JimCarroll

Outsourcing transitions from cost savings to strategic necessity

May 4, 2007 by JimCarroll

My latest CAMagazine column is out ; in it, I focus on the role that financial executives should be thinking about in the context of the massive rates of change occuring in the global financial economy.

My observations come from a talk and research I undertook for a global financial conference in Grand Cayman back in January.

In the article, I note that “….there is a subtle and distinct shift in the location of “global money,” due to oil wealth and the industrialization of Asia. A recent article in Barron’s suggested that there is now about $1 trillion in excess reserves in these two regions. The likely result is that while more of the world’s wealth moves away from North America and Europe and into these new economic centers, the skills will follow.”

I also go on to note that “a recent comment in Asian Banker in December 2006 is instructive of the impact of this trend, noting that in the future, “…outsourcing will become less about cost containment and more about accessing the best skills and expertise….””

The issues are important, because it is all part of the increasingly complex war for talent occuring in every industry sector.

You can read the article

Banking and furniture industries — coping at high velocity!

April 26, 2007 by JimCarroll

It’s been a busy week, with keynotes for the American Community Bankers Association and the National Home Furnishings Association. This gave me an audience of several hundred CEO’s and senior marketing/sales VP’s of some pretty big organizations.

And I can tell you this: the undercurrent of the mood within both conferences was one of being “overwhelmed” by high velocity change! New methods of marketing, a constantly higher bar of expectations from customers, a need for relentless customer oriented innovation to meet those expectations, an accelerated product innovation cycle with a need for a faster time to market. Web 2.0, collaborative networks, social networking, new media spending, YouTube, Google! What the heck does one do!?

The mindset of many senior executives today is “where do we start? My keynotes approached this by indicating the three organizational capabilities they must adjust for:

velocity: they must evolve their organizations so that they can operate at the very fast pace that today’s market demands
instantaneity: they must be prepared for rapid shifts in market, style, demand, fashion, product, service, and just about everything else!
short term spontaneity: the consumer has no attention span left; they must learn to market, support and sell to the “continuous partial attention customer.”

My advice to them for the short term? I suggested to both audiences:

focus on upside down innovation: turn existing innovation models around, by learning customer focused innovation. I’ve written about that on this blog before; it is a trend that is sweeping the world of retail, and is coming to impact financial services
use the “new influencers” : some people are overwhelmed with product/service decision making : what should I get? What should I buy? They are increasingly turning to someone to help; in the case of furniture, parents seeking a home theater are turning to their kids for help! Re-steer your markeitng campaign to get the kids to get the parents in the door!
develop knowledge agility: sales staff are overwhelmed too. Help them cope, by focusing on just-in-time knowledge on new products, services, campaigns and other customer focused efforts.
focus on location-intelligence capabilities: online search increasingly drives customer decisions. It’s become extremely narrow and specific in the last year: you need to boost your ability to make sure you show up with very specific location information.
build your experiential capital: take risks. Make mistakes! Do things! Learn from it — that’s your experiential capital, and it is the most important asset in the high velocity economy! You can’t just sit around and hope this rapid change will go away. It won’t — and it’s going to get faster.

I think the feeling of being overwhelmed is a common one. Based on the comments post-keynote last night, I think I hit the right mark with the observations, and the guidance.

Where is the insight?

April 19, 2007 by JimCarroll

There are quite a few people out there who talk about innovation, all of whom have a very different background: some with design experience, others who are from the product marketing world; yet others from the university research sector.

I’m unique, in that my innovation insight, gained through the last 15 years of private consulting and speaking, also comes from the reality that prior to that, I spent 15 years with the world’s largest accounting firm, with a client base in industry, health care, government, retail, consumer goods, financial service and insurance, and many more.

I’m still a professional Chartered Accountant ; though I don’t practice accounting on a daily basis, I still provide deep insight into the financial issues that are increasingly important in the high velocity economy. That reality has boosted my credibility in the minds of many of the Fortune 1000 clients who book me.

Why is this so? I often talk about innovation in the context of the ability of an organization possessing the agility necessary to respond to a world of rapid change. Innovation is not just a design issue; it is an operational, structural and analysis-capability issue.

In one of my regular columns for CAMagazine, which goes to about 110,000 Chartered Accountants, I wrote of the criticality of instant insight and what an organization needs to survive today’s fast paced markets: ” immediate customized detailed insight into what is working in the field and what is not; where the product introduction is succeeding and where it is failing; data on regional breakouts of market success and factors that could help replicate that success. They needed financial numbers, real numbers — important numbers.”

