We are walking into an era where a dignified survival would solely depend on two dimensions of working—innovative technologies and innovative strategies. Alvin Toffler in his “The Future Shock” says,
Technology makes more technology possible, as we can see if we look for a moment at the process of innovation. Technological innovation consists of three stages, linked together into a self-reinforcing cycle. First, there is the creative, feasible idea. Second, it’s practical application. Third, it’s diffusion through society. The process is completed, the loop closed, when the diffusion of technology embodying the new idea, in turn, helps generate new creative ideas. Today there is evidence that the time between each of the steps in this cycle has been shortened.
Shortened? Much shortened…before you can say Jack Robinson, you find there’s a new software program platform! To keep pace with contemporary technology, software engineers are quitting jobs. Strangely enough, but viewing it closely, it is observed, that the quest for learning and remaining abreast with current times, overtakes the yearning to earn more. Technological innovation is need based but is directed more toward ease of operations and friendly deliverables. Involvement of the organization is necessary but is a subsequent concern.
Coming to innovative strategies let us examine the following statements and relate them to reality. Founded at Chicago, in 1966, the World Future Society is a body that helps bringing the “architects” of the future on a common platform and makes an endeavor to elicit the futurist in everyone. Director Julie Friedman Steele says that futurists tend to be “free-thinking,” have a “growth mindset” and be “lifelong learners,” also that “everyone is a futurist inside.” Just as technology, strategies too need to get devised and revised at intervals, the expanding or shortening of which period depends on what is needed at a point in time. Unlike technological innovation, strategies can be innovated only after the involvement of the entire organization. Therefore, Steele is most apt in suggesting, what she has, to anchor well into the culture of a futuristic organization. Also, strategies cannot switch into a different mode with a blink of an eye.
It would augur well for all of us to know that Volkswagen AG has announced its “Strategy 2025,” the main emphasis of which is to push for electric vehicles, which are quite a rage these days. Growing environmental consciousness and alarming pollution levels have fuelled such concerns. Volkswagen’s leap into new technologies under strategy 2025 is expected to warrant investments in the double-digit billion range. However, cost-cutting at this passenger car brand outfit, bundled together with that of the company’s fragmented parts operations, and realignment of its massive 12-brand business, should assist Volkswagen to finance its long-term goals. The German auto giant had set aside €16.2 billion ($18.4 billion) in terms of penalty if any that would arise related to the emissions scandal that shot it into negative prominence in 2015. Eventually Volkswagen had to pay $4.3 billion earlier this year (2017) as fine to the U.S. Courts where it was sued for by-passing U.S. pollution norms. Emphasis on cleaner technologies bodes well for Volkswagen, because this could be where the automotive growth is heading. I observe two planes on which the leadership of the auto major deployed its perceptiveness here, looking at the future circumstances. (1) Building a safeguard ploy for damage control in terms of its reputation and brand, which was twofold—(a) accepting and not refuting the scandal allegations [this becomes evident from the following facts: Judge Sean Cox, who called the cheating “a case of deliberate and massive fraud,” assigned Larry Thompson to be an independent monitor to oversee VW for a probationary period of three years. Hiltrud Werner, VW’s head of integrity and legal affairs, welcomed the appointment of Mr. Thompson and said the carmaker had already “taken significant steps to strengthen accountability, enhance transparency and build a better company”] and (b) budgeting for the fines or penalty, well in advance, rather than having to stroke an imbalance in the budgetary provisions later. And (2) taking advantage of the subject “environmental friendliness” for which VW had been defamed into notoriety and building from there. Converting such defamation into a positive image was no ordinary feat. But the perceptiveness to build a strategy around it was even more remarkable. VW is bidding to take a position in the environment friendly market by beating out Tesla, the largest electric car manufacturer.
Toronto-based Four Seasons is another great example of a brand that put in time, over the years to develop very detailed standards, practices and training. This has been able to help Four Seasons grow fairly quickly as a brand, while retaining its reputation for excellence in the hospitality vertical. The philosophy, guiding the management, can be seen in the following few lines that I have adapted from their website,
Times change, but our dedication to perfecting the travel experience never will. Our highly personalized 24-hour service, combined with authentic, elegant surroundings of the highest quality, embodies a home away from home for those who know and appreciate the best. As the company has grown from a single hotel to 105 in 43 countries, our deeply instilled culture, personified by our employees, continues to get stronger. Over more than 50 years, our people have built an unrivalled depth of reliability, trust and connection with our guests—a connection we will steadfastly uphold, now and always.
