Jan Van Veen, Managing Director, moreMomentum, continues his series of articles looking at how service organisations can drive revenue from their services by harnessing the IoT...
AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Jan Van Veen
About the Author:
Jan has over 15 years experience in various manufacturing industries, either as business leader or as consultant. He has worked for Fortune500 business and many other – smaller manufacturers. We have seen many manufacturers struggle with business innovation and change, despite great ideas. visions and business strategies. In 2015, this has inspired Jan to start his ongoing research into what sets the leaders apart from the laggards. This research is the basis of the 4 Winning Habits and the foundation of moreMomentum. moreMomentum has a team of experienced business leaders and experts to support customers.
Aug 24, 2018 • Features • Future of FIeld Service • Jan Van Veen • moreMomentum • field service • IoT • Service Management • Service Revenue • Customer Satisfaction and Expectations • Managing the Mobile Workforce
Jan Van Veen, Managing Director, moreMomentum, continues his series of articles looking at how service organisations can drive revenue from their services by harnessing the IoT...
Solve bigger customer problems
In the previous issue of Field Service News, I wrote an introduction on the topic “How to Monetise Services and IoT”, covering the dilemma of many business leaders in manufacturing.
In this article, I will elaborate on the first of the three critical steps which often make the difference between success and failure:
- SOLVE BIGGER CUSTOMER PROBLEMS
- Articulate the value
- Build internal momentum for monetisation
Common mistakes in the industry
One of the common mistakes is focusing on the smaller problems and making only small incremental improvements to services or solutions.
"One of the common mistakes is focusing on the smaller problems and making only small incremental improvements to services or solutions..."
These are typically the standard next step improvements most competitors bring to the market as well. Although these are also necessary improvements – adding features to your solutions - to sustain your market position, they are unlikely to bring about significant growth or opportunities required to monetise. For example, think of new features that car manufacturers introduce to their new models or weekly computer software updates that occur without paying more.
Another common mistake is focusing too much on only the availability and use of the equipment. In most situations, the extra value is having a broader impact of the value creation process for our clients. In most industries, the purchase, financing, and maintenance of equipment is a small portion of the overall budget.
Truck manufacturers as an example
As an example, while the sale of trucks was shrinking dramatically, leading truck manufacturers like MAN, DAF and Scania discovered that discounting the trucks did not have that much of an impact. One of the biggest challenges for truck operators was reducing fuel consumption. The leading truck manufacturers took this challenge beyond aero-dynamics and engine efficiency, and developed data-driven services to reduce fuel consumption by improving the way truck drivers drove the trucks.
Discovering the bigger customer problems
The ideal practice is to:
- Solve the bigger problems in a significantly better or more efficient way for clients, or
- Solve any new significant problems for our clients
Before developing new services and solutions, it is crucial to have a deeper understanding of the challenges and problems that your clients face. The following activities will prevent any bias from long-standing experience and business norms:
- Reframe addressable customer needs with your team and colleagues who are involved. The aim is to have a broader view and scope on customer needs. Explicitly ban objections against the idea of servicing those needs.
- Focus on actual “jobs-to-do” for your clients and areas where they are struggling or could improve. For example, improving uptime may not be that relevant for clients with a low utilisation rate. Whether you carry out professional customer research or not, it is always good if various colleagues have frequent open conversations with different stakeholders about views on the industry, trends, challenges etc. Sharing the following simple diagram during such conversations is helpful for you and your clients to keep the dialogue open.
- Explore how your clients are solving problems and what suppliers are helping them.
- Also, explore the needs and challenges of the customers of your customers. This will give more insight into your customer’s needs.
- Explore what needs you could/should be addressed now and in the future. With these insights, you can extend and enhance your vision, strategies and roadmap for innovating your services and generating new revenue streams.
The Benefit
Manufacturers that solve the bigger problems can better articulate the value for customers and staff, have higher momentum for change and monetisation, generate new revenue streams and differentiate themselves more from the competition.
"Manufacturers that solve the bigger problems can better articulate the value for customers and staff, have higher momentum for change and monetisation..."
]They perform better and have more resources to keep innovating their business, enabling growth in a sometimes disruptive world.
Monetisation of services and IoT – Impulse Session
If you want to accelerate the monetisation of your (new) services and IoT, join our upcoming Impulse Sessions on “How to Monetise Service and IoT”. These are full-day interactive meetings with like-minded peers during which we will exchange our experiences, insights, and challenges.
Book your seat @ http://fs-ne.ws/1pMC30lpssC
Essence
Great offerings and solutions won’t sell themselves!
It is various colleagues together that drive the value perception and sell the solutions, because of their eagerness and passion to perform, learn, develop and make new things happen, as well as avoid unnecessary obstacles that cause internal conflicts of interest and reduce confidence.
Jan Van Veen, is Managing Director, moreMomentum,
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May 22, 2018 • Features • Management • 4 winnng habits • Jan Van Veen • management • Mining • more momentum • Oil and Gas • VP of Service • big data • Business Disruption • Chief Digital Officer • Digitalization • field service • Hackathons • Service Management • Servitization • Service Innovation and Design
In this latest of his Momentum Case Studies, Jan van Veen, co-founder of moreMomentum, interviews proven leaders across the globe who are successfully implementing the 4 Winning Habits to lead innovative, energised and engaged teams.
In this latest of his Momentum Case Studies, Jan van Veen, co-founder of moreMomentum, interviews proven leaders across the globe who are successfully implementing the 4 Winning Habits to lead innovative, energised and engaged teams.
Here the case study examines a global leader serving the mining and oil & gas industries. Much of their recent success has come because they take services very seriously, being seen as a knowledge partner to help their customers improve operational efficiency, reduce risks and increase profitability.
The challenges faced
The company operates in traditionally slow-moving industries with large incumbent players and has become a leader by creating a strong service business which now generates a significant portion of total revenues, deepens customer relationships and creates resilience during economic downturns.
However, it has now spotted that a potentially significant disruptive threat could emerge from ‘big data’ and data analytics technologies, enabling new types of services. In the past, they would have considered taking five years to develop new equipment to be fast for the industry, but now understands that when it comes to future services, the speed of innovation needs to be higher.
Senior management is very aware that customers will move away if they see a better way of doing things, so the company must adapt if it is to stay a market leader.
The Strategy
The company has entered a period of change. To meet the disruptive threat ahead it must be visionary: to redesign itself and its culture so it can move much faster to keep ahead, enthusiastically embracing digital technologies with a focus on the end-to-end customer experience. In fact, it has to re-imagine its relationship with its customers so that rather than selling products, it provides ways to help its customers improve their operational processes and even their business models.
