Category Archives: Blog

Blog

AI: A threat or opportunity for UK businesses?


SMF President, David Falzani,  explores the challenge AI poses to business and wider society.

The hypothetical outcomes of AI for business have ranged from utopian to hysterical among commentators, with many focusing in particular on the implications of AI and automation for work – and the risk of redundancies. The Bank of England estimates that 48% of human workers will eventually be replaced by robotics and software automation.  ArkInvest meanwhile predicts that 76 million US jobs will disappear in the next two decades.

Daniel J. Arbess, writing for Fortune magazine, goes as far as to argue that “the accelerating penetration of job-displacing software presents maybe the most serious (and still underappreciated) socio-economic challenge to market economies in generations, both in our own country and abroad.” Jobs, it seems, are the biggest worry. “Applied software technology reduces costs and prices, taking fewer consumption dollars a longer way. We’re starting to hear a lot about this, because entrepreneurs, investors and shareholders of companies will be enjoying epic financial rewards from the AI economy–but what about everyone else?  People still need jobs.”

Meanwhile, Professor Stephen Hawking raised the stakes somewhat in 2014 saying “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” whilst Elon Musk warned that AI is “our biggest existential threat”.

AI is, then, conveyed as a threat to business, employment, and even existence, sometimes by people who don’t understand how the technology is currently being used, sometimes by the science and technology community. At the same time, it’s floated as the basis for a universal basic income and the new Industrial Revolution, as well as massively increased efficiencies across all industries. So is AI a threat or an opportunity for UK businesses?

Blake Irving, the CEO of GoDaddy, a global web hosting company, explains that “the AI that’s real today is known as ‘Narrow AI’.” Rather than worrying about super intelligent Skynets wiping humanity off the face of the earth, Blake argues we should instead focus on narrow AI as “what’s actually changing everything.” Citing Rand Hindi, who defines narrow AI as “the ability for a machine to reproduce a specific human behaviour, without consciousness… a powerful tool to automate narrow tasks, like an algorithm would”, Irving argues that narrow AI will replace or transform any job where information gathering and pattern recognition drive a volume business. “That’s not just labourers. That’s accountants, traders, estate agents, lawyers, software developers, and on and on.”

A good example of this ‘narrow AI’ can be seen in eBay’s introduction of personalised homepages and a ‘ShopBot’ for its users. “Using structured data – a transformative step to drive discoverability of our vast inventory, insights into supply and demand, pricing trends, among other things – and artificial intelligence, we’re creating a shopping experience that is tailored to each eBay user’s interests, passions and shopping history,” CEO Devin Weing explains. “With more than one billion items … we’re making shopping on eBay all about you, instead of a one-size-fits-all approach.” This is massively increasing sales conversions for the company and its traders.

Irving goes on to examine three categories of ‘AI insulated jobs’: those which require meaningful creative interactions with other people; those that won’t be replaced due to the limitations of robotics but will be transformed side-by-side with Narrow AI tools; finally, entrepreneurial roles, which can encompass such a diversity of work as to be difficult to automate. Irving uses these categories to argue that the ‘end result’ of AI displacing jobs will be the need for a population better educated to manage or interface with AI. It will, in other words, incentivise skills-based specialist technology education and ultimately spur a demand for creative thinking and skills, the things that narrow AI cannot provide.

The structuring of data that narrow AI affords us isn’t so much abolishing old skills and roles, then, as it is creating a demand for integrating new capabilities into the modern business plan. If anything, it is actually increasing the demand for creative entrepreneurs, whose skill sets are more valuable than ever while productivity and efficiency shoots up across the board thanks to AI. A similar increase in productivity was seen in the 1990s due to the implementation of MRP and MRP2 that saw skilled and semi skilled roles replaced with algorithms.

