All This Emphasis On Accountability Shows What Bad Leaders We Really Are

This post was originally published in Linkedin by Doug Wilson - Chief Solution Design Officer at 9By9Solutions on August 15, 2014. You can reach through the above link to read the article.

What are the Core Leadership and Management Skills?

Today many organizations are failing to achieve their full potential due to the managerial shortcomings and a lack of strategic thinking and implementation.

It is clear that we have to overcome these weaknesses and improve our leadership and management capabilities. This is increasingly necessary to create a culture where companies have the ambition, confidence, resilience and skills to respond to the current economical challenges and compete successfully both locally and globally.

We are living in a highly competitive business world. The local and global competition is increasing.

Some companies are failing and some others are generating profit and growth. If we look at the Fortune 500 list, we can see that some of them failed and some of them survived and grew. There are also new companies that are listed in over 1955 due to the changes in technology, products, services, lifestyle, culture, customer needs and urbanization.

When I look at the business world, innovation opportunities in growth and profitability for companies will come from the fields of climate/energy, health/nutrition, mobility, security and communication by using high technologies.

These high technologies, successful leadership and good education and training are the drivers of strategic marketing and innovation and also new products, processes and services in the global business world to have high competition power. Of course service and technological innovations should be linked to create success.

I have worked in pharmaceutical and food industries more than 28 years. During this period I worked with different leaders/managers. I have effectively managed factory start ups, organizational structuring, marketing, sales, production operations, supply, controlled agricultural production, quality, R&D, new product development, regulatory management, exporting, importing, and communication with external companies, government agencies, associations and others. All of these provided my achieving strong experience, know-how and excellent skills to creating excellence in business.

In today’s business world people want their leaders to be visible, consistent, inspiring, authentic, clear, engaging, communicating regularly and freely, and managing performance in a fair and balanced manner, human, demonstrating humility, understanding and strength in their endeavours to lead a high-achieving and competent business.

I know that the core leadership and management skills are crucial for achieving a high performance and competent business. These are;

1- Providing effective leadership
2- Strategy and planning
3- People management
4- Budgeting and financial planning
5- Risk management
6- Fostering innovation and creativity
7- Partnership working with other organizations and networking

Now I want to share top leadership competencies and what they do to create growth, profitability, competitive advantage and high customer value in the company with you according to my experience and know-how. These are;

1- Strong experience, knowledge and personal skills including high emotional intelligence.

2- The ability to create a high candor effect in the organization, collaborators, and customers.

3- Strong authentic leadership skills.

4- Making competitive intelligence on the regular basis.

5- Making long-term sector analysis and if necessary making healthy disengagements.

6- Creating operational excellence and organizational agility and also implementing alignment within the organization.

7- Removing shoddy leaders/managers from the organization and hiring and working with the top skilled people.

8- Managing a true talent policy. Training and developing people on the regular basis.

9- Applying long-termism as a business policy.

10- Developing and implementing a marketing and innovation strategy. It contains short and long-term competitive and systematic marketing and innovation development and implementation strategy.

11- Establishing an innovation department, strong R&D and customer immersion lab and encouraging and nurturing disruptive individuals also.

12- Effectively financing innovation activities. For example top 20 spenders for innovation are spending 8.3% (average value) of their annual sales to R&D. Global innovation 1000 companies had $17.7 trillion in sales in 2013.

13- Creating openness to new ideas from competitors, customers, collaborators, suppliers, other industries and their company.

14- Applying effective quality management and regulatory policy.

15- Considering social and environmental impacts of their products and services.

16- Being faster than competitors.

17- Having high level qualities such as inspiring, integrity, thoughtful, supportive, resilience, collaborative, effective communication, and courage.

18- Building a committed, enthusiastic and proud workforce.

19- Developing and implementing right marketing strategy with tactics. Focusing on product, service, brand, price, incentives, communication and distribution.

20- Defining the ways of changing the playing field through an acquisition, a new product, a new service and/or globalization.

Finally I want to say that hiring and working with truly effective leaders/managers will create a dynamic, aligned and innovative organization that looks at business through a customer’s eyes to achieve a competitive value, sustainable growth, profitability and competitive advantage.

Read in Linkedin: What are the Core Leadership and Management Skills?

