responses to emerging events at the moment because of the seeming inevitability of a recession this year or next, which will doubtless bring with it many similar situations. Before I get started, a disclaimer. I have no inside knowledge of Debenhams, I have never consulted for them, pitched to them or even met anyone in their management team. This post uses Debenham...

I recently made this graphic for a presentation and thought it was worth sharing as a reminder that for all of the talk of 'exponential technologies' and innovation, most 'digital' businesses are actually quite simple. Leaders are under pressure to do crazy digital things, particularly with respect to technology, and yet I would contend that getting to the best in class technology and operating (organisational etc...) infrastructure for the business model you are currently working with or striving for would be a better basis for lasting growth. Boring as it sounds, that means ERP, WMS systems if you're pre-digital; CRM, CMS at al if you're 1st Wave; event streaming and simulation if you're 2nd Wave... and if you're 3rd Wave you don't need my advice! The other observation I have about this picture is that every wave comes with a deeper, but also leaner and more productive operational stack that benefits it in competition with the previous wave. ...

When I published my first post on the current and future structure of Executive Leadership Teams (ExCos) I promised that I was in the process of extending the data set to encompass the S&P 500 as well as the FTSE 100. As you can imagine, this is a mammoth undertaking given that my time is restricted to evenings (when not looking after my son), weekends (ditto), the commute and snatched sidebar conversations with colleagues. Nonetheless I am making some progress in my analysis... my data gathering for all companies beginning with 'A' on the S&P 500 are now complete. Rather than wait for all letters to be completed, I thought I'd throw out a few findings and see what you all think of them. So, in no particular order: I was able to look at 63  organisations, although 3 of them declined to publish details of their leadership structure and I was unable to get the information from within my network. One of these, incidentally, is Alphabet... In ...

In the last two posts, I’ve presented an analysis of the makeup of executive leadership teams in the FTSE 100, then suggested some new roles that might help CEOs defend their cash cows as they commoditise and are affected by potential substitutes. In this post I’ll suggest some new perspectives that will enable CEOs to go on the offensive, to shape new markets and win within them. The best defence, as the adage goes, is a good offense. This is obviously complete rubbish, but it sounds great, so I’m going to give it air time. It’s also true in my mind that the majority of the roles that we need relate to shaping and building the future business. Let’s cover them in that order. We need to understand the environment in order to effect change within it. This suggests to me that we need to have someone in every decision who has a distinct mandate to seek to map out what could happen in the future in more specific terms than ‘change will happen’. One could see this role as a Chief E...

In my last post , I summarised the findings of my analysis of the composition of executive leadership teams in the FTSE 100, having first set out some basic principles for the role of that team in the present environment. You can find that content here. Today I’m going to start to look at possible roles on an ideal future ExCo, leading onto future essays on orthodox and unorthodox compositions and finally on the resulting impact those compositions will have on decision-making flows. To look at roles, we first need to think about the demands that the present environment is placing on leaders. The world has always been a complex place to do business in. The difference today is that we are far more aware of that complexity than we have been in previous generations and our ability to generate and suffer from change is exponentially greater than it has been before. We are also nearing the end of the latest techno-economic revolution – in information technology – which began in 1971...

My friend and colleague Paul Lee forwarded me the following article on the role the West Coast Tech industry played in the election of Donald Trump a week ago. The article is interesting and here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/technology/trump-election-silicon-valley-reels.html?_r=1 It raised some interesting thoughts for me about parallels between the sense of hopelessness that may be behind those voting for any change and that of similar people during other economic transitions. All the following is my instinctive off-the-cuff response to the article. I apologise in advance for any lack of compassion and empathy, also for occasional drifting into future musing. Take  it as read that I'm another out of touch member of the Liberal elite! The article is interesting in that it highlights the challenges of our shifting economic system. The point it makes is incomplete in that it is not just tech employees that have benefited from this economy – it is the relati...

It's been a while since I've posted. Work is the reason for this: there is lots of it! My assumption as to why this is is that many more organisations are feeling the impact of the broad spectrum disruption that's coming down the line from increasingly established Digital Economy businesses. Great for me, troubling for my clients...  The disruption is characterised by: Unequal competition between relatively local, focused, traditional organisations and global, digital-first conglomerates A rapid move to consumer-centricity from product-centricity as the predominant business model Uncertainty about how to achieve rapid change from a standing start or even where to begin with a programme of strategic change I'm coming to believe that mobile telecoms carriers are likely to be the next to suffer reimagination of their industry. Open infrastructure projects, network virtualisation and over-the-top services, combined with zealous regulators suggest that is now...

As you know, I spend an excessive amount of time trying to describe how Digital Economy businesses are different from Industrial Economy ones. A structure I've tried out recently is the one shown in the picture below, which is intended for a TV/ filmed entertainment company. The idea is that the business can be abstracted into three layers: A Presentation Layer, that enables their products/ service/ content to be accessed/ used/ consumed; A Monetisation Layer that enables assets to be... well, monetised through the presentation layer; and An Asset Layer that describes the explicit and implicit assets of the business On the left side of the diagram are the traditional controlled and ordered layers of the Industrial Economy. On the right is the often unknown and anarchic world of the Digital. I think it's quite fun to play with, which you do by picking one square on the left and imagining how the squares on the right would change how your business operates and comp...