It might be worth considering that every threat is an opportunity because it forces change. The exploding volume of literature on the so-called AI revolution suggests that these technological developments may offer massive efficiency improvements, and radical changes to how businesses get things done. Are you able and willing to turn AI into an opportunity to radically overhaul skill sets and workplace practices to keep ahead of the curve, or are you not in a position to invest in this fledgling technology yet, and at risk of falling behind? The answer depends largely on the kind of organisation you run, to what extent it has information gathering and pattern recognition centred tasks, and how open it is to change, as well as how well you grapple with the reality of AI technology as it currently stands.

Blog

What sectors can we expect AI to transform?

Perhaps one of the biggest transformations unleashed by the AI revolution is that of customer insights. James McCormick, writing for Forrester, predicts that AI will be “rapidly assimilated into analytics practices” by the end of the year, offering businesses “unprecedented access” to powerful, contextual, data-driven insights. Up until now, unstructured and undifferentiated ‘big data’ has been difficult to navigate, much less tie to a customer base. AI is becoming more and more relevant to every sector.

With investment in AI predicted to triple across sectors, as well as the emergence of cognitive computing solutions better able to unpick and integrate data into analytics, this will provoke a sea change in how business is conducted in many sectors. In a 2015 survey, 80% of business leaders stated they believe AI will create more jobs and increase productivity. Let’s take a look at some of the sectors already feeling its impacts.

Insurance
AI’s ‘smart’ grasp on data is already having big impacts on the insurance sector, as one story earlier this year demonstrated. Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance, a firm based in Japan, made the headlines when over 30 of its employees were made redundant and replaced with an AI system. Capable of analysing and interpreting any data, IBM’s Watson Explorer calculates insurance payouts to policyholders at such an accelerated rate that the firm predicts it will increase productivity by 30%, saving the firm about £1 million per annum. It’s a good example of how AI in its current form is drastically increasing efficiencies while altering the structure, size, and skill set of different organisations.

Education
Education is already being transformed by VR and AI technologies, among other things. The rise of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), such as those run by Udemy, are a prime example of how large ‘classes’ can be run online with hundreds of students. AI is set to make these courses more and more effective. We are already seeing specially-trained AI programmes (an ‘e-rater’) mark and grade exam papers, as well as virtual teaching assistants being deployed throughout universities and schools to help answer student questions about the course. With the global market in education-based applications of AI set to grow exponentially over the next four years, it’s clear that AI is not only getting better at learning but teaching too.

Medicine and healthcare
AI has seen a lot of investment partially thanks to its huge potential number of applications for medical research and front-line healthcare. AI chatbots, such as WoeBot, are now being offered as a way of augmenting mental health treatment. Meanwhile, the analytical power of AI is being used to help make cancer diagnoses earlier and more accurately, with Vinod Khosla, cofounder of Sun Microsystems, even predicting that human oncologists will become obsolete in the face of much more data-competent AI systems. “I can’t imagine why a human oncologist would add value, given the amount of data in oncology,” he told an audience at MIT this month. IBM’s Watson is likewise being introduced to the doctor’s office.

Law
From processing deeds to identifying relevant documents, the traditional work of lawyers is slow and painstaking. Law firms are now using AI technology (often a version of IBM’s Watson) to augment their legal research functions, empowering lawyers towards more comprehensive and efficient analyses of legal precedents, contracts, and cases. The first ‘top five’ law firm to sign a deal with an AI service provider was Linklaters, early in 2016, with other firms quickly following suit. Some of the systems in use can reduce tasks that usually take three hours down to three minutes, which could lead to cheaper access to legal services and even redundancies of paralegals, as one legal consultant predicts – although some are more sceptical. Robert Morley notes that training contract numbers have increased, so lawyers are not becoming redundant – AI is, rather, a “remarkable tool”.

Blog

What next for the sharing economy? – SMF President, David Falzani

While conventional markets and brands were under financial siege by the recession, the concurrent development of a global, data-driven, mobile infrastructure provided an answer to the strife: the sharing economy. Billed as a radical new, ‘alternative’ socio-economic system based on the values of ‘sharing’ and ‘collaboration’, the sharing economy seemed like a fluid, big-picture response – one which some commentators have described in utopian terms since.

