Innholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2018 i The European Business Review

More than a decade ago, the metaphor “data is the new oil” shook the world and left organisations scrambling for ways on how they could translate it into tangible value for their business. While others already reaped and are reaping the benefits emerging from the wealth of data at their disposal, some are still saddled as they don’t have the platform and superior knowledge to compete amid the data gold rush in today’s business world. This leads us all to the question: How then could your enterprise benefit from the actionable and relevant data available today? Our conversation with Enno Lueckel, Vice President, EMEA at Ephesoft answers this question. He shares his insights on how their innovative solution – Smart Capture – can facilitate organisations’ quest to mine unstructured data…

Organisations today have massive amount of data at their disposal. However, not all C-level executives have clear typology of the digital data that can help marketing strategists unlock value. Discover how this issue can be addressed towards an enhanced analytics capability, strengthened data management and the creation of tangible value for your business. With a few exceptions, the bulk of brands to date have mostly leveraged big data for short- purposes. For , companies have learnt how to manage their online reputation by creating social media command centres that can detect and react to consumer chatter in real time. They’ve also learnt to track the recent online behaviour of customers, which has helped them run more targeted advertisements. But this makes C-level executives at best very effective bill posters (when…

The move from CEO to Chairman is a major role shift. Success requires a set of leadership qualities which few CEOs have exercised in their previous roles. In this article, the authors elaborate on the qualities of great Chairmen and how executives can prepare for this new governance role. The qualities that make a great CEO do not make a great Chairman.1 The role of non-executive Chairman, long a fixture in European companies, is becoming increasingly prevalent in the United States (See below – The changing face of governance in the U.S. and Europe). The job of the Chairman is also increasing in importance and complexity, as companies grapple with more technological disruption, geopolitical instability, regulatory uncertainty and social transformation. These can be blind-spots for operating executives, who by design…

In business, one would typically not make a large investment without an idea of how to gauge its results. This does not happen with leadership development programmes (LDPs), which lack the typical business analysis of return on investment and the impact of the programmes. Our research is focussed on addressing this gap by identifying and explaining two often-overlooked elements that have a significant impact on both individual leaders and organisations. According to the Corporate Learning Factbook (2014),1 spending on corporate training grew by more than $130 Billion worldwide in 2013. This report mentions that 60 percent of all companies indicate that the leadership gap is their top business challenge, and, therefore, they invest 35% of their entire training budget (35 cents of every training dollar) on LDPs. Also, a recent…

According to a recent update on 4th April 2018, it may well be that the data of as many as 87 million Facebook users has been accessed. BY DAVID DE CREMER In today’s more developed global village, responsible leadership is of paramount importance especially from businesses that make use of digital platforms. In 2017, we published an original article by De Cremer, Zhang, and De Schutter entitled “The Challenge of Leading Digital Platforms in Responsible Ways”, which pointed out the disasters that Facebook and other digital platforms could face because of their lack of responsible leadership and why simply relying on legislation to tackle the ethical challenges of digital platforms is reactive at best. Today, as requested by The European Business Review, De Cremer provided an updated analysis on what…

Companies collect tons of data nowadays, but most of them do not yet profit from that treasure. The situation can be compared to the peak of the California Gold Rush: all of the easily accessible gold had been recovered already and mining the rest had become very expensive, but then new technologies were invented to recover the metal cost-effectively. This is more or less exactly what Ephesoft did for data: while the cost to recover actionable information has been very high in the past, Ephesoft introduced machine learning technology for data capture, which makes extracting data more affordable and easier to access for organisations of all sizes. We talked about this approach with Enno Lueckel, Vice President EMEA at Ephesoft, discussing how it works in daily business and what it…

Bad data impacts managers and their companies far more than most realise today and presents an enormous hurdle for any data strategy. They can take many simple steps to improve, but they must first “wake up” to the issue. Here, we present three ways that can help them do so. Most managers are vaguely aware that data quality is an issue. They may hear of re-stated financial statements, difficulties in meeting regulatory issues such as GDPR, or technical issues involving systems that do not interconnect. Even though they themselves may be victimised by bad data from time to time, they see the issues as “belonging to someone else” and assume there is little they can do about them anyway. The reality is completely different. Bad data hurts managers, the people…

Today, businesses are presented with a plethora of opportunities arising from digital transformation. However, not all business leaders know how they can turn such opportunities into tangible value for their organisation. The lingering challenge is how they can drive successful digital transformation strategies to improve productivity and ensure business growth. Increasing productivity can create accelerated growth and profit for businesses. And it also drives economic growth, which in turn creates new jobs and improves living standards. The IMF estimates that GDP in advanced economies would be about five percent higher today if the pre-crisis productivity growth trend had continued. However, a recent IMF report revealed that productivity in developed economies has declined dramatically since the economic crisis and remains sluggish, with political instability, global trade decline and the slow pace…

Compliance strategies are integral in creating a trustworthy, high performing and innovative work culture. As such, it is imperative for companies to evaluate the effectiveness of their compliance especially in today’s complex business world. In this article, the author highlights the advantage of putting forgiveness a part of the compliance strategy as implemented by China’s giant telecom Huawei. In the last two decades, the importance of having a compliance team in office has increased significantly. Several ethical failures that took place at Tyco, WorldCom, Enron, Royal Dutch Shell and Volkswagen – to name just a few – all have been widely publicised and discussed. Consequently, the existence of these numerous international scandals pushed towards a rise in regulatory requirements across industries. Despite the enormous number of articles published on the…

To produce a successful dish of digital reinvention, start by combining six ingredient technologies. Here’s how to get cooking. Digital technologies have been feeding executives’ appetite for growth, cost savings, and innovation for years. Each one promises nourishment and sometimes brings delight. But how many business leaders are considering the value of combining technologies to create one gourmet meal? So far, not many. And to be fair, technologies such as augmented reality are still very much emerging. Yet some companies have already discovered the power of combination and are reaping the rewards. We studied the performance of 800 companies in 12 manufacturing and resources-based industries and 21 countries. According to our research, the five percent of organisations that combined six ingredient technologies – mobile computing, big-data analytics, machine learning, augmented…

Improving one’s brand identity is indeed one of the greatest challenges marketers have. It is for this reason that they’re constantly on the lookout for approaches on how they can capture the attention of customers without them being overfamiliar or overwhelmed. Looking at how the French Open created their audio brand and how they have managed it since its launch can help marketers improve the effectiveness of their overall branding efforts – even when they don’t have an audio brand. Professional sporting events, like businesses, have a wide variety of audiences, stakeholders, touchpoints and channels, and are fighting to stand out and win the hearts and minds of their audiences. This holds true even when they have a unique and beloved product. Like business marketers, sports venues and events struggle…

Whereas facts suggest that German companies are among the best equipped and most active to pursue global growth, they offer limited insight to determine the real extent to which these companies are truly global. This article aims to offer a data-driven, rigorous, and comprehensive assessment of their actual degree of internationalisation and compare it with the one of other large enterprises based in the rest of the world. Being global brings strong strategic advantages to companies. In comparison to firms whose scope is limited to their home countries, global corporations are able to access more customers, acquire privileged resources, establish partnerships with foreign counterparts, reach scale and scope economies in their global operations, and take advantage of cross-country arbitrage opportunities. Having said that, being global also entails additional costs and…