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raheel naqvi

How Strategic Imagination Happens - Umair Haque - HarvardBusiness.org - 0 views

  • How Strategic Imagination Happens
  • That's this: thinking differently about strategy is impossible - or, perhaps worse, that it's naïve.
  • Let's take a second to explore.
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  • Strategy isn't written in stone. Rather strategy is built upon a given set of economics - at the simplest level, a set of payoffs.
  • Today's economics are in shock - numerous shocks are rolling across the global economic landscape.
  • As economics changes, so must strategy. What was "strategic" yesterday is less and less strategic today.
  • And that requires us to have strategic imagination: to be able to imagine fundamentally new possibilities for truly strategic behaviour.
  • Now, that's hard work. Very few companies are able to tap - let alone master - strategic imagination.
  • Why not? Strategic imagination is tremendously difficult because it requires us to put aside yesterday's tired assumptions and orthodoxies, and begin to actively rethink from scratch the way value can be, should be, must be, will be created.
  • The surest, most lethal killer of strategic imagination is being reined in by orthodoxy: thinking that tomorrow must be like yesterday.
  • Here are a few examples of strategic imagination:
  • It was naïve for Apple to think that it could make a better mobile phone from scratch - and that a simple phone could redesign the rotting mobile value chain - or so Nokia and Sony Ericsson thought. It was naïve for Tata to believe that a car affordable for the world's poor could ever be designed, let alone produced - or so Detroit thought. It was naïve for Google to focus on doing no evil before focusing on revenue and profitability - or so Big Media thought. It was naïve for P&G to open up, and explore radical new modes of interaction, instead of pursuing orthodox advantage by staying closed - or so Wal-Mart thought. It was naïve for H&M and Zara to imagine that cheap clothes could be hyperfashionable - more fashionable than couture - or so the Gap thought. What do these examples have in common? They're examples of strategic imagination that required firms to be naïve: to start from scratch, to see, in Technicolor, a better world not constrained by today's stifling and suffocating status quo. Ratan Tata, in the article above, talks about a "leap of faith". That's the next stage of strategic imagination: being able to see and then believe in a vastly different, radically better future - and not being limited to seeing and believing in a grainy, washed-out future that seems depressingly inevitable.
  • But taking leaps of faith is exactly what orthodox firms are built not to do.
  • The edgeconomy demands firms explode their capacity for strategic imagination.
  • That's why only a single player on that list is an orthodox incumbent - P&G: the rest are new entrants, or lateral entrants.
  • Another example. I've been talking about artificial scarcity quite a bit. Here's JP Rangaswami discussing responding to artificial scarcity with artificial abundance. Now that's the beginnings of strategic imagination.
  • Edge strategy isn't for incrementalists. Those who think games built for an industrial era are still the only ones worth playing need not apply.
  • Rather, it takes a profound appetite for revolution: a profound ability to let go of yesterday's stale, tired, and thoroughly toxic orthodoxies - to explode the shrunken, stunted strategic imagination the industrial-era firm suffers from.
raheel naqvi

Vault: Boutique Consulting Firms: Vault Career Advice - 0 views

  • Boutique Consulting Firms
  • Boutique Consulting Firms
  • Boutique firms support their clients with highly-specialized expertise. Boutique firms choose to focus on a smaller number of industries (energy, life sciences, retail), functions (M&A, economics and litigation, turnaround), or methodologies (real options, EVA).
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  • There are a couple of common misconceptions about boutique firms. One is that being a "boutique consulting firm" necessarily implies being a small firm. This is not the case. A boutique is determined not by size, but by focus. L.E.K. Consulting (which was founded by a handful of former Bain partners) has roughly 500 employees, but we would consider the company a boutique because of its specific focus on three types of strategy consulting problems-M&A, shareholder value, and business strategy. Another misconception is that boutiques are less prestigious than the multi-functional firms. This highly depends on the area of focus. For example, BCG is extremely well-regarded across many industries for most types of strategy problems, but for a decision analysis or real options strategy problem, clients might turn to Strategic Decisions Group, which focuses on those areas.
  • All this said, we should note that many boutiques are indeed small, ranging from upwards of 200 employees down to a single consultant. Often, boutique consulting firms grow from the expertise and client relationships of one to five founding partners, and unless it sells a consistently large flow of work, the firm has no compelling reason to grow quickly. Also, smaller boutiques can deliver services at lower costs than the larger consultancies because a smaller firm requires less overhead and less extra "capacity" (i.e., consultants), so their services might seem more attractive to prospective clients than those of the more expensive firms. If you are especially interested in a particular industry or type of consulting problem, definitely do your homework on the outstanding boutiques in that field. If you find the right company to match your interests, you will spend all of your time doing the work you dreamt of, and that is a much harder goal to achieve within a more diverse consulting firm.
  • Examples of boutique consulting projects: A consulting firm with a well-known shareholder value methodology helps a beverage company establish value metrics in its business units An economics consulting firm helps a foreign government decide how to structure the privatization (sale) of its utilities through an auction A niche R&D strategy consulting firm deploys two consultants to a high-growth semiconductor company in Silicon Valley for a 3 month project to improve R&D processes A process reengineering boutique snares a 6-month project to assist implementation of new supplier standards for an automotive consortium A turnaround consulting firm helps a telecommunications hardware firm restructure its organization until Chapter 11 bankruptcy
  • Leading boutique and internal consulting firms include: Charles River Associates (economics and litigation consulting) L.E.K. Consulting (shareholder value, M&A, and business strategy) Marakon Associates (shareholder value methodology)
raheel naqvi