Benita Matofska, of The People Who Share, defines the sharing economy as, “A socio-economic ecosystem built around the sharing of human, physical, and intellectual resources. It includes the shared creation, production, distribution, trade, and consumption of goods and services by different people and organisations.” It is, in other words, a new, ‘alternative’ market which “Embeds sharing and collaboration at its heart” – a ‘hybrid economy’ enabling different forms of value exchange using shared physical or human assets. Matofska points to the ‘gig economy’, social media, peer-to-peer (P2P) trade and exchange, upcycling and recycling, as examples of economic sharing in action.

At the core of the sharing economy is the principle of people renting things they need from each other, The Economist argues, “The big change is the availability of more data, which allows physical assets to be disaggregated and consumed as services.” Apps and data, therefore, act as conduits for people to get in touch with one another and share what they need within this economy. Technology has reduced transaction costs, making the sharing of assets cheaper and easier than ever – or so the story goes.

The Economist is right in noting the significant disruptive effects of the sharing economy, which seem only to be increasing as these P2P markets develop. The consumer peer-to-peer rental market alone is worth around $26 billion. However, in their bid to market the sharing economy as a collaborative, user-first way of delivering services and products, the major players that make the sharing economy possible, and by claiming to be merely middlemen for ‘independent contractors’, large corporations like AirBnB and Uber understate their own involvement and responsibility for the sustainable development of the sharing economy.

This has impacts not just on ‘conventional’ rental markets but gives way to a whole host of regulatory and workers’ rights issues. Bike couriers for Deliveroo, said to be paid a mere £4 per delivery, receive no hourly rate from the company. This has led to spontaneous strikes and collective action from their drivers, followed by an aggressive response by the corporation. The adverse effects of AirBnB on local rental markets is well-documented, particularly in small cities such as Reykjavík, Iceland, which, in the context of a massive tourism boom, has seen a huge increase in rents and property values as a result of the sharing economy and has reportedly led to a major housing shortage in the capital.

As we get swept up in the excitement of this new means of meeting demand, we are arguably losing sight of the important question that must be asked of the sharing economy: what is being shared, and for whose benefit? Uber and AirBnB may claim to be middlemen for ‘independent contractors’, but they take huge amounts of commission from their contractors and have even been described as, “Giant corporations pursuing monopoly power.” They have not just disrupted the markets and the profit margins of their competitors, but it could be said that their desertion of responsibility has, in some ways, led to the disruption of the lives of the people who work with them by escaping regulation and giving them only precarious ‘access’ to work, rather than solid, reliable jobs. As the sharing economy develops and brands consolidate their grip on markets, its once seemingly-liberatory potential seems to be surpassed by many of the problems facing the ‘old’ ways of doing things. As the casual workers that make the sharing economy possible become increasingly organised, the sharing economy must reckon with its responsibilities and duty of care to contractors and consumers. The regulatory battles they already face with cities such as New York and Los Angeles will set the stage for what’s to come in this regard.

This is not to say that the sharing economy requires more regulation. It is the lack of broad state regulation which has generated many of its advances and entrepreneurial development, after all. What the major players in the sharing economy must do is to put their money where their mouth is and open up their brands as well as their services. That means sharing not just some more of the wealth (revenue at AirBnB increased by 80% during 2016), but the infrastructure and technology that makes the sharing economy possible.

Some have argued this should take the form of open brand APIs. The sea change in the relationship between producers, marketer, and consumers has turned brands into ‘platforms’, ‘ecosystems’, and the collaborative nature of this relationship and the role of consumer participation makes the possibilities for scaling different aspects of the sharing economy endless. For the sharing economy to prosper and grow, it requires the active participation and input of the people doing the sharing. By making their processes and insights open-source in a genuinely transparent developmental dialogue, a true sharing economy might finally emerge. By placing the locus of organisational power in the hands of a few small, closed-off and increasingly powerful companies, the sharing economy risks lapsing into the same old patterns that made conventional corporate culture no longer able to compete or meet the demands of consumers as efficiently.

