Business Watch
Trends, Tendencies & Innovation
Information is often regarded as a company's second-most important resource - second only to its most valuable asset, its people. Business intelligence facilitates decision-making: acting quickly and correctly on information, can often result in competitively superior performance. The Business Watch feature is our contribution a regular look at trends, tendencies and business innovation.
The Competitive Business Environment
The Environment and Innovation
The prime objective of an organisation is continuously to supply its customers with products and/or services which they require, and which add value to the customers.To achieve its objective, among other imperatives the organisation must understand its customers (and its customers customers), and it must foster an ideas culture and have the ability to innovate. Much has been written (and spoken of) by business gurus emphasising the importance of creative thinking, defining it as the lifeblood of enterprise, sustainable business improvement and economic growth. The question is how can a company foster a culture of ideas? It is easy to pose the question, but the answer doesn't spring immediately to mind.
Example 1: Recently, somewhere in Britain, a con-man forged a letter to a customer from a bank, asking for personal details under the pretence of confirming them for tax purposes. His attempt to use the information supplied by the customer to transfer £87 600 from the customer's account failed, but only because the bank phoned the customer to confirm the transaction. The forged letter had been accepted by the customer because it was written on the banks legal letterhead.
There is no definite written evidence of this, but the phrase "The show must go on!" is believed to have its origin in the circus in the 1930s. Over the years, it has become the rallying cry of any ongoing enterprise when the circumstances appear to indicate otherwise.
Two surveys independently conducted in England have suggested that office workers are becoming increasingly chained to their desks, although the surveys disagree on whether contemporary technology is the solution or the problem. Global headset manufacturer, Plantronic, found that 50% of people spent the whole working day at their desk abandoning it only to go to the bathroom, the photocopy machine, or to get a take-away. Of the one thousand office workers canvassed, 20% believed their health had suffered as a result of the lengthy period of time spent desk-bound.
Numerous books on the management of people have been published, and just as many on leadership. Often the words are interchangeable. Is there, in fact, a difference between managing people and the leadership of people? According to Leadership Consultant, Kevin Eikenberry, there is more than a difference. He puts it simply: things should be managed, people should be lead. There’s no question about the need for management, systems, processes, budgets, communication, planning, projects, administration, work flow, etc., etc., all need to be managed effectively.