The company has demonstrated success from the 4 Winning Habits for Momentum so far, but now they need to take it to another level. Here we will show how they are using each of the 4 Winning Habits in the implementation of its strategy, creating Momentum for long-term sustainable success.
Direction – the common cause that everyone can get behind
The company management has recognised that, at a time of change, a compelling vision describing their role to help customers be more profitable is important to pull everyone together in the same direction. It is being spread throughout the company using both traditional townhall meetings, the company intranet as well as new digital social sharing methods such as Salesforce, Chatter and Yammer.
It helps operational messages fit into context if there is a beacon for people to move towards if there is a vision of what the company will look like in five yearVP of Service Marketing: “It helps operational messages fit into context if there is a beacon for people to move towards if there is a vision of what the company will look like in five years, what the industry will be like, what our company will be like. Otherwise, you have isolated initiatives”.
To push the new company direction, the company has been busy hiring a new CEO, CMO and CDO (Chief Digital Officer), all with experience in driving innovation. The Board understands the need for change, but the company can be a supertanker which takes time to turn. However, it is also aware that the competitive landscape can change quite quickly.
Dialogue – open discussion at and between all levels to encourage new ideas
Digital initiatives are at the centre of this company’s reinvention, so senior managers are heavily involved in steering new ideas, to get behind them and also to prevent them from breaking current business streams.
Across the company, at least 75% of targets and incentives are collective, leading to limited silo thinking between teams since they’re all in the same boat. Where there is friction, it’s usually because goals have been set too narrowly and issues fall between the silos. As a result, there is much less politics than might be expected in a large company and a higher level of transparency on performance.
This all helps create a culture of trust with less finger pointing and blame.
VP of Service Marketing: “Rather than looking for blame, people look at how to fix issues and learn from mistakes. It works well due to open dialogue. People don’t feel threatened and are not so eager to hide problems”.
Decision-making – local decision-making empowerment
The company has always had a decentralised structure. Different markets are quite autonomous and allowed to make their own local sales decisions, choosing which sales and marketing initiatives in which to participate based on market needs. This has been a successful approach so far, but staff at all levels and across the business will need to now be included in the decision making processes if the company is to continue adapting at a fast enough pace.
Discovery – Looking for new trends, opportunities and threats (internal and external)
The newly established Digital Office is a powerhouse of new ideas to add new technology to client relationships, including tools such as the Internet of Things devices and data analytics. It has been set up to operate somewhat separately from the mainstream company in order to be free from ‘business as usual’ thinking.
Companies, middle managers actually, are often quick to kill new products they see as a threat to the status quo and that’s why it’s good to have a Chief Digital Officer, tasked to create change and disruptionVP of Service Marketing: “Companies, middle managers actually, are often quick to kill new products they see as a threat to the status quo and that’s why it’s good to have a CDO, tasked to create change and disruption. We might all be comfortable with how things are today and not want to change it but I’m damn sure there’s someone out there who wants to kill our business model, and will be aided and abetted by our customers if they see a better way of doing things”.
The company has even started trying new approaches to R&D, such as hackathons.
VP of Service Marketing: “When I first heard of hackathons I have to admit I was sceptical, but from what I’ve seen they actually allow people to look at problems in new ways and get people involved who would never normally be involved, and maybe redesign the way of doing things. And for big companies, that’s what we have to do, because our competitors don’t worry about the fact we have an established base and products, they’re actually thinking ‘How can I change the industry to make money? They don’t care if it destroys our business’”.
The company has also started involving customers in its processes, for example with surveys. They keep the company honest about its achievements, drive change and allow them to spot systemic issues. The voice of the customer can be very powerful.
Next Steps:
Change is an ongoing process at this manufacturing company, but they recognise the need to accelerate the pace of change to a new level and then make it ‘business as usual’ – a revolution in the mining sector!
The 4 Winning Habits for Momentum will be key. They are working on a clearer picture of the future state of the company, to give stronger Direction to the business units and local staff for local Decisionmaking.
Dialogue with staff will improve, so personal objectives will be better aligned to the strategy and not be so focussed on purely financial targets, but also learning, collaboration and Discovery of new opportunities. If they can do all this, then they will truly be creating a revolution in mining.
Outcomes
The huge growth in the service business at the company has brought enormous benefits for their customers, made the company a trusted ‘knowledge partner’ and expertly positioned them to forge ahead into digital transformation.
People buy from them now because of the advice they give and their approach to improving their customers’ businesses. For instance, mining equipment runs 24/7/365 and downtime can cost many €100,000s per day so, they have redesigned parts, consumables and field services to reduce the time it takes to change them, so reducing costs for their customers.
Energy efficiency has been another focus, as has the charging model – customers pay for service contracts by the ton, so they know their costs in advance. These changes epitomise the innovations that the company has achieved, and there are many more on the way.
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Apr 27, 2018 • Features • Future of FIeld Service • Jan Van Veen • Kodak • Nokia • Polaroid • digitalisation • Disruption • IBM • Servitization • Service Innovation and Design
Jan Van Veen, Managing Director, moreMomentum explains how field service companies can thrive in a disruptive industry...
Jan Van Veen, Managing Director, moreMomentum explains how field service companies can thrive in a disruptive industry...
The key challenge
In the manufacturing sector, a popular topic is the potential disruption, driven by:
- New technologies like artificial intelligence, Internet of things and augmented reality
- New technology specific to the equipment we offer
- Changing customers
- Emerging markets
- New entrants into the industry
And the potentially disruptive new value offerings, operating models and business models which could emerge.
As manufacturers, we run the risk of missing the boat, so the question is: Disrupt or Be Disrupted? Most of the companies will not be able to disrupt but certainly, need to know how to thrive in a disruptive world.
In my view, the following is required to be successful:
- Full understanding of disruption and its potential impact for the business
- Clarity on what needs to change in your business to thrive in a disruptive industry
- The high pace of continuous change to innovate and execute
However, too often I see misconceptions about disruption and disruptive innovation, a lack of clarity on what needs to change and too slow a pace of change.
By consequence, manufacturers tend to make inadequate assessments and develop inadequate strategies, allowing leading competitors and new entrants into the industry to take the lead.
In this article, I will focus on what disruptive innovation is, the impact and how to prevent typical pitfalls.
What is disruption?
Disruptive innovation is a nasty beast. We have seen quite a few strong brands (almost) disappearing because of disruption, like Kodak, Nokia, IBM computers and Polaroid to mention a few.
For clarity, I’d like to categorize innovation along two dimensions:
- Impact: mainstream versus disruptive
- Scope: Customer value versus internal capabilities
Mainstream innovation
Mainstream innovations annually improve the value of products and services (including the related internal capabilities) as expected by the market. The aim is to increase our value and margins by better serving our best clients.