The battles around regulation and consumer and worker rights are not mere teething problems –they will determine the shape of what’s to come. The cooperative nature of the sharing economy comes from the technology, and it is the technology which must change to be more inclusive and open to innovation in order to meet the sharing economy’s increasingly unstable demands on local economies and workers.

Blog

How to make the most of your alumni network

The SMF alumni annual networking dinner 2017

Whether you’ve done an MBA or a regular degree programme, your qualification is not the only valuable asset of your course. Your alumni network is an invaluable resource and can have as much, if not more, bearing on your future than the degree itself – if you take full advantage of it, that is. Building relationships with other alumni will give you a chance to discuss your options, find courses and other information, locate business partners, and crucially, to pursue job and business leads.

So how do you make the most of your alumni network? How can you get involved and nurture these vital relationships – and why do they matter?

Keeping in the loop
There are a variety of ways to keep in the loop with the activities of your alumni network. The most obvious are, of course, the alumni newsletter, which you will hopefully already be subscribed to – if not, you can contact the alumni office of your alma mater to sign up.

The alumni offices are a valuable resource for both current and former students.  They represent the views of members; maintain a database of members’ contacts by industry and location (making it easy for you to be connected with other members), and develops activities for the alumni community which creates fantastic networking opportunities.  It’s worth checking in every few months to see if there are any events that could benefit your career ambitions whilst enjoying the company of like-minded people.

Building relationships
It’s important to not just build contacts, but relationships. At the end of the day, it’s real people you’re interacting with, so the personal relationships you cultivate with them will ground any opportunities that emerge.

Pay attention to what a fellow alumnus talks about. Keep a mental record of their interests and look out for relevant ideas, reading, and events that you can share with them. This doesn’t just demonstrate an interest in their lives – ongoing conversations form the basis of a collaborative relationship, and people are much more likely to give you a tip or introduce you to the right contact if they feel a strong connection with you. Approaching someone through name-dropping, anecdotes, and reminiscing is an easy way in and keeps things informal, but cultivating professional relationships based on genuine interest will be better in the long-term. Start a conversation, not an interview – give something back before you start asking about jobs!

There is no substitute for face to face contact.  If you want to get the most out of your alumni network and build relationships, make sure that you attend at least one event every year.  This way you will be able to cultivate acquaintances beyond your year group.

Looking for jobs
Whilst it’s important to use good judgment when asking about jobs through the alumni, of course, you should use your alumni network to look for jobs. Your alumni network, whether on Linkedin or through your former institution, should allow you to see where your former classmates are working. Actively mentioning that you’re looking for new opportunities in conversations with other alumni is a plus – even if they don’t have anything for you themselves, they almost certainly will know someone who does.

Reaching out early
Whether you’ve just graduated from your programme, or you still have two years to go, it’s never too early to reach out and get involved in your alumni network. Organising conference events, informal socials, breakfast meetings or even a Facebook group are all steps you can take to maximising the power of your alumni network. You might even be surprised at the level of feedback and interest you receive – an alumni network is mutually beneficial to all of its members, and people are more than willing to welcome you into it.

Blog

What to avoid on your graduate job hunt

Get set and go footprints intrapreneurship January 2017 Coloured text With more people going to university than ever before, the graduate job market is incredibly competitive. It’s pushing firms to demand that candidates arrive at a job interview not only with a degree under their belts, but internships and references to boot. As a result, so-called entry-level graduate positions now seem to be anything but.

Graduates now need to beat the odds in order for their first job searches to prove fruitful. Whether you’re looking for a graduate leadership programme or an entry-level junior management role, these odds can be stacked in your favour if you avoid a few common pitfalls and mistakes. So what should you avoid doing during the hunt for that first full-time role?