Manufacturing Industry and Innovation

I know that customer needs are changing due to the changes in technology, services and culture.

Now we have a hypercompetitive business world. Big corporations, companies, small businesses and countries are competing locally and globally. Therefore manufacturing industry needs new strategies and skills to generate a sustainable growth and profitability to have a continuous competitive advantage. It is clear that our manufacturing capability in a global hypercompetitive business world requires a well planned long-term strategic marketing and innovation policy, competitive intelligence, long-term sector analysis, managing talent, collaborative approach and coordinated response.

Manufacturing industry plays an important role in the economy and provides direct and downstream benefits. It supports the services based economy.

What should companies do to create competitive advantage in manufacturing industry?

1- Bring research investment and industry together.

2- Make a long-term sector analysis.

3- Have a true talent management policy.

4- Have true innovative leadership.

5- Make competitive intelligence.

6- Perform intelligent risk management.

7- Foster new collaborative partnerships that build trust, lead to innovation and deliver commercial benefits and highest customer value.

8- Establish a stronger culture of innovation and collaboration.

9- Establish new trade and innovation relationships, enhance and forge new international networks and collaborations.

10- Foresight on industrial sector disruptions.

11- Understand the paradigm shift in the global manufacturing industry and be in responding a pre-emptive and proactive way to ensure they are at the cutting edge of advanced global manufacturing.

12- Search and invest on technologies and capabilities that are more agile and beneficial to maximise the productivity and customer needs.

13- Search and perform rapid productisation and new processes to bring new products faster to market to drive demand locally and globally.

14- Consider always the social and environmental impact of manufacturing industry on healthy living and a healthy planet.

15- Drive sector sustainability by developing and implementing long-term strategic marketing and innovation policy.

The share of employment in the manufacturing industry will remain under pressure due to the ongoing technological developments and productivity improvements. There will be faster growth in services.

There should be highly customised goods and services within multiple supply chains and they should be agile, low in volume and high value in manufacturing. This brings more innovation, productivity and trade opportunities for companies in manufacturing industry.

It is clear that manufacturing industry should invest in research, competitive intelligence, customer demands, long-term sector analysis, productivity, quality, true leadership, more skills, strategic marketing, innovation, organizational knowledge, improving processes, social and environmental impact of products faster than competitors to create a transient competitive advantage. Leaders and her/his team should have good experience, know-how and skills (including high EQ) in systematic innovation management.

Therefore manufacturing companies should work with innovative and market oriented true leaders and skilled employees to compete in a hypercompetitive business world. They have to produce more, consume less material, use less energy and create less waste in manufacturing industry.

I am confident that innovative manufacturing companies can enjoy a bright and competitive future.

Read in Manufacturing Industry and Innovation

The Secrets of Business Growth and Profitability! Lessons from FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil for Business Leaders!

I am watching FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brasil. It is really fantastic! There are many lessons for manufacturing industries from the World Cup!

I remember well! Raks Music was one of the best company in Turkey and abroad in the music industry. They were producing records for Turkish and export markets. But they failed in time.

There was a famous food brand and it does not exist in Turkey now.

Kodak created and dominated in the photographic film market in the world for a century. They have been the first to invent in digital camera but they failed in commercializing the digital camera successfully.

Other best example is Xerox (pioneer of copy machines). They invented in the desktop PC, email, Ethernet, printer, mouse, etc. but failed to commercialize any of these inventions

Both, Kodak and Xerox failed to focus new markets and technologies because they committed to existing markets and technologies.

When I look at Fortune 500 after 1955, many of them failed.

All of these companies had well-known leaders, organizations, business, brands and products. But the result was not good for them.

Of course, country, geographic location, economy, the number of population, education, the culture of business, culture of innovation, applying short-termism and/or long-termism, sources, climate, skilled people and talent management policy etc. are very important parameters in business success today.

What are the reasons for these failures? I know this issue and focused on how we can create sustainable growth and profitability in a hypercompetitive business world. I provide a master blueprint for companies to design the organization of the future.

True Leadership and highly skilled people:

I see that many companies are failing to find the right person as a leader and skilled talents.There are many reasons for this!