These innovations can be small and incremental or more radical.
Examples of incremental mainstream innovations are improved fuel consumption of cars engines, improved uptime of the equipment we sell through more reliable equipment and better maintenance.
Examples of more radical mainstream innovations are cars going electric and our services becoming more predictive and performance basedExamples of more radical mainstream innovations are cars going electric and our services becoming more predictive and performance-based.
Manufacturers that fall behind the competition, have not been disrupted yet The majority of the manufacturing companies are too slow in driving the mainstream innovation and see leading competitors achieving higher growth rates, higher margins, more service – recurring and stable – revenue and higher customer loyalties being ahead of the game. As Jack Welsh said: “If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.”
Disruptive innovation
Disruptive innovations break with the ongoing and upward trend of improving value. There are two ways of disruptive innovation: offering lower value at a lower price for the low-end market or offering lower-barrier solution opening new market segments which have not been served so far.
At the early stages, disruptive products and services serve a small niche, often at a lower value level.
These solutions will follow a mainstream innovation journey, increasing value and price. Gradually the products or services become a viable alternative for a larger portion of the markets.
Examples of low-end disruptions are the low-cost airlines, which offer flights at lower service levels and lower prices. This is quite attractive for business travellers who do not want to pay a premium price for meals and convenience.
One example of new market disruptions in which a new product or service serves other needs are the PC’s, which after some time started competing against the mainframes. Another example is salesforce.com, which offered so much more flexibility and lower cost of ownership than the traditional on-premise CRM systems.
Innovating internal capabilities
New technology enables us to develop new organizational capabilities.
For example, the low-cost airlines have adopted quite different operating models which allow them to consistently fly at much lower cost and hence maintain good margins at a low price level. For service operations, we see many manufacturers developing capabilities like remote service, connectivity, big-data and algorithms and predicting failures.
These, in themselves, are not value propositions and have no value for customers. However, these can be crucial capabilities for new service propositions.
Innovating external (customer) value
For maximum impact focus on customer value, not on capabilities
The real impact to drive competitive value is by addressing unmet needs or barriers to use new technology or solutions with a new product, services or integrated solutions. Examples are:
- How Rolls Royce offers a zero-disruption proposition for aerospace engines in which clients only pay per flight hour
- How MAN reduces fuel consumption by improving driving behaviour
- How Caterpillar helps managing a construction plant and will ensure at every stage of the construction the right number of the required equipment is available.
Besides the services and products, we can also increase value by enhancing customer experience, our brand and (lower) price levels.
Why does this matter?
At the early stages of a disruption, incumbents may see the new products and services entering their market.
However, compared to business-as-usual, the new products and services are relevant for a small niche only, the market volumes are small and the added value often is much lower. Their best clients are not interested.
At the early stages of a disruption, incumbents may see the new products and services entering their market.Above that, there are so many trends and new innovations, it is hard to predict which ones will become successful. This, together with the pressure to optimize top-line and bottom line and adequately serving our best clients, means it is easy to ignore the signs and consider them as irrelevant.
Disruption most often comes from outside your industry
Historically it appears that often incumbents beat new entrants when it’s about mainstream innovations, as they will defend their main business with valuable clients. However, when it’s about disruptive innovation, new entrants disrupt the industry and incumbents only start to respond (in panic) when it’s too late.
The new entrants have built the knowledge, capabilities and the brand which makes it tough for incumbents to catch up in time.
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Feb 21, 2018 • Features • Management • Continuous Improvement • Jan Van Veen • management • Volvo Penta • CHange Management • Vase Study
Jan van Veen, Managing Director, moreMomentum interviews Seva Gavrilov, Market Unit Director, Russian of Volvo Penta
Jan van Veen, Managing Director, moreMomentum interviews Seva Gavrilov, Market Unit Director, Russian of Volvo Penta
Volvo Penta is a global, world-leading supplier of engines and complete power solutions for marine and industrial applications. Their comprehensive, reliable solutions have helped customers all over the world increase productivity and performance – in every detail. By continuously improving their offer, through innovative, sustainable power solutions and the strengths and expertise of the entire Volvo Group, they have redefined premium for the modern market, operating entirely through their independent dealership network.
Seva Gavrilov joined Volvo Penta 22 years ago and took over leadership of the Russian business in 2007. He has always had a passion for nautical engineering, having graduated from the Marine Technology University in St Petersberg as a Naval engineer but also as a visionary with a head for business. Now, he is leading Volvo Penta through a programme of initiatives that are giving their dealerships a competitive edge, more momentum and increasing the company’s market share.
moreMomentum believes, as a result of our research, that successful long-term managers and companies have established ‘Momentum’, starting with 4 Winning Habits – Direction, Dialogue, Decision-making and Discovery. In this series of Momentum Case Studies, Jan van Veen, co-founder of moreMomentum, interviews proven managers across the globe who are successfully implementing the 4 Winning Habits to lead innovative, energised and engaged teams.
Challenges facing Volvo Penta Services in Russia
In the early 2010’s Volvo Penta decided its route to increased growth was through the large corporate fleet owners such as the shipping and oil companies who controlled significant purchasing budgets. A major obstacle to this goal however was the dealer network that had created Volvo Penta’s success to date. At that time, the dealers saw each other as competitors and lacked trust. When it comes to corporate customers, many dealers are smaller local companies which do not have the resources, skills or confidence to respond to large-scale bids and service contracts. They lacked expertise in areas such as advanced corporate financing, project management, HR, etc. On the other hand, the larger dealers needed access to local markets for customer relationships, delivery and customer service. Seva needed a new approach to dealerships.
The Strategy
An obvious solution would have been to consolidate the dealers into a smaller number of large companies that could cope with the large deals, but in a large country like Russia that was impractical – they needed to keep access to small local areas. Instead, Seva created a strategy that would do two things: reverse the company’s focus so it put customers/fleet owners first and also encourage collaboration between the dealers instead of competition. All this could only be achieved by influence, to change how the dealers worked with each other, so a new environment of trust and co-operation could be built. The strategy was planned out over several years and introduced step-by-step so as not to scare people, but take them along on the journey.
Here we will show how Volvo Penta in Russia demonstrated each of the 4 Winning Habits in the implementation of its plan, creating momentum for long-term sustainable success. The strategy shows that momentum can start in highly competitive environments or even in other companies, elsewhere in the value chain, when the 4 Winning Habits are employed.
Direction – the common cause that everyone can get behind
Seva needed the dealers in the network to see the value in each other instead of just competition. Each had different strengths and skills that could be of use to the rest and enable them to reach and respond to more varied customers. This goal of collaboration was the direction driving the programme, although the dealers didn’t necessarily know it in the beginning. They soon realised however that along with collaboration come happier customers and a reduction in stress levels.