Don’t start by only looking for your dream job
Say, for example, that your dream is to become a senior consultant for a ‘Big Four’ firm or an editor at a well-established newspaper like The Times or The Guardian. You might be tempted to look at only one role within your dream organisation, and ignore other openings as a result.

This is a huge mistake. One of the things that major employers are looking for in their graduates is transferable skills, a breadth of experience and adaptability. Narrowing your job search to your perfect role and neglecting other jobs that could provide you with those necessary transferable skills could hurt your prospects in the long-term. The path you take to your dream role is often not straightforward. It helps to instead ‘go sideways’: look for roles at different levels in a range of industries and gain some necessary skills and experience first.

Don’t get the dress code wrong
One of the easiest ways to ensure you don’t get the job is turning up to an interview in the wrong attire,  not looking the part for the job.  There are many instances of promising candidates who are turned away because they attend an interview in casual wear or are inappropriately dressed for a particular company. Find out the dress code in advance of the interview – employers should inform you about this when they offer the interview, but if not, ask.  Failing that, do some research, for example, look at the interviewing organisation’s website, brochures and social media. Even for more creative environments, it’s probably wise to err on the side of caution and wear a smart suit.

 Don’t neglect your digital CV or portfolio
These days, a lot of recruitment takes place online and you may have already put a lot of time and effort into designing a great LinkedIn profile or personal website portfolio. The purpose of having a digital CV is that it makes networking and applying for jobs extremely streamlined – but if you don’t do anything with it, you might as well have not spent the time creating it. LinkedIn is a great way of networking with recruiters and potential employers, so get involved in discussions, promote your achievements, build your connections, and add testimonials. The more detail and engagement you put in, the greater chance there is of your digital CV making an impact. Don’t neglect your existing contacts either – the more people relevant to your job search that you connect and engage with, the more potential opportunities.

Don’t lose confidence
Here’s a fact: most successful people have been rejected countless times in their lives. You will, one day, be rejected or ignored after you apply for a job – even after spending hours or days on the application. Rejection is inevitable. It’s what you choose to do with rejection that counts.

Even if you’ve applied for many jobs and not secured a post, don’t give up. Ensure you get feedback from your interviewers, after all, you’ve invested your time, it’s only reasonable to get feedback. Find out if anything specific went wrong, use each interview as a learning experience and figure out how you can improve for the next one. Employers often receive hundreds of applications for a position and only one candidate can be successful. So what are you going to do differently next time you send an application or attend an interview?

Don’t ignore internships
You might be gearing up for a full-time job, but ignore internships at your peril. Most employers expect you to have some level of work experience, to the point where internships are quickly becoming the new ‘entry-level’.  Not all internships are unpaid, and three months of working full-time will definitely boost your chances in the long-term.  Some salaried entry-level jobs are even listed as ‘internships’, so, again, it’s worth looking further afield for your first role.

Preparation is key for successful job searches and interviews – you might find our blog, boosting your job search with social media, helpful.

Blog

Understanding the ingenuity process

Vector set of conceptual flat line illustrations on following themes - creativity and inspiration, idea and imagination, innovation and discovery, think outside the box

David Falzani, SMF President and honorary professor of entrepreneurship at Nottingham University Business School (NUBS) takes us through NUBS’ ingenuity process which is at the heart of its entrepreneurship module.

Ingenuity, inventiveness, originality – all these are at the heart of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs, after all, are fundamentally problem solvers that offer creative, innovative solutions and responses to problems – gaps – in organisational or market-oriented thinking.

However, creative solutions don’t just materialise out of thin air. They emerge from lateral thinking processes and problem-solving approaches which attempt to grapple with not just the problem itself, but the factors leading to the problem, the consequences of the various solutions potentially available to us, and the possibility of new, unique ideas which can be mobilised into a concrete plan of action. In other words, ingenuity is not innate. Whether we’re talking about products that fill a particular gap in the market or internal changes to a business, ingenuity is a problem-solving process that taps into a natural human capacity for creative solutions.