The world economic forum had a survey in 22 countries and 12 industries in 2013. The survey revealed that more than 35% of nearly 40,000 employers are experiencing difficulties in filling vacancies. One of the three employers in the USA has talent shortage.

This shows that American and European companies are facing serious skills shortages. At the same time; there is a high unemployment in many industries in these countries. Talent shortage will be a problem of the next decade.

Many countries are failing to produce enough people with the level of education and skills that companies and organizations need to remain competitive.

I have to say that business and jobs are becoming more complex and companies are increasingly looking for people with different range of abilities, special experience in services or technology or broader functional area or different geographic markets.

I know that competition will increase for skilled staff and there will be hypercompetition between companies to find right leaders and talents for their business.

The success of the business will become increasingly dependent on the ability and skills of its staff and company knowledge in strategic agility and innovation management.

They have to develop and implement a new talent management strategy to be outside of the war for talent.

I am sure that you are watching football matches in FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brasil. It contains amazing and fantastic business lessons for companies!

When I look at to the business of football, we can see the war for managers (leaders) and players to become competitive and create highest customer value. I say this as ’’ the business of being perfect”. When I look at top soccer clubs they have true football managers and players and highest number of supporters (customers). They are in war of managers (leaders) and players (skilled talents).

Therefore companies should find the people with the right degree of experience, know-how and skills (including high EQ) to fill the necessary positions. Otherwise they will fail to create excellence in long-term. Because human capital is creating the success.

Developing and Implementing a Winning Business Strategy:

I know that business strategy is applied to create greater growth and profitability. Therefore the resources are devoted to the customers to retain their loyalty and get them to buy the company’s products and/or services. We have to note that if a strategy is not providing benefits to customers, this strategy will not be successful and drive company out of business.

A well planned, developed and implemented business strategy is crucial for a company to create growth and profitability. This requires leadership, employee engagement and avoiding common pitfalls.

Therefore companies should have the capability to make successful strategic decisions. These can be achieved by ;

1- Managing knowledge and information from internal and external sources.

2- Creating a right company culture.

3- Fostering continuous creativity and systematic innovation through internal and external sources.

4- Continuous reconfiguration or improvement.

5- Recognizing and empowering people.

6- Changing or reconfiguration of business strategy if there is a need and fitting operational decisions with the business strategy.

7- Understanding the nature of competition.

8- Building competitiveness using practical techniques.

9- Developing customer focused assessments.

10- True pricing strategies.

11- True sales force and policy.

12- True marketing people and write strategic marketing policy.

13- True power branding policy.

14- Managing effectively finance and risks.

15- Establishing a business in multi-geographical locations.

Developing and implementing a Sustainable Innovation Strategy and Performing Strategic Marketing & Innovation Management:

Innovation is an important parameter for company strategies to move to a new better position in growth, profitability and creating high customer value.

I know that we can identify individuals as a key component of the innovation process.Their experience, knowledge and skills are very crucial to manage innovation. Firms should effectively manage innovation. Bill Gates confirmed this in 2008:

“The share price is not something we control. We control innovation, sales and profits.”

I have to note that the purpose of a business is to create and retain a customer.

Peter Drucker defined this well:

“Business has only two functions -- marketing and innovation. All the rest are costs.

“Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value”

“Who will do strategic long-term marketing and innovation?”

“People with good experience, know-how and high EQ!”

“Who will have the highest contribution with these products or services?”

Consumers!”

Therefore business should invest in people at first. These people will create a long-term sustainable growth, profitability, transient competitive advantage, and high customer value through systematic marketing and innovation.

Companies should create an innovative culture. They have to be super agile, make continuous reconfiguration, systematic innovation and perform extraordinary closeness to customers.

Excellence in the hypercompetitive business world requires an organization and its customers. It is the intersection of marketing, innovation and the power of human resources and their culture.

When I read the books; “The End of Competitive Advantage - Harvard Business Review Press” by Prof Dr. Rita Gunther McGrath and “Innovation Management - Oxford University Press" by Mark Dodgson, David M. Cann, Nelson Phillips; I found their approaches very effective and correct for innovation management and business success in a hypercompetitive business world for now and future. Therefore companies should have dynamism and it has to be linked to stability. They have to apply innovation as a continuous systematic process.They have to have the capability to make healthy disengagements on time. So that companies can create a transient competitive advantage. Therefore they have to reconfigure their technologies, services, leaders and employees in a high speed or faster than competitors to create growth, profitability and high customer value. Firms have to build a separate innovation management team from business as usual.

