Innholdsfortegnelse for March/April 2017 i The European Business Review

A New World Order with Industry 4.0 The Internet of things has invaded indivi-dual space and now live in our pockets in the shape of that little computer gadget we call the mobile phone. The gadgets in our personal space can now talk with each other without any human interface. Our TV, music digitised is streamed through cloud via our mobile to all manner of devices in our homes. Our lights, heating etc., are controlled by our little friendly robot, our phones. Our health, our sleep, our exercise routine, indeed our day are monitored through a collection of data on the apps living inside our own personal computer, our phones and our smart watches. The Internet of things has now marched into our industries, and the digitisation of the manufacturing…

Manufacturing is vital to a country’s economic growth and ability to innovate. Manufacturing is changing from large monolithic production floors to geographically distributed, internet-connected, medium scale, smart factories. Engineering education needs to be updated in order to train engineers with the needed knowledge and skills. Manufacturing accounts for a quarter of worldwide employment. Employees of this sector earn higher than the median income of a country.1 Manufacturing contributes up to 20% of Gross Domestic Product, GDP of countries. Moreover it has a multiplier effect on business services jobs. Manufacturing is vital to a country’s economic growth and ability to innovate. Hence countries such as Singapore, China, USA, Germany, India, UK, Korea, and Japan have embarked on substantially funded national programs to strengthen manufacturing. Singapore’s $19 billion Research, Innovation and Enterprise…

 Business ecosystems are the new unit of analysis for strategic thinking; they offer fertile grounds for innovation. This article discusses how managers can map, analyse and take advantage of business ecosystems. It is illustrated by a nice case study inspired by the work done at Groupe Seb, a leader in Small Domestic Appliances and Cookware industry. The word ecosystem was first used in 1935 by Sir Arthur George Tansley, (an English botanist and a pioneer in the science of ecology) in an article entitled “The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms”. Business strategies should be established based on how a business ecosystem is likely to evolve, not on what we think we can excel at. Mapping and analysing ecosystems is about identifying, testing and selecting options to create…

Culturally diverse teams produce more creative, innovative group results, compared to those in more culturally homogenous groups. In this interview with Bhaskar Pant, the Executive Director of MIT Professional Education, he shares with our readers how to communicate and manage their culturally diverse teams towards success. Q Different cultures can lead to misunderstandings when communicating and managing colleagues from different countries. As the Executive Director of MIT Professional Education, what are your recommendations on how a leader can communicate effectively to his/her team in a multinational workplace? What is the biggest challenge in getting this right? A Let me speak here also as a lecturer in the field of “intercultural communication in global business”, who has taught seminars and courses on the subject to quite a diverse set of…

In this article the authors discuss how organisations can better strategise for the future by integrating and balancing the three logical approaches to strategy: analytical, institutional and systemic. In the current context of increasing global hypercompetition and market turmoil, strategy is becoming more and more prominent. Where formally strategic planning was conducted every 3, 5 or even 10 years, today it is reviewed almost annually, and in some cases strategy may even suffer major revisions within a year. As we suggested in a previous article, in practice, three logical approaches to strategy are commonly used.1 The first is analytical logic, based on estimations of the various business variables and establishing causal relations between them. It is based on explicit information (from both the environment and internal resources and capabilities) and…

Internet access has become crucial to the functioning of our most important systems. The Directive on security of network and information systems (NIS Directive) is the first EU-level effort to enhance cybersecurity measures. What are these requirements? Are they enough for ensuring the availability and security of systems critical to the ways we live today? Online and ready when you are – that is a promise realised by most of the Internet-driven world, where our offices, our homes, and even our bodies are just one mouse click or one finger swipe away from the latest financial news and the temperature of the oven roast. Energy, sanitation and water supply, food, transport, financial networks, governments – Internet access has become crucial to the functioning of our most important systems. So what…

Practicing leaders often have to manage their emotions as part of enacting their leadership role: whilst we all do this as part of our everyday lives, for leaders it can be an important “tool of the trade”. So how do they perform the “emotional labour” this entails and still feel authentic as leaders? More than just “Service with a Smile” We are all familiar with the kind of fake “service with a smile” which is a common feature of many of our commercial interactions today. The McDonald’s server, the airline cabin crew and the hospital nurse are all required to show particular emotions and suppress others as a routine part of their work. But the need to abide by professional “display rules” – and to use their emotions as a…

An analysis with Google Trends on “Chief Innovation Officer” shows an increasing interest starting in 2010. The term was actually coined and described by Miller and Morris in 1998, but it seems to have only received interest in the past 4-5 years or so. While the Chief Innovation Officer’s function is becoming increasingly strategic, its description is still in its infancy and varies among companies. In the following we will see why the perimeter of the Chief Innovation Officer should be new territories. Not more. Not less. This article is based on our book Innovation Intelligence (2015), written after interviewing dozens of Chief Innovation Officers and other C-level functions of large companies. Chief Innovation Officer: A Role in its Infancy The Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) and his team explore new…

The Magic Formula of Ability, Opportunity, and Courage result in countless examples of successful careers. These three attributes can make such a big difference in the performance of employees. Why are Ability, Opportunity and Courage the deciding factors in career success? People will tell you there is no Magic Formula for success in the workplace. I disagree. In my 40-year banking career, I have seen the Magic Formula of Ability, Opportunity, and Courage result in countless examples of successful careers. These three attributes can make such a big difference in the performance of employees that firms like Deutsche Bank are now screening potential hires for it. Why are Ability, Opportunity and Courage the deciding factors in career success? ABILITY In today’s fast-paced and turbulent world of professional services, it is…

If a roomful of men can draw on their experiences and insights to help a business succeed, a roomful of men and women drawing from a deeper pool can achieve even more. Given the growing evidence about the business value of gender-balanced leadership, businesses have to wonder how much more successful they could be with this balance in the management ranks. In today’s ultracompetitive global economy, even high-performing companies can’t afford to rest on their laurels. Corporate heavyweights spend hundreds of billions of dollars on research and development each year, fine-tuning products and nurturing innovations they hope will give them an edge in the marketplace. Yet most still overlook a far simpler and more affordable investment in human capital that’s been proven to make a difference: getting more women onto…

In the year 1929, and nearing the end of his second, ill-fated, term as President of Argentina, Hipólito Irigoyen began to receive filtered news from his closest aides. The Great Depression was having a devastating impact throughout Latin America and the country was sliding inexorably into crisis. Highlighting only good news and passing over some of the more negative events in presidential communication, no matter how slight that actually was, was exaggerated greatly, leading to one of Argentina’s most popular myths: that a special newspaper was printed for Irigoyen that included only good news. El Diario de Irigoyen or Irigoyen’s Daily, is a well-known phrase in Argentina to this day, and used when people want to push back against the “sugar-coated” version of events. Parallels with today are unmistakable. Putting…