They say that quick decisions are not always the best decisions. That’s why the ingenuity process demands organisational time and respect to get the best results – that is, after all, why we talk about it as a ‘process’. It represents a progressive working-through of the obstacles and issues in question. So, what might this process look like?

Defining the problem
If you’re looking for creative solutions, you must already be aware that there is a problem or obstacle. The ingenuity process firstly seeks to understand the problem in its entirety by asking questions such as, but not limited to:

      • Whose problem is this?
      • How urgent is the problem?
      • How might we break the problem down into manageable parts?

In other words, ingenuity first requires a comprehensive, concrete analysis and explanation of the issue at hand—as this will form the basis of the next step, ie your strategy. Knowing the component parts of the problem should give you a clearer idea of the various objectives required to solve each element of the issue individually.

It will also allow you to test your potential strategy against the problem itself by making clear the various implications and impacts of your solution on the different factors leading to the problem in the first place. Defining the problem in this way may even solve the problem immediately by making clear the various blind spots in the organisation’s relationship with the issue thus far. To come up with an original, ingenious solution, however, requires you to document the problem – and your strategy – in its entirety. There is no single answer to a problem, and that’s why all possible avenues must be explored before action is taken.

Documenting the ingenuity process
Documentation is vital in any organisational context, as it will form the basis of any concrete, problem-solving proposal to your colleagues, shareholders, or fellow management team. It enables you to communicate the gravity of the problem and all its complexities in a way that creates a case for taking action and moving forward.

You’ve hopefully thought about the problem in depth, measuring its impacts, causes, and implications of your proposed strategy. You need to communicate this creative thinking in clear, concise terms – not only to justify your strategy but also to hit the nail on the head, so to speak. So, write a statement describing the predicament which addresses:

      • The processes involved
      • The facts as they are and why they demand action
      • The consequences of not solving the problem

This should form the basis of a concise justification as to why your strategy is not only a good potential course of action but an imperative one too. Supplementing this statement with a comprehensive analysis of root causes, a map of the different processes leading to and from the issue, and arranging different considerations according to priority, will provide a solid basis for moving forward and generating real solutions and ideas with your colleagues.

Discovering creative solutions
So, you’ve analysed the problem in its entirety, demonstrated the importance of solving the problem, and hopefully proposed a basic strategy for moving past the issue. Everyone agrees creative solutions are needed, and there are clear ideas about where the problems lie and where action needs to be taken.

If these steps represent an objective, concrete approach to a problem, one that attempts to quantify the issues at hand, then it is from here that real creativity comes into play. You need to designate a time and a place for non-judgmental idea generation.

Exercises such as looking for analogies in other markets or previous experience can be helpful in illustrating where other solutions have fallen short and what needs to be done differently. Take an example from another company, perhaps, and try to generate a set of hypothetical solutions for the problems they faced – it will give you a much-needed detached perspective while providing a focal point for new ideas. Get to the root of your current problem-solving processes. What organisational assumptions are underlying them? How might you change those assumptions to move beyond paradigmatic thinking?

Brainstorm, argue, debate, deconstruct – and ultimately, generate as many ideas as possible in response to the problem at hand. Many of these ideas might not solve the problem in its entirety, but they might solve it partially – and if not, the point is that they open up new space for alternative, lateral solutions. This is the most important element of creative idea generation – allowing yourself to be wrong, questioning your assumptions, and making the box small enough that thinking outside of it becomes second nature.

Determine your course of action
This is the hardest part of the ingenuity process, and the part most burdened with the kind of risks entrepreneurs must take on. Firstly, you need to step back from the idea generation stage. Getting sucked into individual ideas and potential responses can mean losing sight of the bigger picture. You now need to consider all your ideas in their entirety and as a collective whole, asking yourself:

      • What kind of underlying logic characterises the different groups of ideas generated?
      • What solution does this logic point towards? Does it sufficiently address the problem?
      • Have all derivative ideas or combinations of ideas been seriously considered?