The perceptiveness culture has been well ingrained, because of which brands such as these are never asleep at the switch and are consistently improving. Among the 18 new 5-star rankings awarded to existing hotels worldwide this year (2017), Rosewood snagged three, Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton and Mandarin earned two each, and Park Hyatt added one to its portfolio. The expansion of the Four Seasons business has been gigantic and has moved with times and location. Some of them may sound quite queer, but they have emerged as reality. They have diversified into air travel by providing private jet plane services, a value add to dimensions in tourism across the world. Envisioning this was no ordinary step and was not possible without an intense order of perceptiveness. Four Seasons have also invested into reality business with luxury residences in a country like India in its NCR or the National Capital Region, where infrastructure and housing is the need of the hour. This group surely is visioning futuristically. Like all businesses Four Seasons had to come across challenging times but the perceptiveness and ethical standards of the group kept it sailing through. Just to quote Chris Hart Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts Asia Pacific Hotel Operation President (2013)
Four Seasons already has one operational hotel in Mumbai and is looking to add two more to its kitty in Bangalore and Goa. We have been looking at India for a long time. We have one property under construction at Bangalore, one in Delhi-NCR and the third one is in planning and development stage in Goa. So, we now are looking at four tangible projects in India.
Let me not highlight the personal growth of Sunil Bharti Mittal and make it sound synonymous with the growth of the now telecom giant—Airtel, although it would be difficult to segregate the two. Sunil Bharti Mittal is the son of an erstwhile renowned politician from Ludhiana in Punjab, but his growth was not pursuant of that fact. The entire credit goes to his zeal and his being perceptive to opportunities that he noticed and others did not. From borrowing Rupees 20 Thousand from his father to becoming a manufacturer of bicycle spare parts to entering the stainless steel sheet manufacture to trading in the same product in Mumbai, Sunil kept gathering the pebbles of experience of sales and finding opportunities as he went along. His perceptiveness led him to find an opportunity of selling Suzuki portable generators. He was doing well, till the biggies such as the house of the Birlas and Siddharth Shriram tied up with Yamaha and Honda respectively to launch their portable gen-sets only to chase away Sunil and his business dealing with a similar product in the Indian market. Sunil went around scouting for a new business, when he spotted push button telephones in Taiwan, and realizing its novelty in India, which was still using the rotary dialers. That is when Beetel happened with assemblies in his Ludhiana factory of semi knocked down components imported from Taiwan. Later Bharti Telecom Ltd the new-found company to manufacture these phones collaborated with Siemens AG. The company then went on to launch various telecom technologies into the Indian market and had innovation at its heart and perceptiveness in its mind. Going on to acquire license to build a cellular network in Delhi, Bharti Telecom Limited laid the ground work for the mobile operations of the company in the year 1992. It began operations in Delhi in the year 1995 as Bharti Tele-Ventures. The service was extended to various other states by various acquisitions and partnerships. Sunil Bharti Mittal rebranded all of his mobile telecom ventures under a single brand-named Airtel in 2003. Airtel is a name that connects India with millions of people all over the world with millions of people in India. Today, this telecom giant is amongst the most trusted telecommunication brands in the world. Its journey from a regional operator limited to the city of Delhi to second largest mobile operator in the Asia Pacific region is certainly more than inspiring. Even after the grand stroke of Mukesh Ambani’s Jio, Airtel has continued its tirade in the competitive warfare by providing a facility of carrying over leftover data nonusage to the next billing cycle free of charge as accruals.
The list of such examples could be a long one, but the idea is to exemplify how companies have grown multidimensionally and retrieved from the downswings with the power-packed perceptiveness of its leadership coupled with creative strategy, which again is an outcome of data in the repository, acquired through filtered perceptiveness. Not only to remain ahead in times of turbulence but also to sustain the “market leader” positions, by updating information on market and technology innovation strategies, being perceptive has lent a big hand.
To take you back to Darwin’s utilitarian theory of “struggle for existence” and “survival of the fittest,” one of the most significant criteria for staying the fittest in contemporary terms, seems to be perceptiveness. The more perceptive one is, the more likely one is to remain ahead. It is a proficiency that needs to be developed by one and all, in this competitive world—whether one’s needs are material, or they are spiritual (notwithstanding competition becomes meaningless in such a case, the “assimilation” would expectedly happen much faster). Let us examine the four steps that could help us, in sharpening our perceptiveness skills. (A) The mind has to be kept unbiased and open to receiving information. (B) The filters in the mind should be able actionable—twofold (1) classify the information and stack them in the repositories of the mind and (2) accept or reject according to relevance. (C) Recall the information as and when to be put to use and (D) deploy the recall cautiously, dexterously and differently for each individual, group or situation depending on the responses received or expected to be received.