Innholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2017 i The European Business Review

“We are running out of water.”(Famiglietti (NASA), 2015) 1 The constantly evolving world we live in continues to pose challenges to resources. In the age that the expiration date tag is ubiquitous, a strong question to businesses looms: Do we continue to do business as usual despite the early signals of a serious transformation of our resource pool? Humans are wired to be architects, bringing changes to the world we live in, and shaping the geographical landscape of their habitats. The picture captured by NASA at night sheds lights not on how the world really looks in the darkness, but also presents a world map of human ingenuity of innovation and evolution as well as a map of a world divided into shades of grey. The twinkling illumination tells…

Leadership has been an indispensable factor in any business development. As businesses undergo digital transformation, Stijn Viaene offers exciting insight on digital leadership, the different leadership personas required for its execution, and the crucial role digital leadership plays for a successful digital transformation. The digitising economy is compelling business leaders to cultivate a profoundly new mind-set and invest in new technology-driven capabilities for winning. Many are engaging in digital transformation: a form of end-to-end, integrated business transformation where digital technologies play a dominant role. These transformations involve rediscovering the nature of value creation, growing new core capabilities, and developing new skills. They are executed against the backdrop of a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) business environment, catalysed by digitisation. Digital transformation leaders position their organisations to lead with Social,…

Political and economic instability, climate change, globalisation, disruption, an unprecedented pace of change and overwhelming channels of communication – how can leaders stay focused and make good decisions? Mindfulness can help. Research with a cohort of business leaders shows it enhances resilience, the capacity for collaboration and the ability to thrive in complex conditions – if they practice it regularly. Leadership Today There have never been times like this for organisational leaders. Whether we look at markets, systems, climate, politics or technology, unpredictable disruption is the new normal. On top of this, leaders are called on to manage a wider range of relational networks than ever before and the systems in which they function are deeply and unpredictably complex. Under these conditions they have to facilitate co-operation, idea generation and…

While translation ensures that your message makes sense, localisation speaks to the heart. And speaking to the heart is the goal of any marketing campaign. Any marketing campaign is geared toward capturing the minds and hearts of its target market. In a globalised marketing platform, Christina Comben highlights how localisation, as an investment, is one that will definitely pay off in the long run. If you want to increase sales, broaden your brand awareness and give SEO a boost, localisation is key.1 But, while most marketing managers are aware of the need to speak their customers’ language; how far are they willing to go to get it just right? The success of global marketing is about much more than merely translating your website into three of four different languages. While…

‘Doing sustainability‘ is becoming the ‘to be or not to be’ question for companies. For global businesses to thrive, “doing sustainability” is no longer an option. Tammi L. Coles spoke with recognised CSR researcher and author CB Bhattacharya about how this is revealed in the “People and the Planet” philosophy of the successful Ferrero Group. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and corporate sustainability have come to represent a broad range of ethics-driven standards for business practices that go above and beyond legal requirements for how corporations draw from and contribute to natural resources and social communities. At ESMT Berlin, how companies communicate their ideals, engage stakeholders, and otherwise achieve their goals in CSR is the subject of study by Professor CB Bhattacharya, an internationally recognised researcher and author on corporate sustainability.…

Most retail banks are not equipped to respond to these new threats and many will struggle to survive the next decade. Without argue, digitalisation has changed many aspects of our everyday lives. With these changes come different challenges and one of the most challenged industries is banking – particularly retail banking. Magne Angelshaug and Tina Saebi discuss how retail banking, through open innovation, could possibly cope with the difficulties brought by their “burning platform”. “Banking is necessary, banks are not” – Bill Gates, 1994 Something major is happening in the realm of banking. While retail banks have grown accustomed to dealing with competition from other banks, financial deregulations and economic downturns, something is different this time around. With rapid digitalisation, changes in consumer behaviour, and emerging financial technology (Fintech) –…

The most prominent sign of a sleep-deprived brain is that performance becomes unstable and starts fluctuating, from normal, unaffected performance to complete inattention. Successful business is dependent on accurate communication, people being capable of critical thinking, and taking calculated risks. Sleepiness is highly prevalent in many workplaces, affecting how people feel, think, and perform. Awareness of sleepiness, one's own and others, is important since the causes and consequences can be managed. Sleep is a curious phenomenon. Despite more than 50 years of research, its biological function or functions remain elusive. Most recently, sleep has been shown to support vital brain functions relating to metabolism and adaptation. We do know that the high metabolism of the waking brain is a messy and costly business, and that sleep facilitates maintenance and recuperative…

Nowhere on the planet is without travel risk and these risks can take on a multitude of different forms for different travellers. When travelling for business, we most often focus on our trip’s objective while inadvertently taking many other factors for granted. Sophie Harwood reminds us that preparing for the worst, and most importantly for the little things, is what guarantees a safer and securer business travel. I recently wrote an article entitled “When business travel goes wrong” that described five travel mishaps I had experienced and listed four lessons learned from each of them. Whilst researching today’s article I looked back on those twenty pieces of advice and was surprised to discover that only three of them related to post-incident actions; the other seventeen are all things that should…

In this age of disruptive change, technological innovations can either ease all your worries or bring you the greatest discomforts you’ve ever known. Christopher Surdak elaborates on the Seven Deadly Disruptors that are changing manufacturing, and will inevitably change our lives. In my years of researching and learning about technology and its impact on our society I have noted that certain technologies have impacts far beyond their apparent reach. When I look at our world today and the world we anticipate tomorrow I see seven technologies that are not only impactful, they are truly disruptive. In my view, these seven technologies are: 1. Robotics 2. Analytics & Big Data 3. Internet of Things 4. Blockchain 5. Nanotechnology 6. Additive Manufacturing 7. Artificial Intelligence There are other, hugely important technologies emerging…

Building a company is not as simple as having the right amount of money. More than having a business plan, creating a powerful company culture is very important. Braden Kelley shares to us secrets of building an effective culture of continuous innovation. Curious? Read on to know more. Every company begins as the nimble startup, organised around the solution to a single customer problem and executing that solution better than anyone else in the market (including incumbents with deep pockets). But this emerging leader soon becomes a follower as the organisation evolves and scales into a more complex (but capable) next generation incumbent. Inevitably, every growing organisation finds itself so focused on capturing all of the business for its existing solutions, that it finds itself becoming disconnected from evolving customer…

There is a growing realisation that the modern workplace is no longer just seen as the desk, but also, and probably more importantly, the area around it. Apple Park opens in a few weeks time. The new headquarters of one of the world’s most innovative companies, referred to by many as “spaceship campus” due to its flying saucer-like design, was one of the final acts from Steve Jobs before he passed in 2011. The building is aimed at encouraging collaboration and will provide employees with more opportunities to run into each other and interact, reflective of Jobs’ decision in 2000 to scrap plans for three separate buildings at Pixar in favour of one vast atrium-type space. The “spaceship” will contain a lake, meadow and orchard within its inner ring, while…

Products are increasingly becoming commoditised, leaving customer service as one of the few remaining competitive differentiators. And in a world where customer-centricity matters more than ever, customer service-based metrics are more than just a box-ticking exercise: in a very real sense, they are milestones on the journey towards long-term survival and success. For most of the last few months, Britain’s regulated telecoms company, BT, has been in the firing line. Customers, competitors, and members of Parliament alike have all complained that BT’s rollout of superfast broadband is not fast enough, nor extensive enough. Others’ concerns are more prosaic. Last autumn, for instance, I was driven to write a blog post about the truly awful customer service I experienced when I tried to get a telephone line installed for my daughter.…