Culture, like brand, is misunderstood and often discounted as a touchy-feely component of business that belongs to HR. It’s not intangible or fluffy, it’s not a vibe or the office décor. It’s one of the most important drivers that has to be set or adjusted to push long-term, sustainable success. It’s not good enough just to have an amazing product and a healthy bank balance. Long-term success is dependent on a culture that is nurtured and alive. Culture is the environment in which your strategy and your brand thrives or dies a slow death.

I would say this even stronger: culture is what is implemented in the organization and in the head of the employees while strategies, plans and organization charts are incomplete and one dimensional sketches of what we want the organization to be. The problem is that we think that we can bypass the concept of culture to get directly from these sketchy plans to changed organizational behavior, when in fact the changed culture is what we really want to achieve.

26 January 88 Permalink

These great digital powers [Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and maybe Microsoft] are now building Digital Civilizations, rather than a series of mere products, individual platforms or even ecosystems (around a platform). They are pursuing strategies that reach far beyond the confines of existing markets. They are causing widespread market collisions as they push industries to overlap, merge or cease to exist. They are outflanking and disrupting companies that follow less ambitious corporate strategies.

These new Digital Civilizations use identity to tie numerous disparate products, many devices, multiple platforms and product portfolios together into their long term strategy. Each Civilization has hundreds of millions of active users — often with credit cards attached — far more than even the largest telecom operators or media companies. They straddle industries rather than operating within legacy market sectors. They have an organizing ideology underlying their strategy that motivates and attracts talented employees, excites partners, and is the foundation for the marketing that entices users to become their customers.

This is an interesting analysis of what is going on… Well worth reading and thinking about!

25 November 97 Permalink

According to Stratfor the tactics in Mumbai wasn’t new. In 1993 another group with clear connections to al Qaeda planned to execute very similar attack on New York - now known as the “Landmarks” plot.

4 December Permalink

The uncertainties after the financial crisis are increasing the use of scenario planning, even if it should have been done before:

But abandoning the prediction game is not an option. Companies are now redoubling their forecasting efforts, even though (and perhaps because) the horizon is brimming with unknowns. In a recent CFO Research survey, 41 percent of senior finance executives said they have strengthened scenario-planning procedures in light of the banking crisis.

2 December Permalink