Companies should also make a long-term sector analysis and competitive intelligence to plan, develop and implement strategic decisions faster than others.

FIFA World Cup 2014 shows that the most important driving force in business success is the presence of right people having strong experience, know-how and high level skills and capabilities in multi-culture and multi-industry and also applying long-term marketing and innovation strategy, agility and change management in alignment faster than others in a global hypercompetitive business world.

How do you evaluate FIFA World Cup 2014 as a business leader? What are the lessons for your business success?

Read in The Secrets of Business Growth and Profitability! Lessons from FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil for Business Leaders!

How to Succeed in Business? Strategic Leadership and Winning Questions!

When I look at local and global business markets, I see that there is an increasing hypercompetition. Therefore companies should have the right people in their organizations to create a transient competitive advantage. Now it is clear that companies cannot have the permanent competitive advantage.

What is Strategic Leadership in a Hypercompetitive Business World? The answer is not easy. There are a lot of factors!

I think that the following key questions can be valuable for business leaders to create excellence;

Are you effectively managing your company’s strategy-making process?
Do you create a transient competitive advantage? Is it continuous?
Do you make systematic innovations?
Do your leaders/managers select and implement a set of strategies that aim to create growth and profitability?
Do you formulate your short-term and long-term marketing and innovation strategies?
Do you implement your strategies into action? Are they faster than your competitors?
Do you design, deliver, support your products or services? Do you make necessary reconfigurations or improvements?
Do you improve the efficiency and effectiveness of operations; and designing your company’s organization structure, talent management policy, control systems and culture?
Do you make regular competitive intelligence?
Do you make market analysis?
Do you have long-term sector analysis and improve your long-term marketing and innovation strategy development and implementation?
Do you have a power branding strategy and communication with your customers?
Do you have right people and talent management policy?
Do you visit your customers?
Do your employees purchase your products? Do you have quality failures?
Do you follow changes in technology, service and culture in short-term and long-term and its global effects?
Do you apply regulatory compliance and respect to your customers?
Do you have social and environmental respect?

I have to define that general and functional managers should use their knowledge, energy and enthusiasm to provide strategic leadership for their subordinates and develop and implement a high-performing organization.

What are the key characteristics of good strategic leaders that do lead to higher performance in the hypercompetitive business world?

These are;
1- Vision, eloquence, and consistency.
2- Articulation of a business model.
3- Commitment.
4- Being well informed.
5- Willingness to delegate and empower.
6- Astute use of power.
7- Emotional Intelligence (EQ).

Strategic leaders have a clear and compelling vision of where the organization should go. They have to energize people in terms of their vision and create an innovative and customer needs focused organizational culture.
They have to identify and articulate the business model of the company in accordance with the main purpose or its vision. They have to create a business model innovation regarding short and long-term growth and profitability.
They have to create a strong commitment to their vision and business model by actions and words and also examples. Strong leaders or managers should create a respect for people in organization and made them more willing to work hard to create excellence in business.
Strong strategic leaders develop a network of formal and informal sources. So that they should take regular and correct information about what is going on within their organization. They have to be careful about gatekeepers. High-performance leaders are skilled at delegation and empowering. They must often play the power game with their skills and attempts to build consensus for their ideas rather than use of their authority to force ideas. They should act as a member of a team.

Strong strategic leaders should have enough emotional intelligence. It is a bundle of psychological attributes that many strong and effective leaders exhibit. 

Read in How to Succeed in Business? Strategic Leadership and Winning Questions!

Top 5 Ways to Drive Operational Excellence!

like the definition of Philip Kotler (American Marketing Guru): The business function that identifies current unfulfilled needs and wants, defines and measures their magnitude, determines which target markets the organization can best serve and decides on appropriate products, services, and programmes, to serve these markets. Thus marketing serves as the link between a society’s needs and its pattern of industrial response”

When I started to work in the pharmaceutical industry I learned that we are a part of our business and we should work to provide high-achievements as a team by well communicating, collaborating, producing and delivering quality products on time with the highest productivity.