It’s time to collate your ideas and think hard about the nature of the problems they’re speaking to. The ingenuity process is then not so much about idea generation as it is about critical self-reflection on the logic and norms governing ‘business as usual’. It’s only by questioning your assumptions and considering your ideas in relation to these assumptions that a truly original, creative solution can emerge. Here, the ingenuity process transforms: it is no longer just about thinking outside of the box; it is about questioning how you ended up inside it in the first place.

Image: vasabii

Blog

Would uSwitch your chief executive?

Would you switch your CEO2Tired of paying over-the-top rates for poor service, bad communication, and a total lack of market strategy? It might be time to switch—your chief executive, that is.

Today, thanks to ‘switching’ providers like uSwitch or comparethemarket, consumers have more power than ever when it comes to comparing and selecting utility or insurance providers. All it takes are a few clicks through these streamlined services to find, and switch to, a better deal.

If only such a service existed for selecting better chief executives. CEOs wield such a large amount of responsibility that a bad CEO could damage, if not devastate, your company in every conceivable way – even permanently, as the recent case of Phillip Green and BHS attests.

By looking at common shortcomings CEOs often face and ‘comparing the market’, so to speak, this article will hopefully outline some of the areas in which chief executives can improve.

A self-critical approach
As Ben Horowitz points out, there’s no one else to blame when you’re CEO – chief executives are ultimately responsible for every major decision within the organisation. The blame for a bad hire or a failed initiative will ultimately find its way back to chief executives as they are the ones who OK such decisions.

For this reason, better CEOs need to take a generally more self-critical approach to their position and their relationship with the company. Firstly, this should manifest in an ability to recognise one’s own weaknesses. If a chief executive is unwilling to admit that they can sometimes lack communication skills, or that their excess of ego is having a negative effect on the company, then this demonstrates stubbornness. If you ask a prospective new CEO what their greatest weakness is and their answer does not pertain to an actual weakness (e.g. “I am too detail-oriented” or “I am too friendly”), it can be a red flag for someone who has not faced up to their own limitations and is not focused on self-improvement.

This can become fatal to a company in times of strife, and this vital self-critical approach must be evident in a chief executive’s actions. If, for example, the organisation is feeling the financial squeeze and the CEO is still accepting large bonuses at the company’s expense, then this demonstrates a lack of critical reflection and a detachment from their responsibility to employees and stakeholders.

Goal-oriented strategic thinking
Companies inevitably run into a myriad of obstacles over their lifespan, and as both a figurehead and leader in practice, it is down to the chief executive to ensure the organisation weathers the storm.

No matter what industry you’re involved in, there will doubtless come a time when your company will be presented with a near-fatal obstacle or challenge. Getting bogged down in the details of these obstacles or allowing them to dominate you psychologically can make you lose sight of the path ahead. This calls for strategic, long-term thinking, rather than short-termism.

Chief executives need to be conscious of the many shifting trends in their industry and conduct a risk assessment of how these might change the landscape in which the organisation is operating in the future. This means understanding the historically unique consumer trends and new technologies emerging as potential opportunities with a place in long-term strategy, but it also requires an ability and willingness to determine which of these trends will have a contingent impact on the company’s vision and which of them are simply short-term fads. Put simply, good chief executives need to have a clear head, balancing risk against short-term challenges in order to retain a clear long-term vision and strategy for the company. Those who are susceptible to getting sucked in by the minutiae of short-term issues simply don’t cut the mustard.

Social responsibility
Does your CEO actively involve themselves in the community of the company, or are they rather more aloof? Do they skip staff parties, charity fundraisers, and local business gatherings? It could be a sign that they feel little affinity with their colleagues or immediate business community, and therefore lack a sense of social responsibility.

“People of my generation of leadership have fundamentally failed, in that corporate private sector has not delivered its contribution to society over the last 10 years,” argues Ronan Dunne, O2’s chief executive. Generating revenue for shareholders and stakeholders alike is obviously a priority for most businesses, but it’s important to remember that business people are part of a social contract with wider society. After all, it’s the community of consumers, producers, and other businesses that every successful organisation owes their success to.

