Maintaining that the corporate world is
now in a period of renaissance with new technologies changing both business
environments and mindsets, so organizations - including governments and the
non-profit sectors - in the 21st century will need to overcome the different
challenges through the empowerment of their employees and customers with no one
company, country or geography holding a monopoly on ideas. It will have to
rapidly adopt new technologies in order to perform more efficiently. This
enables one to customize everything according to one’s needs. Technology is
driving the rate of change, so there is a premium on getting it right. Before,
you could be wrong, but you might have time to remedy it. Today, the market
moves so quickly, that you won’t have time to catch up. Change is also obliging
companies to enter into more partnerships, because they cannot do everything on
their own. Reputation and branding are also critical to success because
technology alone will not win the war. No one knows what the corporation of the
21st century looks like. "We don’t want to know, because if you do, you
are limiting yourself" said C. Ghosn, CEO, Nissan Motors. Nevertheless,
one needs to be aware of cultures with different companies as well as be
capable of dealing with speed and transparency. The organization of the future
will be one that can thrive with change. The power of the future lies with
creating a continuous learning culture with the focus on e-learning. We need to
move beyond traditional entrepreneurship by empowering and performing in small
teams. Business is clearly operating in an environment influenced by an
increasing rate of change. The way one deals with the Internet will largely
define success although this should not be regarded as a substitute for a sound
business model. What the Internet can do is benefit it. Transactions will
become increasingly automated resulting in tremendous economies of scale with
the Internet dramatically lowering the cost of connecting businesses with each
other.
Lessons from the 1997 Asian financial
crisis and the 1998 Russian meltdown, bursting of the NASDAQ bubble, the
slowdown in the US economy and persistent uncertainties in emerging markets
continue to confound bankers, asset managers and investors as they seek to minimize
risk in their investments. Nevertheless, the risk in the US stock market is
much less today than a year ago when there was great enthusiasm over US
equities and no one was talking about risk. It should have been the reverse,
the time to talk about risk is when everyone’s optimistic. But still there are
lots of risks that are controllable. A key aspect of risk management is
real-time analysis, published information that is outdated may give a sense of
something that may not be there. Well-managed old-economy companies can claim
brand loyalty and that are using new-economy approaches to maximizing their
sales. We are just at the beginning of a significant valuation crisis for
technology investments. In the present investment climate, the triple-digit returns
that pure “dot COM” companies enjoyed during the last seven years are unlikely
to be repeated.
Reading or watching business news these days we have to
figure out which are the really new business relationships and which are just
redefined ones. How do we go about defining strategic partnerships that deliver
added value throughout the value chain as opposed to traditional
supplier-customer types of relationships?
Jacques Manardo, Global Managing
Partner, Strategic Clients, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, France proposed the
"relationship portfolio" as the best approach: selection,
development, pruning and management of mutually profitable partnerships
resulting in a value chain extending beyond the usual relationships. Single, ad
hoc partnerships have been replaced by "strategic, longer-term,
interdependent relationships." These arrangements are for two distinct
purposes: to improve existing products and to start something new. The aim is
to lower costs, increase efficiency and communications within systems. We can
point out three partnership categories: "PR partnerships" which have
no substance in fact, a short-term category for companies to mutually exploit
their competencies within boundaries, and much deeper, longer, broader-range,
actual strategic alliances. Relationships with competitors must be anchored in
a detailed, contractual, technical framework stripped of ambiguity.
Even the perfectly organized
partnership in nothing without motivated employees. There are basic approaches
to doing business that are global. These include a pragmatic vision and
strategy, quantifiable targets and priorities, and effective communication to
motivate staff. With power shifting to individual knowledge workers in the new
economy, managing your employees becomes more difficult. Let’s look at results
of a recent study conducted by University of Southern California, USA. It found
that employees, regardless of age and gender, say they want work/life balance,
job security and money, in that order. However, when looking at what actually
drives commitment and retention, the study found that work/life balance does
not have a positive effect on retention for any subgroup surveyed. Rather, pay
for organizational performance, such as stock options and profit sharing, was
found to have a positive impact on commitment for all groups surveyed, except
Europeans. By contrast, pay for individual performance was not found to affect
the commitment of any employee group surveyed, except for men under 30.
The importance of tying compensation to
the success of the company as a way of balancing knowledge power and
hierarchical power and rewarding cooperation. People also have to believe the
company has a winning strategy in a competitive environment. However, the way
to go about making money is not the same in different countries, or even in
different areas within large countries or regions. Another key point is that it
is often a mistake to send people from headquarters to manage operations
outside the country. Rather it is better to bring in local people to
headquarters, train them and send them back.
The modern-day CEO appears to be facing
an increasingly difficult if not impossible task of keeping up with the demands
of the job. The executive seeking to adopt a more far-reaching mission is now
forced to deal with a number of imposing dilemmas. The 21st century CEO is
forced to play a number of highly different roles. The CEO is expected to be
financially astute and financially savvy yet at the same time have a rock star
charisma to appear on CNN. These are roles for which they have not been
trained, equipped, or do not have the time. There is a need to show a
leadership that combined courage, patience, passion and instinct. CEO must
clearly act as the leader of a company. Yet he finds himself more worried about
the health and stress of the young engineers on his team. The issues have been
relatively simple. These include utilizing technology to provide quality
products to customers, turning around a company with no growth, and seeking to
build a truly global culture. However, one also needs to operate with a license
from society. This means creating an environment where people feel ownership.
In conclusion we might say there are
basic approaches to doing business that are global. These include a pragmatic
vision and strategy, quantifiable targets and priorities, and effective
communication to motivate staff. The corporate world is now in a period of
renaissance with new technologies changing both business environments and
mindsets. It is essential to cope with continuous innovation and globalization,
despite human beings are wired the way they are.
Reference list :
1.
News2biz Latvia, J.B.Northroup,
Northroup Letters, Copenhagen, volume 5, March 8, 2001
2.
Internet – News agency: http://www.cnn.com/specials/2001/davos
3.
Internet – Official site of Davos
forum: http://www.weforum.org/whatwedo.nsf/documents/
4.
Internet – News agency:
http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Global_Economy/Conferences/
5.
Internet – Official site of World Bank:
http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/extme/jdwsp050698.htm
Appendix
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