Bubblegeneration Strategy Lab - 0 views

  • The New Economics of Music: File-Sharing and Double Moral Hazard Part 1: Why the Music Industry is (Really) Broken ‘The whole point of digital music is the risk-free grazing’ – Cory Doctorow Every major label 's setting up an iTunes these days. They're all, in the immortal words of Johnny Cash, 'born to lose, and destined to fail'. Why? The music industry doesn't understand the microeconomics of it's own business. If it did, it would see that it's business model is not just misguided, but broken- because, DRM or not, the implicit contract it signs with listeners is being broken in both directions. I reached this conclusion because, as I was scoping BoingBoing one day, I read Cory's statement, and it struck me as exactly right. For many people, digital music's more about risk than it is about music itself. Not legal risk - but transactional risk, the kind of risk you take when you buy a used car. Now, this statement has deep economic meaning. I'd like to explain why.
raheel naqvi

Value creation generates wealth - 0 views

  • Value creation generates wealth
  • Any business has three levels of value definition - value defined by shareholders, customers and employees/partnership. Shareholder value is the primary value component no business can survive without and provides for the long term agility of an organisation. Customers provide medium term liquidity and employees the operational cash flow to ensure the continued operation of an enterprise. An enterprise architect must have a good understanding of wealth creation formula like economic value add to assess the contribution of IT to Wealth Creation
raheel naqvi

The Financial Services Club's Blog: Technology is a key for banking in 2009 - 0 views

  • Technology is a key for banking in 2009 I found a whole range of technology predictions for 2009.  One of the best general forecasts comes from Gartner, who say that the top ten technology areas to focus upon during an economic crisis are:1. Reduce headcount or freeze hiring2. Renegotiate with technology and service providers3. Curtail data center expansion, virtualize assets and lease them back4. Consolidate systems5. Outsource commodity6. Offshore outsource7. Investment shutdown8. Prioritize projects9. Mothball businesses and projects10. Change leadership and restructure IT teamsI agree with this list.In banking, it goes further.  In banking, technology is a critical part of the solution for the crisis, and technology also provides a way to avoid the crisis occurring again.  That is why I titled this as technology providing 'a key for banking in 2009'.Technology is the key. 
raheel naqvi

Havas Media Lab - 0 views

  • The arrival of sustainable sustainability?
  • A little late I know, but just before the end of the year, we were fortunate enough to be a part of the Sustainable Life Media conference in Miami.  As is often the case, the event was full of interesting people extolling the virtues of more sustainable practices - from large MNC’s such as J&J through to some fantastically nimble social start-ups. But more than that, there was a real sense of change in the air. A sense that for the first time we were looking at making businesses sustainable, rather than bringing sustainability into business. In other words, for the first time I sensed that sustainability was being recognised as a key piece of DNA architecture for business, rather than some fan-fared adjunct.The ramifications of this are profound: for a start, this is what Peter Salmon from Moxie (who I had the pleasure to share a plenary session with) has labelled Sustainability 2.0. Or even 3.0. It also suggests an exciting trend that sees sustainability becoming near-impossible to focus on within the firm. That is not to say that it is absent, but rather just invisible.  Or rather, inherent. We are constantly hearing clients and colleagues citing an economic downturn as the worst possible time to embark on initiatives under the sustainability banner. But to make this criticism is to make the mistake that sustainability remains an annexe to the firm - an incidental anecdote to be told when appropriate.
  • This is most certainly wrong; instead, sustainability offers the best chance for firms to remain in business, as they redefine boundaries of influence and re-stock reserves of trust.This sounds absurd, but for too long, I really do not think the majority of firms have actually viewed sustainability as being linked in any way to their…..well, sustainability. And as such, it has been a nice-to-have appendage.So maybe this is now changing? Maybe Sustainability 2.0 and the crushing re-evaluation of business in the current climate marks the arrival of sustainable sustainability?  Based on the clear exodus of freshly-empowered CMOs and CEOs from large MNCs at the Miami conference, keen to demonstrate their new-found independence via boutique consulting efforts and old business cards with biro’d new titles and cell phone numbers, it seems so. Which also means sustainability could be finally becoming less about guilt, burden and ‘doing what’s right’ and much more about opportunity, energy and doing what’s exciting. Which would be very exciting indeed.G  
raheel naqvi

ENGL 571: Hayes on Forms of Capital - 0 views

  • Bourdieu defines social capital as, "the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition." (248) An individual's social capital is determined by the size or their relationship network, the sum of its cumulated resources (both cultural and economic), and how successfully (quickly) the individual can set them it in motion. According to Bourdieu, social networks must be continuously maintained and fostered over time in order for them to be called upon quickly in the future.
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