Today we are living in a hypercompetitive business world. The technology, service and culture are changing. Therefore customer needs are changing. Some companies are failing and some others are growing. There are many reasons for all of these changes.

There are some changes in manufacturing operations. There is a big pressure from local and global players. Governments and regulatory bodies are also forcing certain rules and standards especially in the food industry due to the developments in analytical technology, increasing awareness in social and environmental sustainability, increasing health cost of global epidemic due to the urbanization and change in culture of lifestyle. All of these changes, customization and increasing use of the internet and social media are becoming a coercive power over companies and their customer value.

In today’s business world the quality, price and delivery of products alone do not offer the differentiation that allows manufacturing companies to compete successfully.

Therefore companies should adopt innovative manufacturing tools, technologies, best-practices, services and develop their people and skills. When I look at manufacturing companies; a survey showed that their most important 3 competing priorities are quality, customization and price. I have to say that these priorities can not guarantee to create a transient competitive advantage.

1- Delivery of competitiveness in manufacturing operations is an essential parameter for success. Provide alignment to the strategy and ensure that all of the organization knows, understands and applies the strategy in highest communication and collaboration. It should be in accordance with customer’s perspective and include value (innovation, service, cost) and the key drivers.

2- Building a performance strategy is an essential parameter in operational excellence in manufacturing operations. A methodology should be used to achieve a balance between controlling costs, generating extra profits and maximising cash.

3- Using the best tools, techniques and practices in operational excellence will be a valuable.The close alignment should be between operations and board of directors to improve competitive priorities. This will provide customer value through continuous optimisation of systems, people, and processes. Companies are using different techniques and tools to create operational excellence such as Lean, 6 Sigma, TPM and 5S.

4- Team working in manufacturing operations is very important. 97% of companies define it as a first key enabler. 80% of companies showed that regular individual appraisals is a second enabler. It encourages people and it is very effective in motivation. 67% of companies define the continuous improvement/reconfiguration as an important enabler.

5- Skills and people are another important key stone in operational excellence. According to the surveys, it is 80% behaviours and 20% tools, therefore techniques require a combination of systems, processes and people. Many companies are using these tools in a superficial way and do not get the maximum leverage. There is an increase in the number of intermediate and highly qualified people in operations after economic crises.

We have to engage people and motivate them about performance improvement through practice and application to reach the main objective. On the other side leadership should apply a broader blend of learning and development activities by implementing strong people development, knowledge transfer and development of best practice.

Companies can create operational excellence in short-term. On the other hand they have to invest and implement long-term marketing and innovation strategy, competitive intelligence, long-term sector analysis, power branding, customer needs for today and future, strong talent management policy, strong preventive measures for quality failures (the right people and knowledge will be a guarantee) and innovation management in higher speed before than local and global competitors to create continuous growth and profitability.

A leading management thinker Peter Drucker has a fantastic definition! “Marketing is looking at the business through the customers’ eyes”. Who will perform this?

Look at top R&D spenders! They are spending 8% of their annual sales for innovation and they are trying to work with top talents in operations, innovation and marketing.

Do you think that the best people can create excellence in operations and businesses?

Read in Top 5 Ways to Drive Operational Excellence!

Snowball Gaining! Excellence in Managing R&D and New Product Management

Today we are living in a hypercompetitive business world. The companies are competing locally and globally.

When we look at Fortune 500 after 1955, we can see that some companies failed. They were very strong and had big organizations.

What are the basic reasons of these failures? We have to carefully analyse the failures and find the correct answers.

Today's top 20 R&D spenders are spending 8% of their annual sales to R&D (Strategy&). Why do they spend such huge money?

Because they want to develop products that outsell existing market offerings or capture previously unknown market opportunities locally and globally.

The development of new products, processes and services is the response of the company to environmental, cultural and market changes. So that they create new insights, technologies, and platforms as the basis of new products.

New product development has some phases such as conception, generation, analysis, development, prototyping, and testing of new products to see product's customer value.

What should companies do to create growth, profitability, transient competitive advantage and higher customer value before than competitors? Let's see these:

The company should establish a Competitive Innovation and R&D organization.

They should hire people with good experience, know-how, emotional intelligence and personal skills.