Dialogue – open discussion at and between all levels to encourage new ideas
The Volvo Penta annual dealer conference had always focussed mainly on reporting and products, so it was attended by dealers’ more junior managers. Starting in 2012 however, the agenda was changed to focus more on communication. It started with simple steps such as roundtable discussions that let the dealers identify common opportunities and solve common problems by themselves instead of with Volvo Penta’s intervention. Whereas before they would often blame each other, open discussion now started even on contentious subjects such as price wars. In the second year, Seva provoked discussions to create a realisation that collaboration was possible and even desirable. He made them think for themselves how it could work and what the benefits would be, and they produced 30 benefits of sharing resources (e.g. specialised mechanics, financial experts, parts, knowledge, etc).
The focus of the conference shifted to strategy, and with added training on subjects such as finance, communications, leadership and finding solutions from conflicts, it attracted more senior delegates as it was seen as a decision-making forum. From the third year, the dealers created their own agenda which has gone on to strengthen trust and collaboration.
It shows that once people start to talk they also start to trust and then solve issues which were critical but difficult to solve before - Seva Gavrilov, Volvo Penta
To support the new collaborative approach, Seva improved the bonus scheme to reward dealers who contributed to the success of the group. Now, only 30% of bonuses are sales driven, the rest being based on competencies, skills and as a reward for sharing resources. There is even an extra bonus that dealers can award to each other as thanks for assistance. Since bonus levels also define the next year’s discount they are extremely valuable and sought after.
Decision-making – local decision-making empowerment
As a result of the new open environment, the dealers have taken it upon themselves to support each other. The smaller dealers, that used to rely on discounting, are now being ‘lifted up’ and actively supported by the larger ones. They’re not only a source of leads but can keep local customer relationships going and provide local provisioning in regions that would otherwise be too costly. Dealers are now regularly sharing mechanics, knowledge, financial expertise, etc.
In order to reinforce the new culture, the top six dealers voluntarily withdrew themselves from the annual ‘Best Dealer’ competition for four years, making the rest more motivated to win. Now, the competition is much tougher and the winners are more representative of the whole dealer network.
In addition, the four largest dealers joined forces to mutually fund and develop new management reporting software, connected to the accounting systems, to measure daily performance against targets. It provides a report on sales, customer satisfaction, parts, etc. Soon it will be rolled out across the entire dealer network, meaning common standards and quality for the big fleet customers.
If Volvo Penta had developed the software it would have been more expensive and created resistance. Because they did it themselves they made it in the way they wanted and paid for it themselves. I expect the roll-out to be quicker than if Volvo Penta had done it - Seva Gavrilov, Volvo Penta
Discovery – Looking for new external trends, opportunities and threats
The conversation with customers has changed. Dealers are less and less seeing themselves as just parts suppliers and breakage fixers. They are looking for other values such as budgeting, parts supply forecast, telematics and other service solutions.
Having in mind shared resources, dealers now know they can provide better service to customers than before. This also opens up opportunities which dealers were not able to afford before such as better payment terms to customers, quicker service, etc. Some dealers have also started to open branches in remote areas as they see them as opportunities rather than cost.
Next Steps
The next step in the programme is to develop higher levels of customer service, to create such a good feeling about the brand that the people in customers and dealers feel proud to use Volvo Penta products. Their relationships will grow into trusted partnerships where the smallest to largest customers can be open to changing market conditions and challenges they see approaching.
The group HQ in Gothenburg, Sweden has been watching Seva’s programme carefully and has already implemented some similar ideas internationally. Since the company is in a transition period from being largely product and dealer focussed to Customer focused, Russia’s key message is to enforce the shift to end-user benefits. Improvements in change processes, complaint handling and collaboration between groups such as sales and service can make huge improvements.
Beyond that, Seva wants the dealers to think about why they are in business in the first place. He wants them to make so much money that they spend more on their life, to make a better world for themselves and the people around them. - Seva Gavrilov, Volvo Penta
It’s important to make the connection between profits and common social values and that will be the subject of the next conference. Money and profits are only the intermediate result, there are more objectives behind it.
What will they do with their profit? What is the bigger game? What is their direction?
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Feb 17, 2018 • Features • Management • Jan Van Veen • management • moreMomentum • Motivation • Business Improvement • CHange Management • Service Innovation and Design
Jan Van Veen, Managing Director, moreMomentum, continues his exclusive series for Field Service News exploring the ‘4 Winning Habits of Long-Lasting Achievers in Service’ and looks at the importance of the third winning habit: Decision-making.
Jan Van Veen, Managing Director, moreMomentum, continues his exclusive series for Field Service News exploring the ‘4 Winning Habits of Long-Lasting Achievers in Service’ and looks at the importance of the third winning habit: Decision-making.
Common mistake: Dismissing employees to take ownership
During the last decades, if not centuries, it became a habit to have all important decisions in companies made at top management levels. The assumption traditionally is that this is where the skills, expertise and overview are to make the right decisions. The aim was to increase control, predictability and stability. This used to work fine in most sectors as they were fairly predictable and stable.
However, a lot has changed. Lifecycles of products, services and markets are shorter, changes are quicker, new trends and the future are less predictable, and the complexity of running a business has increased dramatically.
In more industries, companies are suffering from lack of adaptability and agility and falling behind the competition.
Here are a few symptoms we see from the traditional top-down management habits:
- Someone in the lower ranks who sees a threat or opportunity and wants to act on it first needs to discuss this with higher rank management to get their approval and buy-in/decision. There is a challenge that many initiatives face for the attention and favourable decisions from top management. These politics can be frustrating for employees.
- The time of decision-making by higher management is becoming scarce in the critical path for most initiatives. Necessary decisions are being delayed or being made without the attention required.
- The quality of decision-making suffers from inadequate information. Observations and information about threats and opportunities do not flow through the organisation quickly and accurately enough.[/unordered_list]
The solution: Unlock the huge decision-making power throughout the organisation
Leading companies have tremendous power, speed and responsiveness due to the following effective habits on decision-making:
- Top-down and bottom-up strategies and roadmaps
- Effective and efficient decision-making
- Full transparency
1. Top-down and bottom-up strategies and roadmaps
Maintain an overall strategy and roadmap
The overall strategy and roadmap defines the changes required in different phases to achieve the envisioned future. It clarifies the focus and ballpark figures on key metrics towards the envisioned future. This provides a clear picture of the direction required for all entities of the business to shape their own role, contribution and strategy.
Typically, the leading companies have competence centres for various topics which provide best practices, frameworks, benchmarks and advice to the entities in order to develop and execute their strategies.
