Marcus Cake

IBM conducted a survey of 1,130 CEO s, general managers and senior public sector and business leaders from around the world. The report is very interesting, but very high level and generic. I have resisted the temptation to extract the Executive Summary below - I recommend you download and read it.

I read with interest the comments that highlighted the potential application of online social and industry networks in facilitating collaboration, participation and information distribution in industries. We turnkey online networks for the financial markets and are also keen to contribute to open source software community that maintains an “Online network Solution” open source software project for any entrepreneur or organisation.

2008 IBM Global CEO Study: The Enterprise of the Future

Extract:

• Many CEO s consider serving the informed and collaborative customer as an opportunity to distinguish their organizations — a chance to justify premium positioning and price.
• Employees at all levels — from designers to warehouse employees — connect with customers through realtime information, online interaction or, where possible, in person. The Enterprise of the Future also develops deep relationships with leading-edge customers and employees — those early adopters who determine market success or failure. It test markets in these communities and collaborates with them to develop products. In the business-to-business space, the Enterprise of the Future invests to integrate its systems with those of its key customers. This allows it to be a more proactive partner and an integral part of its customers’ businesses.
• The Enterprise of the Future searches worldwide for sources of expertise, resources and assets that can help it differentiate. Finding the right capabilities is much more important than finding the cheapest. These centers of excellence are integrated globally so that the best capabilities, knowledge and assets can be used wherever required.
• Social networking and realtime collaboration tools improve communication and close the distance between people in different
  locations. Good ideas develop and spread quicker, and problems are solved faster.
• Business processes, as well as some products and services, are becoming more virtual. New delivery channels and electronic methods of distribution are overturning traditional industry conventions. And these advances are not just
  changing the way individual companies work — they’re creating entirely new industries.
• CEO s told us they are pursuing more collaborative models to gain efficiencies, fend off competitive threats and avoid commoditization. Their end goal is to offer customers a differentiated value proposition. “The notion of what comprises an
  ‘enterprise’ is critical. It must be a loosely coupled system,” said one public sector leader from Australia. “It’s about deciding when to collaborate, whom to involve, how to lessen the destructive force of competition.”
• CEO s mentioned several reasons for not pursuing industry model innovation. But most can be summed up with: it’s tough to do. For similar reasons, industry model innovators are more focused on redefining their existing industries (73 percent) than on entering or creating entirely new ones (36 percent). Extremely risk-averse industries present even more obstacles. As
  one pharmaceutical CEO explained, “Our industry has an ‘innovation paradox.’ We are constantly driving for innovation on the one
  hand, while being risk averse on the other. Pharma companies still hope for the ‘blockbuster party,’ and they’re trapped in that model.
• The company that breaks through this will be the winner, and others will follow. Some CEO s do not believe their companies have the appropriate position in their industries or within their own value chains to drive this kind of significant change. But a few do. They are the industry leaders who ask — if not us, then who?
• Consistent with the overall sample, outperformers are very interested in enterprise model innovation. But they are also planning 40 percent more industry model innovation than underperformers. The question is: Are these outperformers pursuing more industry model innovation because they have the clout to do so? Or are they outperformers because of their insight and inclination to continuously question industry norms? From our CEO conversations, we’re convinced it’s actually both — a reinforcing cycle. Innovation successes can provide the financial means and industry position to attempt bolder moves, which, in turn, can improve business performance.
• The Enterprise of the Future is a student of other industries because it realizes that game-changing plays spread like wildfire. It scours customer and technology trends that are transforming other sectors and segments of the market and considers how they could be applied to its own industry and business model.
• The Enterprise of the Future understands the challenges of achieving business model innovation from within. It empowers its entrepreneurs with support, funding and freedom to drive disruptive change, which may threaten competitors’ current models — and even its own.
• The Enterprise of the Future often pilots models in the marketplace, obtaining realtime feedback and making iterative adjustments. It even uses virtual worlds — such as Second Life — to “test” models and apply what it learns to its “real life” business.
• New business models are often at odds with established ones, creating inherent tension within the organization. Even if the models are not directed at the same customers, they are still competing for resources and attention. The Enterprise of the Future actively manages these potential conflicts so it can try out bold business model innovations, while ensuring business as usual delivers results.
• As the world becomes more connected and more accessible, CEO s see tremendous opportunities to expand their global reach, tapping into new sources of expertise and new markets. Traditional views of globalization — labor arbitrage and riding the wave of economic growth in China and India — are being replaced by a new focus: global integration. By this, they mean new business designs that facilitate faster and more extensive collaboration on a worldwide scale and rapid reconfiguration when new opportunities appear.