The company should be careful to select people and give the importance to find experienced talents in R&D and also supply, production, quality, marketing, finance and customer needs. This will be a value for the company.

Give the top management support.

Give enough investment opportunity.

Give the necessary training opportunities for personal development.

They should give enough freedom and be patient about the results.

They have to cooperate with internal and external linkages and create a network model for new product development and business model innovation.

The source of internal inputs is marketing & sales, finance, engineering and manufacturing, R&D. The source of external inputs are competitors, suppliers, distributors, customers, universities, conferences, publications, patents, licensing, contract research, organizations, scientific and technological developments, and societal needs. All of these are the sources of business opportunities for R&D.

They should make competitive intelligence and establish it as a unit. Competitive intelligence is a systematic and ongoing process for gathering information to derive actionable insights from competitors, the competitive environment and trends (short and long-term) in order to further the organizations' business goals. This unit keeps the business at the cutting edge and helps with intelligent risk management.

Development and implementing long-term innovation strategy. R&D team should cooperate with other departments and identify innovation opportunities. After that they should select promising R&D projects.. I have to define that the management of R&D and new product development is a cross-functional activity. It involves input from and creates output for marketing, finance, operations, supply, quality, sales, finance, business development, strategy, human resources, legal, IT and others.

They should develop a well designed marketing strategy & marketing plan.The company should regard their strengths and weaknesses and also market opportunities and threats when preparing marketing strategy and its plan in short and long-term.

The company should make a long-term sector analysis. This is a crucial parameter for each company. Because there are changes in technology, products, services, culture and living style. Leadership should know the future of their sector. If there will be no use of products or services they have to change their product or service range to a different customer need.

They should identify innovation opportunities and prepare a promising R&D portfolio to spread the company risk that comes from unsuccessful launches. They should achieve a balance between high-risk/high-reward new product development projects.

They should consider the social and environmental consequences of new products.

Companies should keep their company's customer's needs, tastes, lifestyle and personality clearly in view.

They should keep designs simple, practical and showing quality.

The company should create a powerful brand image and it should reflect the product and company's values. The customer should feel proud and creating a value when using these products.

They should get the product, packaging and marketing desing right before diversifying and expanding in the marketplace.

Company should prepare a strategic action plan when they fail in sales and market share for their new developed product. Therefore a new product projects portfolio should be ready.

They need to be aware of the Valley of Death! The people should have true skills and available resources to create successful product innovations to ensure products do not die in the Valley of Death.

Managing R&D and new product development is closely integrated with innovation management.

There are a lot of business opportunities locally and globally and we have to collect them. Do you know snowball gaining? Big snowball is the sum of generated successful business opportunities! Do you have enough experience, know-how, skills, sources and speed?

Snowball Gaining! Excellence in Managing R&D and New Product Management

The Valley of Death! Be Careful! Early Signs of Melting Competitive Advantage for Owners, CEOs & Leaders/Managers

There are two things that are certain about the future of the business world.

It will be different and it will surprise!

The companies should build a dynamic competitive edge for a business of tomorrow.

Senior executives should be careful to check the following early warnings of the disappearing advantage of their business. Otherwise they will find their business in the Valley of Death!

Employees don't buy your own company's products.

Customers are finding and choosing cheaper and simpler solutions.

Customers don't prefer your products, services and offers and also they are not proud about your brand.

Competition is emerging from different unexpected places (local and/or global).

Your stock is being continuously undervalued.

Some of your people are talking about a new technology or service can change your business.

Your marketing and innovation strategic plan is increasingly failing in the last two years.

Some of your qualified people are leaving the company.

Retails, supermarkets or customers don't increasingly interest more about your offers and products.

Your growth ratio has slowed or reversed in the last two years.

The company is cutting back on benefits.

You are pushing more risks to employees.

You have a poor long-term innovation and marketing strategy plan.

You are weak in strategic diversified new product portfolio over the next five years.

You are weak in a long-term risk management strategy.

You are weak in a formalized monitoring and tracking system for your organization and marketplace.

You are weak in compensation programs that encourage entrepreneurship, reward risk takers, and reinforce innovation management.

You are weak in consistent commitment to new strategies, products or services in terms of funds and requisite managerial know-how.

You are poor in making long-term sector analysis.