Each entity has its own strategy and roadmap
Based on the overall strategy and roadmap, each division, subsidiary and department maintains and executes its own specific strategy and roadmap. They own their plan and are fully accountable for the progress and results.
Larger organisations have a cascade of several levels of sub-strategies, which can contain dozens or many more sub-strategies.
Focus on “new”
Within most successful companies, the strategy and roadmap is about moving towards the future. It’s about doing new things and doing things differently in order to achieve new performance levels and future success. An excel-sheet with numbers, for example, does not achieve this purpose on its own.
2. Effective and efficient decision making
Many business leaders fear that decentralized decision-making leads to chaos and that control mechanisms are needed to prevent this. Most companies still use traditional “plan & control” mechanisms which require complex, expensive and time-consuming coordination systems.
The following practices ensure that decentralized decision-making is powerful and secures performance;
Structure of decision making units
Every team fits in an overall structure of roles and responsibilities with clear objectives. Each team develops, maintains and follows their own strategy which contributes to the overall strategy and roadmap.
This provides clarity to everyone who decides on what, and how, decisions relate to each other.
Decision-making protocol
Every team follows a decision-making protocol which provides guiding principles and rules on;
- How autonomous the team is for the different domains that make decisions
- How to align with other stakeholders
- How to handle objections from stakeholders, depending on the impact this might have for other stakeholders and/or the organisation as a whole
- When decisions have to be handed over to other decision making units[/unordered_list]
Some decisions hardly have an impact on other teams and can therefore be made autonomously.
Other decisions have a minor impact on the work of other teams. These other teams are informed about the decision, how this will impact them and how they are expected to adjust. The other teams provide feedback and suggestions, however it remains up to the deciding team how they incorporate the feedback and suggestions.
Some decisions could have a major impact on other teams or the organisation as a whole. For these decisions, there is a protocol in which other stakeholders can raise objections that need to be processed adequately. In some cases the decision has to be handed over to another team who has the responsibility of the bigger picture.
3. Full transparency on performance and financials trigger crucial initiatives
In many organisations, the flow of information is limited because of lack of information systems, defensive behaviour, limited willingness to openly share and too little interest in the overall picture. As a result, people miss opportunities and make wrong decisions. This reduces collaboration and initiatives throughout the organisation and increases resistance.
Constructive and well informed dialogue, strategy development and decision-making require that everyone has the same, and adequate, information about results, failures, progress, opportunities, threats, trends and practices.
Leading companies are transparent about the following:
- Financial figures of the entire business, as well as the different entities
- Progress of projects and initiatives
- Challenges or issues they are facing, including failures
- Customer feedback
- Decisions
- Practices or processes[/unordered_list]
Benefits
The benefit of encouraging decision-making throughout the entire organisation is that, on all levels in the organisation, teams and employees have engagement and ownership. They aim higher, pursue more opportunities and achieve more. Decision-making is faster, more responsive, has higher quality and is executed quicker.
The result is that the business is more adaptable to changes and therefore performs better today and will also perform better tomorrow and further in the future.
The Essence
If we think that it’s about control, stability and predictability, then we’ve missed the point! It is about thriving in a changing and unpredictable world, full of opportunities that we need to discover. It’s about passionately exploring, developing, learning and discovering what works, and what doesn’t work.
‘Magic’ happens when you bring together business innovation and employee development and empowerment.
How well has your business adopted the 4 Winning Habits?
Discover your momentum for innovation and change with the online Momentum Scorecard find out more @ http://fs-ne.ws/mpKJ30ibWsb
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Feb 01, 2018 • Features • Management • Jan Van Veen • management • moreMomentum • Motivation • Business Improvement • CHange Management
Jan van Veen, Managing Director, moreMomentum continues his exclusive series of articles for Field Service News on ‘4 Winning Habits of Long-Lasting Achievers in Service’ this time turning his attention to the second winning habit: Dialogue...
Jan van Veen, Managing Director, moreMomentum continues his exclusive series of articles for Field Service News on ‘4 Winning Habits of Long-Lasting Achievers in Service’ this time turning his attention to the second winning habit: Dialogue...
A Common Mistake: Paralysis By Control
Recently I had an interesting conversation with a Service Leader from one of the leading printer and copier manufacturers about how to empower co-workers to drive change from the bottom up. They had already abandoned their outcome-oriented performance review system but nevertheless, their teams still find it difficult to drive change at a high pace.
An important reason is that dialogue between different management levels and operational specialists is rather infrequent and even then, most conversations are still about outcomes and targets. Even this informal pressure for results preserves feelings of insecurity and low confidence which blocks attempts to adopt and drive change.
Traditionally, many business leaders assumed that they needed strong control mechanisms to manage performance, a dated belief that is still common today. During the last few decades of relentlessly growing markets, the name of the game was rationalising processes and keeping the ability to scale up quickly enough. One of the challenges was control and predictability.
In today’s world, these traditional planning and control mechanisms do not work anymore. They limit teams’ ability to think and act collectively, to innovate their business and drive change. Planning & control mechanisms punish poor performance and setbacks. Employees sense a default unsafe environment and are pushed into a defensive, survival mode. It is safer to keep aspirations low, externalise challenges, blame others and limit ownership.
This results in a strong force to do more of the same and stick to the status-quo.
The solution: A forward-looking and constructive dialogue across all levels and functions
Our recent research clearly shows that winning and dynamic manufacturers have embedded practices and habits which empower employees to drive continuous, easy change from the inside. These modern mechanisms for dialogue across all levels and function are:
- Forward-looking objectives and priorities which drive change and collaboration
- Constructive reviews
- Forward-looking interventions
1. Promote change and collaboration with the right objectives and priorities
Continuous alignment of objectives and priorities: Winning companies focus on strategic objectives that build strong organisational capabilities for performance and continuous business innovation. Building and maintaining a fit and healthy organisation is the focus of (top) management. The most important objectives and targets are about the organisational capabilities, small changes and bigger innovations.
Aspirations, objectives, strategies, limitations, opportunities and pre-requisites are frequently discussed and adjusted when needed to ensure coherent and aligned actions and initiatives across all individuals, teams and departments.Aspirations, objectives, strategies, limitations, opportunities and pre-requisites are frequently discussed and adjusted when needed to ensure coherent and aligned actions and initiatives across all individuals, teams and departments.
Shared outcome targets: Teams and individuals share the same common objectives for results in operational performance and innovation. Their bonus schemes are based on the same indicators. They are all in the same boat, trying to achieve the same objectives. Each team and individual will be open and looking for ways to contribute to the overall targets. Instead of resisting or getting complacent, they all collaborate where needed.
