By ‘Uju Onwuzulike

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination…” Jimmy Dean

WITH the rate of change in the business world of today, it is not advisable for any organisation to still have the “air of invincibility” or “too big to fail” mentality? It is not safe for organisations to think that they are invulnerable to failure or losing marketplace positioning.

Whenever I share with leaders on Change or Transformation issues, I always let them know that Change is a shift in the external world and not from the internal. If those shifts in the external world are not managed strategically in the best interest of the organisation, there might be a looming danger.

A general case for all organisations is that change happens to all of them. But the speed of adapting to the change differs from one organisation to the other.

The right thing for any forward looking organisation to do is to drop the title of being “too big to fail” or “too young to lead”. Since the business world is changing by day, not adapting fast (not just adapting) to the changing world can lead to a catastrophe.

Potential to survive

Do you know that a new bank or business that pays attention to the changing world has the potential to survive faster than the big banks that are resting on their laurels? A real life example is Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC).

As at December 31, 2009, ICBC holds the 11thposition of the biggest banks in the world in terms of total assets (1.726 trillion dollars). Having taking a systems approach and adapting fast to the changing world, ICBC became No. 1 biggest bank in the world in total assets in 2012 (with 2.953 trillion dollars).

The lesson here is that, it is not what your organisation is today that matters, but what it can continue to be tomorrow – having adapted fast to the changing world.

The challenge for organisations has been to be able to scan the future/external environment in order to key into the changing world. Many organisations have not known how to do this. Environmental scanning is the foundation for strategic thinking and planning. True scanning breaks out of the internal focus and limiting paradigms that keep us from seeing and understanding the driving forces in the environment.

Environmental scanning is not fortune telling. You can’t predict the future, but you can prepare for the future.

To identify the changing world and how it affects future businesses, organisations should begin to use the acronym SKEPTIC™ (as used by Haines Centre). This will enable the executives to identify, evaluate, and correlate relevant dynamics relating Socio-demographic to K(C) ompetition to Economic and Ecological factors and Political nuances touching Technology, Industrial, and Customer: SKEPTIC! It is best to have each scanning team assigned based on SKEPTIC. It also helps if you get a senior management sponsor for each team, using the natural roles that the different functional executives play, i.e., S (socio demographics) to the VP, HR, E (economics) to VP, Finance, P (political) to VP, Legal, T (technology) to CIO or Head of IT etc. In addition, ask for volunteers to assist them. The idea is for each team to scan the environment and come up with what is changing in the world that can affect or alter the way business is being done. They should report to the CEO at least on quarterly basis.

Points to ponder: Before now, does your organization have a way to identify and report the changing world as to how it affects your business? Don’t confuse this with SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis is more of today’s issue and not more for the future.

Total assets

Has your organisation carried out Future External Environment Scanning Assessment to even understand why your organisation is not adapting to the changing world? Why do we have four Asian banks in the list of the ten biggest banks in the world in terms of total assets? What did they do differently? Where they able to prepare for their future?

Final note:

In terms of opportunity and growth, there is no way you can compare organisations that are open to the changing world and also preparing for it to organisations that did not prepare for the change. The later organisations will be swept away by the change.

Regardless of the size of your organisation, institutionalising Future Environmental Scanning team (using SKEPTIC tool) that will report to the CEO about the changing world is a way to start. Assign scanning tasks to several members of the organisation: form 3-to-6-member teams who do this as part of their normal job.

The roles of leaders in organisations are to lead, manage and navigate the change in a way that will yield sustainable results for the organisation. Lastly, your organisation may not be able to predict the future, but should be able to be prepared for one.