You are weak in competitive intelligence works.

You are weak in internal and external networks.

You are weak in your innovation and R&D skills.

Your time management is weak and not competitive. You are slower than competitors.

Your leadership is not interesting and rejecting the importance of bad news from organization, customers and local and global markets.

Your organization is weak in alignment.

These are the early signs of fading customer value, profitability and growth in a business.

Check your business and take preventive measures. Don't fall into the Valley of Death!

What type preventive measures did you take to keep your growth and profitability in your organization? 

Read in The Valley of Death! Be Careful! Early Signs of Melting Competitive Advantage for Owners, CEOs & Leaders/Managers

The Valley of Death, Be Careful in Innovation, Teamwork and Quality Management!

Many companies don't see the opportunities on the both sides of the Valley of Death. They trust their current competitive advantage and don't discern the coming risks. Their inner mentality and capabilities don't catch what is going around. This is related to the leadership qualifications, experience, know-how and their personal skills. Do you know that approximately 90% of the leaders/managers are average or worse! This is a big issue for companies. Be careful!

I see that the following key issues are crucial for business leaders/managers and they have to take action to create growth and profitability faster than competitors.

INNOVATION! HOW? Many leaders/managers see the innovation as the new product development and launching. This is not correct. Some others see innovation as a magic. This is not correct. Innovation is a systematic and continuous development and improvement processes that cover all of the business operations in an organization. People from top level to the bottom, everybody should work in highest alignment and improve and also make better their daily operations.

Are all of these improvements sufficient for creating competitive advantage? The answer is "no".

Solution

1- They have to create an innovation department.

2- They should hire and work the true qualified people that have excellent experience, know-how and personal skills. These people should know the local and global markets, operations, marketing, regulations, quality, new product development, sales, power branding, customer needs, finance, sales, technology and last and important one "Innovation Management".

3- They should develop and implement a marketing and innovation strategy. It should contain short and long-term business strategies.

4- They have to make competitive intelligence.

5- They have to make a long-term sector analysis.

6- They should go to new markets (local and international), and also bring new technologies, new products, new concepts, and new services.

7- Provide a better and continuous communication with customers.

8- They should be faster than competitors.

TEAMWORK! HOW? Teamwork can play a vital role in helping an organization to reach its main purpose. But teamwork is not appropriate for every situation. I have to say that at their worst, teamwork is unproductive and frustrating, and they waste everyone's time in organizations.

Solution

1- Create an organizational knowledge and a high-achieving culture within the organization by developing and implementing good communication and collaboration.

3- Establish organizational alignment.

4- If necessary, develop an effective team that should have a clear sense of purpose, honest and transparent communication and collaboration, creative thinking, well focused, and taking decisions by consensus model.

5- Work with highly experienced or skilled leaders/managers that have good emotional intelligence that is really valuable in creating excellence in teamwork.

QUALITY! HOW? Today many companies are losing their money due to the failures in their products and services due to the failures. Normally they have enough analytical methods, procedures and people for this function. On the other hand they increase their productivity and lose their profit with quality failures and recalls. What are the reasons?

Solution

1- Create highest alignment, organizational culture, good communication and collaboration within the organization.

2- Create a team that does not stay at room and control every detail of the processes of the business.

3- Trust, recognise, encourage your people. Be honest and transparent. Provide an organization that works in highest harmony in accordance with company's main strategic objective.

4- Today we have big technological opportunities to detect quality defects and service failures. It is a simple process.

5- Develop and implement risk management! Be proactive. Take continuous preventive measures. Make regular analysis and see the reality. Don't leave your business to chance!

6- Hire and work with right people in quality management. Quality leaders/managers should have excellent experience in operations, regulatory, quality, supply, laboratory, communication, customer needs and other fields.

CONCLUSION

If companies don't hire and work with true skilled leaders/managers and give the strategic importance to Innovation, Teamwork and Quality faster than others, they can face with failures in creating growth, profitability and competitive advantage in today's hypercompetitive and digitized business world. Their arrival point may be the Valley of Death.

Therefore you've got to make Innovation, Teamwork and Quality everyone's job, all the time by working with true leaders/managers! Be careful!

The Valley of Death, Be Careful in Innovation, Teamwork and Quality Management!