Individual contribution targets: Each team and individual has full clarity on how they are expected to contribute to achieving the outcome. Think about maintaining and developing organisational capabilities, building personal competencies, collaborating with other teams and the level of effort required. For example, the financial department could contribute to the customer experience by improving invoicing (speed, accuracy, transparency, responsiveness to inquiries).
2. Build confidence & safety with constructive and forward-looking reviews
Positive feedback: Colleagues are open to candid feedback and provide constructive feedback to each other. Feedback is not about performance, but approach, activities, priorities, opportunities and threats and is intended to encourage them to adapt and improve. It is related to aspirations, the vision, the strategy.
Forward-looking: The focus is not on the fact that something went wrong, but on how to get it right. What can be learned from setbacks or issues, how can the approach be adjusted? What are new ideas and approaches? It doesn’t make sense to argue about the past.
Multiple stakeholders: Best practice is to include other stakeholders and experts in the reviews, by collecting their feedback, sharing feedback and asking for their view on the problem. This prevents unnecessary bias, reveals many more opportunities for improvement and will get more active support to easily and rapidly implement the interventions.
3. Solve from 1st principle
Root Cause Analysis: Leading companies make it a critical organisational habit to perform a root analysis for pretty much every issue or set-back. As many issues or opportunities affect more than one team or department, it is a good habit to follow through with a diverse group of people and teams who can contribute to the analysis as well as the solution.
What we see is that the winning companies have developed a routine and structure to document, communicate and decide on root cause analyses and interventions.What we see is that the winning companies have developed a routine and structure to document, communicate and decide on root cause analyses and interventions. Root causes and the success of new interventions are standard topics of meetings and conversations. “No time” is not seen a valid reason to skip the root cause analysis.
Structural solutions: Based on the root cause analysis, managers create long-term interventions that define the fundamental solutions and sustainable decision-criteria. They do not step into the trap of short-term, cost-oriented decisions that would let them fall back from fundamental solutions to symptom fighting.
Phased implementation: For complex and time-consuming solutions they define a phased implementation, where first steps can be low-hanging fruit or quick workarounds when the criticality is high. In such cases they ensure that the phased implementation continues after the first steps, to prevent falling back into symptom fighting.
Benefits
The big benefit of this ongoing and forward-looking dialogue across the entire organisation and all levels is to build an environment where everybody feels confident and safe. They feel they can take the initiative to solve issues and pursue opportunities, to come up with interventions when things go differently than expected and ensure coherence between all initiatives.
In psychology, it’s a well-known phenomenon that too much pressure on outcomes and performance kills learning and change.Employees are open and transparent about their successes and struggles, raise risks and problems, ask for help, provide help and simply do what is needed to perform and move forward for future success. Not because there is pressure from a burning platform, but because they want to.
In psychology, it’s a well-known phenomenon that too much pressure on outcomes and performance kills learning and change.
The Essence
We believe that this is not about better articulating the burning platform and creating a sense of urgency. It is about creating a constructive and forward-thinking environment where your colleagues want to, can and do take the right initiatives and bring them into practice.
Magic happens when you bring together business innovation on one hand and employee development and empowerment on the other.
Are you interested in these 4 winning habits and how to implement them?
Follow our articles and case studies over the coming months and join us for one of our Momentum Impulse Sessions through Europe. Reserve your seat @ http://fs-ne.ws/WQih30gRcev
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Nov 13, 2017 • Features • Management • Ashley Weller • Jan Van Veen • Mars Drinks • moreMomentum • Case Studies • case study
As part of his ongoing research what makes successful companies tick, Jan van Veen, co-founder of moreMomentum, has begun a series of interviews with proven managers across the globe who are successfully implementing the 4 Winning Habits to lead...
As part of his ongoing research what makes successful companies tick, Jan van Veen, co-founder of moreMomentum, has begun a series of interviews with proven managers across the globe who are successfully implementing the 4 Winning Habits to lead innovative, energised and engaged teams.
This time around he talks to Ashley Weller, UK Service Director, Mars Drinks...
Mars Drinks is one of the world’s biggest and most successful vending machine companies and a part of Mars Incorporated. It operates globally, supplying and maintaining machines in workplaces such as offices and manufacturing sites in North America, Europe and a growing business in China and Japan. Although the sector is in decline in the UK, Mars Drinks is beating the market trends by knowing their customers and playing to their strengths, and has now been keeping us all going with our favourite hot drinks for 45 years.
Ashley Weller took over as UK Service Director in 2015, with 20 years experience in the service industry, a degree in History of Art and a passionate but empathetic leadership style.
He came in as the business was starting to see intense competition from coffee shop chains embedded in offices as well as on the high street. Ashley took the visionary decision to challenge his people to elevate their role, transforming themselves into Brand Ambassadors and adding even more value to great customer relationships.
Now, the staff are energised, their customer satisfaction is way up and the company is supplying a much wider range of products than ever before.
The challenges facing Mars Drinks UK Customer Service
Apart from the general food industry trend to coffee shops, the UK Service Department also had its own challenges for Ashley.
After many years, the service engineers had become somewhat disengaged with the role they were playing within the company, and although they were highly engaged with their regular clients and maintained great relationships there, their role was solely to fix broken machines.
Furthermore, the company had been focusing its investment on sales and marketing, leaving the service department, with its good customer feedback, to continue operating with minimal investment. There was a feeling that that their impact wasn’t as valued as other departments and that the great work they’d been doing wasn’t getting the recognition it should.
The Strategy
Ashley wanted to bring the Service division back into the fold of the company and use the engineers’ knowledge and excellent client relationships as a USP to build more business. To do this, in a 3-year plan, he created a supportive, safe environment free from blame that enabled the engineers to be the drivers of that change, supporting them all the way along their journey to become Brand Ambassadors.
The service leadership team would be vital to the process, being the first to experience the new environment, supporting it from day one and learning first-hand how the new dialogue would work, so they could pass on their experiences to the teams.
Here we will show how Mars Drinks demonstrated each of the 4 Winning Habits in the implementation of its plan, creating Momentum for long-term sustainable success in its UK Service division. The strategy shows that Momentum can start anywhere when the 4 Winning Habits are employed. They soon spread to other departments when they see the positive impact.
Direction – the common cause that everyone can get behind
The main aim was to build the engineers up to be brand ambassadors, strengthening their strong client relationships even more but in a way that added value. Up to that point, the engineers were the customers’ white knights, fixing problems but not always recognised for the full value they could bring to the company.
The engineers feared they were being asked to sell and that this might harm their existing, genuine relationships, but in fact found customers love it when they talk to them and tell them about new products, and also then provide more feedback. It’s a win/win when the customer feels valued and provides information that improves the business.
The level of success achieved can only be maintained by ensuring new people can work in this type of environment so the onboarding process is very thorough.