There are tremendous opportunities for innovation in the way an organization deals with market and operational rapidity. As I note in the column: “Call it financial insight for market rapidity. Shouldn’t that be the goal of the financial systems we are putting in place?”

The article goes on to tell a great story of how a US manufacturing organization used the concept of deep-insight to deal with a very unique market challenge. I still think it is one of the greatest innovation success stories I have ever seen.

Innovation = insight. It’s an important concept, and one well worth pondering.

Read the article

Health care industry keynotes

April 14, 2007 by JimCarroll

A bit of a backgrounder on my work in the health care sector/

Partial client list

Waters Corporation • MDS Nordion • American Society for Health Care Risk Management • VHA Georgia • Blue Cross Blue Shield national office • Association of Organ Procurement Organizations • Phamalinx annual conference • Health Care Industry Distributors Association • Trillium Health Care • Providence Health Plans • Harvard Pilgrim Helath Care • Canadian Medical Association • Glaxo Wellcome • American Academy of Opthalmology • North Carolina Medical Managers Group • Canadian Organization For Advanced Computers & Health • Health Administration Association of BC • Ontario Hospital Association • Roche Diagnostics • Essilor Eyecare

Areas of trends and innovation focus

• managing health in an era of constraint and challenge • opening up the minds of health care workers and adminstrators to the potential of the future • a futuristic examination of impact of digital technology and connectivity of health care • rethinking health care delivery in the digital age • business case issues for medical adminstrative staff on digital business • motivational kickoff/keynote for staff events • medical company sales force training and motivation • innovation — new business models, exploiting new opportunities in the health care sector • a look to the future • strategy sessions

Highlights

Jim recently spoke to 600 employees of a major health care supplier, from the perspective of “A Day in the Life of a Patient in 2030.” He took a look back at the massive and huge transformative changes which occurred in the world of health care from 2006 to 2030.
Jim provided the opening keynote for about 3,000 health care professionals at the annual American Society for Health Care Risk Management in San Antonio, TX, with an indepth futurist view of key health care trends
co-authored “Good Health Online” a book that examined the role the Internet can play in our own health care, long before this became an issue on the radar of the health care industry
Jim has provided workshops for senior managers of health care organizations, focussing on the issue of health care services in the digital age, and the impact of e-biz on the health care industry. He provided senior management of Blue Cross/Blue Shield Florida with an interactive workshop — and they were so thrilled with the result that they had him down for four more sessions. He has now walked 400 of their senior staff through workshops that have helped them to assss the future of health care
Jim helps health care professionals and executives understand the massive change occurring in the world of healthcare, and think about ways that healthcare services are provided and delivered in a time of rapid change
as a futurist, he takes a unique look at the opportunties and challenges in the world of health care as change envelopes the industry at a a furious pace, and helps administrators and medical professionals conceptualize the strategies and issues that need to be pursued

Messing with bits of business strategy ….

April 11, 2007 by JimCarroll

When you are on stage, you’re mind is working at light speed, as you synthesize your knowledge to the trends impacting the crowd. You often don’t get to reconcile a lot of it till later. I’ve had two weeks in the home office and have been working on my book, and preparing for a raft of upcoming presentations.

When you get breathing room, you can gain some insight from what you’ve been doing: : when it comes to innovation, I’ve been dealing with a lot of organizations who have had some very interesting, innovative approaches to business strategy. Here’s a short list to think about as to how you stir up some innovation by messing with your business strategy:

look out: don’t ask what you can do to run your business better — ask what you can due to run your customer, supplier or partner’s business better!
move beyond: most projects start out with one strategic goal in mind. Succesful innovators realize part way into the project that myriad other new, unknown, and very cool opportunities are opening up — that they hadn’t even thought of before. Keep your eyes open!
turn the tables: a lot of companies are being WalMartized and HomeDepotized, and have to meet certain operational expectations. Innovators go beyond this, and do cool things that let them regain more control over the relationship — usually with projects that give them more info on what’s happening on the shelf than the “big guys” have!
clarify fuzziness. In the last few years, companies have found that the reliability of information around chargebacks, end-cap fee management, promo display management and all the other esoteric stuff, has become extremely fuzzy, because they’ve lost control of the information. They’ve beat this back by making financial / accounting reconciliation important once again. It flows right to the bottom line …. and can be an easy win.
be cool: smart people don’t want to work for companies that have no innovation-oxygen. They’re looking for companies that are busting their markets, ramping up growth, and who are willing to take a risk. Your brand isn’t just your product — it’s your attractability-index! And here’s an even better secret: even existing staff want you to be cool. They’re seeing innovation, and they want you doing it too, even if they grumble and groan about it.
build your street-cred: your customers, suppliers and partners live in a world in which everyone has instant insight, operational excellence, and staff who know what is going on. If you don’t, you lose your credibility, and you lose more that that. You’ve got to continue to invest to keep up with the ever increasing minimum-bar-of-expectations that’s out there.
slice and dice: your a loser if you play in a commodity economy. Build the intelligence that lets you know where you can win by being premium, and toss the rest of your customers overboard.
routinely innovate: lots of companies continue to struggle with SOX and Rule 404. Few approached it as an innovation opportunity; but those who did won big, as they got away from spreadsheet based compliance, and realized real business process transformation. View any emerging regulatory requirement as an innovation opportunity, and you’re golden!
extend and embrace: make your insight your partners insight, and let your transcations be there transactions! While “portals” sounds so-90’s, it’s still one of the leading edge innovation strategies out there, and it has a big impact.

10 Long Term Trends of Real Substance

April 3, 2007 by JimCarroll

The level of hype right now with “social networking” and technology is getting a bit out of hand. It’s a little bit like 1999 all over again! While what’s happening right now is important, it’s more fun to think about some of the things that are happening on a 15-20 year horizon. Big change is everywhere, and most people miss the big transformations while they are underway. Here’s my list of some of the trends we should really be watching.

rapid movers start to predominate: some of today’s XBox/Wii players are going to be CEO’s of big companies within 15-20 years. The high-velocity economy is just starting to take off. Just wait until the Gen-Connect starts to run things.
everything is gaining intelligence: chips and connectivity are immersing themselves into everday, ordinary things, and you likely aren’t even noticing. Hyperconnectivity changes everything: bioconnectivity and device-intelligence are the things to watch.
volatility is the new normal: increasing connectivity increases the likelihood of cascading failures. Risk management is becoming more important, and more complex. Fewer organizations pay serious attention to the complexity of risk, leading to greater potential for short, sharp economic shocks.
boredom increasingly drives markets: people can’t stop fidgeting with their cell phones long enough to pay attention to anything. Clarity of value is critical, creativity is crucial, engagement is the next brand foundation.
transformational change is everywhere: there are lots of people dying to mess up the fundamentals in almost every industry, and they aren’t your competitors. Industry blurring will continue unabated, as rebellion against established business models becomes the norm; think GoogleCar, not Toyota. Flexibility with change is critical.
the bar of expectations continues to increase: you have to innovate to keep up with the expectations of your customer, partners and suppliers, or you don’t survive. An increasing number of brands will expire and become something from “the olden days,” simply because their organizations lack the ability to innovate.
the “created in China” phase comes next: half the population is under the age of 25. They’re wired, highly collaborative, and have tasted the early stages of economic success. Innovation is thriving – forget manufacturing, think design.
big trends rule. Over 20 years, health care transitions from prevention to detection; ethanol moves from distillation to production; manufacturing goes from production to fabbing. There are big, sweeping industrial changes underway, and it has nothing to do with the current hype around “social networking,” et al.
knowledge and discovery exponentiates: the new global-mind generates new knowledge at furious rates. We’re going from 19 million known chemical substances today, to 80 million by 2025, and 5 billion by 2100. Any new substance can lead to the emergence of a billion dollar market. Discovery rules, time-to-market defines.
experiential capital dominates over financial capital: over a 20 year span, it’s the depth of experience that counts; the agility to respond to rapid change that will define the success or death of an organization. Money thrown at innovation doesn’t work; the knowledge that comes from trying things out, and learning from the experience, leads to greater innovation success.

These are all things I’ve written about on this blog over time. The trends are all quite simple to understand, surround us today, and are breathtaking in scope.

JimCarroll

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THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO ARE FAST features the best of the insight from Jim Carroll’s blog, in which he covers issues related to creativity, innovation and future trends.

THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO ARE FAST features the best of the insight from Jim Carroll’s blog, in which he
covers issues related to creativity, innovation and future trends.