The last post on Spinning Mule 2.0 was originally posted last week but I thought it a bit OTT so saved the HTML and deleted it. I’ve now done a repost and made a note to trust my judgement a bit more in future. The reason for that is the arrival of a nice little number from Forrester called: “Innovating Strategic Management Paradigms And Models To Thrive Amid Global Change.”
The report bandies about some dandy terms such as ‘Globalization 2.0? ‘Invisible IT’ and ‘Technology Populism’. By these they refer to the truly global market and the increasing impact, influence and importance of the BRIC economies; the evolution of IT into a ubiquitous business technology; and the fact that rather than the military it’s now the Facebook generation, i.e ordinary tech-savvy punters who are driving change.
To survive in this new world, Forrester recommend something that caught my eye – they recommend that corporations adopt what I’ve always thought as the prime mantra of internal comms, namely align whatever and all you do to the business strategy.
Strategic management paradigms are the über-approaches that: combine several discrete activities under one umbrella; have a direct and complex impact on a company’s strategy setting; and require comprehensive implementation efforts. Examples of strategic management paradigms include the core competency concept or the management by objectives (MBO) approach, which emanated from the academic world.
To back this up and to validate it for good or ill they say a measurement system is needed, such as SWOT, Balanced Scorecard and Six Sigma. What follows however takes an increasingly 2.0 twist – old business paradigms need to take the tectonic social media shift.
The focus then should be on a customer-centricity. These they argue becomes part of a Business Transformation model. This transformation is one not only about organizing and behaving to meet customer needs, it’s also about adopting social media technology and practices to foster innovation and to adapt in agile fashion to meet new and evolving customer needs and desires.
Will this happen? Forrester note the huge challenges present. I think this is the rub. Also there’s not a lot of choice. Global market, increased competition, global skills market, next gen 2.0 employees expect at least the very basics of what they use at home and at leisure. This opens up the market – opportunities as much as threat. The game is being completely re-written. We’re in a Crisis phase at present, but as the Chinese note, this is both Danger and Opportunity
While traditional IT service providers can rejoice in the fact that their contributions will gain in importance, they can’t become complacent, as the new game represents an opportunity for entrants that excel in both strategy and technology. As a result, Forrester foresees active consolidation in the consulting and IT industries over the next five years.