Now, it’s very important that new joiners are brought into the service culture so it can continue. The level of success achieved can only be maintained by ensuring new people can work in this type of environment so the onboarding process is very thorough.
Dialogue – open discussion at and between all levels to encourage new ideas
The team began by recognising they had to remove the fear of failure for suggesting or trying ideas and then include the engineers in the solution planning process. The message was “You want to be part of business and the business wants you”. It takes years to earn this level of trust however.
Ashley started by playing a video which the engineers had made about their work at a company conference. Suddenly, the engineers were given a stage – people around the company started talking about service and the engineers felt pride that the business was noticing them and their contribution.
The next step was to ask them their opinions. Throughout the 3-year plan, it was anticipated that there would be mistakes and course corrections needed, so the engineers were encouraged to say what was working and what wasn’t. The senior management team also bought in to the process and gave their support.
The engineers had great relationships with their clients, but how could they add more value to the customer and the company?
Of course, there were early adopters and laggards. With support and attention from the company comes accountability, meaning some couldn’t hide any more. Strong people managers helped staff on that journey and some became exemplars for the new role. The proof is in the practice: “people need to see it delivered to understand that this is now the norm.”
Personal objectives are an effective way to include people, and in Mars Drinks they waterfall down from higher company goals, helping people to see why they matter. People aren’t only measured on targets, but also on trying new ideas, adding value and learning from other colleagues or learning from failure. Of course, this also means you can’t give bad reviews if an experiment fails.
Decision-making – local decision-making empowerment
Engineers saw things on a day to day basis that they wanted to improve and many, it turns out, had already started working on small improvement projects in their own time. These hadn’t been shared due to a fear of failure. Once more trust had been established, implementing some of these ideas across the UK saved thousands of pounds and many hundreds of working hours. Now, the engineers are keen to make more suggestions and so far, 30% have been implemented.
Another approach was to get the engineers to compare working methods between teams and analyse the differences. As a result, standardising some processes has led to improved machine reliability. They also moved from 30 to 90-day reliability targets and started seeing new trends in the data about certain parts that then enabled new processes and product improvements.
The company is supporting the engineers in their new role, including training them to spot opportunities for new machines on site. Customers are more likely to engage with them as they have a high level of trust, and the conversion rates for leads originating this way is higher than from the sales team.
Discovery – Looking for new external trends, opportunities and threats
Everyone in the Service Department is now keenly involved in looking for new innovation opportunities that will benefit customers, but more than that, they are open to new ideas and ways of working, because very often they have been suggested by one of their own.
Weller comments; “If we kept the customer at the very heart of what we were trying to achieve, the person the engineers wanted to serve the best, then we’d always have a central pivot point to navigate by. That’s been critical”
Business Outcomes
As a result of the team’s work over several years, the new processes are now a living, breathing animal and are running smoothly under the control of the regional managers. The new brand ambassadors are a true USP for the company and are loved by their customers. The engineers are proud that they’ve achieved all this – it’s what their customers wanted.
Comparing 2016 to 2017, there’s been a 33% increase in new products added to machines and a 150% increase in leads for new machines compared to inbound or outbound sales, with higher conversion rates too.
Next Steps
Next, there is going to be a stronger focus on building discovery capabilities to enable the service team to connect more with customers and back with the business, putting them in control of demand, not the other way around.
Learning from other industries, technology such as Internet of Things and cashless payments generate rich streams of data to provide much deeper understanding and help predict requirements. The engineers will be highly involved too, being given the ability, for instance, to offer contract renewals on site within their trusted relationship.
The future is looking bright for the Mars Drinks Service team.
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Oct 04, 2017 • Features • Management • Continuous Change • management • Momentum • CHange Management • Jan VCan Veen
Jan Van Veen, continues his latest exclusive Field Service News series exploring the winning habits of long lasting achievers by outlining how a compelling direction can accelerate change...
Jan Van Veen, continues his latest exclusive Field Service News series exploring the winning habits of long lasting achievers by outlining how a compelling direction can accelerate change...
Following our introductory article about the 4 Winning Habits in the previous publication of Field Service News, I will now elaborate on the first winning habit: Direction:
A common mistake: Lack of clarity where the company is heading
A couple of years ago, I spoke with the management team of an international manufacturer of medical devices. They were disappointed because their employees were not taking the initiative to educate themselves on “digital” and IT related topics and to develop the business.
They knew that technology would continue to shift the market dramatically.
They even had a vision: to transition from a device manufacturer to a healthcare IT service provider. Unfortunately, little happened. Employees were too busy with operational fire-fighting and the initiatives they did start had hardly any relation to the company’s future and little coherence between them.
An important reason for this failure was that their vision was not clear and concrete enough for the employees to act upon. They were still unclear about what an IT service provider even was. Which customer problems would they solve? What kind of offerings needed to be developed? What capabilities would they need to develop? And which competencies?
As business leaders, we often think that it’s obvious to our teams what changes are needed in the business and why. After all, we spend a lot of time discussing challenges, priorities and ongoing initiatives. We typically have clear financial objectives for the next few years and other qualitative objectives like “being #1 choice of the customer”.
However, many of us do not provide a clear and compelling picture of where we should be heading and why, or how our organisation should look in a couple of years. So, what is missing?
- There are too few emotional triggers to spur our teams to be highly passionate and motivated.
- Our teams lack insight into which initiatives make sense and how they can contribute. The quality and quantity of the initiatives is far from optimal and there is a lack of coherence between them.
- Our staff have too many reasons to fear the downside of upcoming changes, or at least be uncertain about them. This pushes people into a defensive mode, which is destructive for change and innovation.
The solution: Establish a clear and compelling direction to accelerate change
Our research clearly shows that winning and dynamic manufacturers have declared a clear and compelling direction which results in high momentum for continuous, easy change from the inside.
This makes them more successful today and in the future. Ideally, this direction consists of:
- A meaningful mission
- A bold and inspiring strategic intent
- A concrete picture of the future state of the business
Engage your people with a meaningful mission
A compelling and meaningful mission expresses passion for a cause and has the best of intentions. It declares how you will be relevant for society or your target customers and connects to heart and mind. It also gives a clear indication of how to evolve the business and why. An important benefit of a meaningful mission is that all employees become highly engaged and passionate – they are proud to be part of such an organisation.
Tesla’s original mission was to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass market electric cars to market as soon as possible”. Although you could argue whether “sustainable energy” is unique and differentiating for Tesla, it does trigger a lot of passion and eagerness in their staff. It also gives strong direction to their strategy, initiatives and focus. It shouts that Tesla will lead the automotive industry of the future with new technology, infrastructure and products on a global scale. Tesla will be visible, dominant and disruptive.
Rally your people with a bold objective
Most leading companies have a bold objective or strategic intent which rallies their employees. They touch emotions, pride and potentially even the sense of doing right. And they drive focus on initiatives to innovate the business.
Well known examples are:
- Amazon: Every book ever printed, in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds.
- Google: Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
- Microsoft: “A computer on every desk and in every home.”
- Twitter: To become “the pulse of the planet”.
- Nike: “Beat Adidas”
- •Even though he’s not a company, John F. Kennedy: “Land a man on the moon by the end of this decade and return him safely”.
Some important characteristics of a good strategic intent are:
- They are externally oriented,
- They are hard to achieve, but not impossible,
- They trigger the imagination of employees (and shareholders),
- They define a “bigger game”, in which there is a prize to win
It will require hard work and moving away from comfort zones. Every step the team takes closer to the objective will give them a sense of pride, of belonging and will motivate them to take the next steps.
Focus and coherence with a picture of future state
Too often our vision of how the future business will look is too high level and vague for most of our staff.
They remain unclear about where the company is heading. How will it look in 5 years? Which clients will they be targeting? What are those customers’ needs? What kind of solutions will they be offering? How will they fit in, if at all?
Imagine the amount of momentum for ongoing change and innovation your teams could have, if they all shared the same concrete picture of the company’s future.
Including:
- The key industry trends, such as technology, impact on clients, the changing power of competitors, and potential new entrants.
- Changing needs of clients and other market segments that have not yet been served.
- Shifts in key stakeholders, of the client organisations they’ll be working with.
- Change of value propositions and offerings.
- Change of organisational capabilities and people competencies.
- Change of required technology.
Benefits
Winning companies benefit by having a clear and compelling direction in place. They have created the foundation for proud, engaged and committed employees who want to walk the extra mile, get out of their comfort zone and make innovation happen.
Their employees develop the right initiatives and understand the initiatives of others. This is crucial for coherency and alignment in the organisation without needing to dictate ideas and decisions from the top.
And finally, their employees have much less fear and uncertainty about the personal impact on them of upcoming changes, and therefore are much more open to drive change.
The Essence
If you assume this is about better telling your staff what to do and getting them on board, you have already missed the point: It is about creating a constructive and forward-thinking environment where your staff take the right initiatives and bring them to practice. Changes come from the ‘bottom-up’. I believe this is the power of combining business innovation on one hand, and talent development and empowerment on the other.
Are you interested in learning more about these 4 winning habits, having access to practical examples, and understanding how to implement them? Then Follow our next articles over the coming months and join us for one of our half-day Boardroom Sessions in Birmingham,
Manchester, Germany or the Netherlands. Reserve your seat @ http://fs-ne.ws/tvds30eenO6
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May 01, 2017 • Features • Jan Van Veen • Momentum • research • Research • resources
Jan Van Veen guides us through the findings of the research his organisation have recently undertook to establish what drives momentum and continuous improvement amongst service organisations...
Jan Van Veen guides us through the findings of the research his organisation have recently undertook to establish what drives momentum and continuous improvement amongst service organisations...
More and more manufacturing companies are recognising the huge potential in services and understand that pursuing these opportunities, is not easy.
Growing a solid service business, affects its business model, and therefore requires active support and buy-in, with the service department- from many stakeholders and the management board.
As a business leader, you are likely to recognize the following:
- Ongoing performance issues with few adequate and sustainable interventions.
- A slow execution of strategies and projects, with limited results.
- Too little attention for preparing future success in a rapidly changing corporate world.
- Lack of collaboration and alignment between departments.
- Lack of ‘buy-in’ for driving service business.
- Lack of members, within an organisation who understand the impact of IoT, Big Data, cognitive computing, and globalisation- failing to actively to collectively upon it.
In my experience, the biggest obstacle for companies is their ability to adapt to, and drive necessary change. Common approaches, such as change management and leadership, more communication and training, stronger business cases, and increasing the ‘sense of urgency’ has unfortunately made little difference.
But, just imagine how it would be if everyone in your company was eager and passionate about driving changes, adapting to them and seizing new opportunities. If colleagues from all departments joined forces and collectively got things done.
Imagine not needing to push, mould, or fight resistance.
What if your people were so engaged and committed that they naturally drive success and change? This may sound unrealistic, but what if you could actually achieve it?
This very idea inspired me to investigate into manufacturing companies. I delved into the ‘key success factors’ for quicker, easier, change and adaptation.
Not only was this for long-term business and service innovation, but also streamlined strategy execution, project implementation, and immediate intervention for performance related issues. My aim was to find the root cause for the lack of change, growth, and adaptability in businesses.
During the year 2016, I conducted research with a range of manufacturers.
Most of the 89 participants in the research were manufacturing and technology companies in the for B2B sector.
They ranged in size from 500 to over 10,000 employees, and into multi-billion US dollar annual revenues. They are typically driven to make significant changes by external influences such as Internet of Things, Big Data, algorithms, commoditisation, globalisation, and so on.
The Findings:
The results of the research indicated that most companies lacked ‘momentum’ for continuous change and adaptation.
Typical symptoms of this are:
- Inadequate levels of collaboration between departments and teams.
- Inadequate levels of coherence of initiatives and strategies across the organisation.
- Inadequate levels of engagement from employees.
The organisations still maintain the traditional ‘top-down’ plan and control management approach,Inadequate levels of engagement from employees which induces resistance to change, therefore reducing ‘momentum’.
The most successful companies withhold more momentum, and are more capable in adapting to, and driving change- making them thrive. Typically, they benefit from higher growth figures, stronger service businesses, better customer loyalty and higher people engagement.These companies have adopted stronger ‘sense and respond’ management practices, which prevent resistance towards change, from the existing status quo.
So, what is Momentum?
An organisation has Momentum when its people are fully engaged. They continuously drive change and sustainable growth in line with an overall strategy but without detailed centralised control. They have an emotional connection to a bigger purpose and feel confident to make interventions in products, services, business models and performance. They are sensitive to threats, opportunities and obstacles and quickly adapt to them. Above all, they are eager to work as one team and use change to generate energy, not burn it.
How to get more Momentum?
The research report provides an overview of the Momentum Framework, which is based on the best practices from the most successful companies.
This document describes the following topics of the Momentum Framework:
- The three Momentum Perspectives, driving the underlying philosophy and culture.
- People drive change
- Capabilities drive performance
- Future success lies beyond business as usual
- The Momentum Practices, consisting of the following three sections:
- Compelling direction
- Strategic dialogue on all levels and across all departments and teams
- Continuous learning, as an organisation and individual
Are you interested in driving more Momentum for easier and efficient ongoing change, just like the industry leaders? Download your free report now @ www.moremomentum.eu/report
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