CEOs need to take active, intentional action to not only exhibit but cement the company’s social responsibilities. Ask: how does their sense of social responsibility manifest? Boondoggle initiatives won’t cut it—they need to produce concrete results. O2’s Think Big scheme is a great example of a company getting social responsibility right, offering grants of up to £10,000 to young innovators looking to provide new and creative solutions to environmental problems. Does your CEO put their money where their mouth is? If not, it might be time for a switch!

Blog

Intrapreneurship: corporations and startups can learn from each other

An entrepreneur is brainstorming new ideas for their start up company. The chalkboard has the words "start up" written in chalk.

Despite all the commentary and hype surrounding startups, there’s a reason that many fail to develop into bigger companies. The lean and hungry startup is not only able but supposed to take risks that more established firms cannot do owing perhaps to both organisational inertia and inflexibility. While this often results in more ‘failures’ than it does long-standing successes, the risks startups take can be of enormous teaching value in terms of providing case studies to larger, more well-established companies about what went right or wrong.

Likewise, start-ups looking to transition to the next stage could learn an awful lot from larger companies — once startups themselves — about long-term development and consolidation of both the brand and internal culture.  Startups lack the kinds of structure and procedures which characterise established firms, but these will need to be implemented if a startup wants to take it to the next level. There are a lot of opportunities for both sides to share good practice and learn from each other.

The exchange of ideas and good practice between big, established companies and startups is often derided as superficial ‘innovation theatre’.  Adopting the ‘perks’ of startup culture, such as open-plan office layouts or staff canteens, corporations posture and make it appear as if they are ‘innovating’ while sales continue to stagnate and the firm fails to break into new markets. They’re still just as rigid as before, having failed to learn the real lessons from startups about problem-solving, risk-taking, and experimentation. Investors remain conservative and management less entrepreneurial.

While startups do often successfully seek efficiencies by shaking up work patterns or by cutting through red tape and bureaucracy normally faced by bigger companies, it’s “how startups attack problems and mobilise talent that makes them unique,” argues Zachary Johnson for Forbes. “It’s being able to focus single-mindedly on one problem that allowed Salesforce.com to become the king of CRM. It was a reputation for hiring brilliant people that made Google such a desirable place to work.” For him, startups bring discipline to ‘mistakes’ (ideas, trial, error, iteration) building a safe space to incubate new ideas.

Building a space for corporate experimentation must have a clear end goal or objective in place to maximise resources. Both startups and corporations must strike a balance when learning from one another – taking too many cues from startups is untenable and risky for a company with a stable portfolio while inheriting a rigid organisational approach from larger companies can strip startups of their edge that makes them successful.

Before any knowledge exchanges can take place or be put into action, there need to be clear boundaries and goals in place. What issues are you aiming to solve by adopting similar practices to companies of a comparatively different size and perhaps even industry to yours? “Startups by nature have to validate their ideas, so they value experimentation and exploration.” Any experimentation or knowledge exchange should likewise be clearly justified.

The rise of ‘intrapreneurship’ could hold the answer to a clear path for knowledge exchange between firms of vastly different sizes and experience levels. Intrapreneurship involves giving employees the means to dedicate their time to pursuing innovative ideas unrelated to their everyday tasks. This gives stakeholders throughout the organisation the opportunity to rise above the ranks, take risks, and pursue new ideas without fundamentally upsetting the regular, productive order of things. The intrapreneur takes risks “within the context of their job in the company” to implement “policies, technologies, and applications that resolve a barrier to productivity increases”. Working in conversation with a wide range of trends outside of the company, and, supported by shareholders and management, these autonomous ‘intrapreneurs’ are able to become key entrepreneurial forces and push the organisation in a new direction and can even result in spin-off brands that have a totally different brand, culture and product line to that of the ‘parent’ company.

Intrapreneurship makes perfect sense in any market that is facing disruption or long-term stagnation, or for any firm that is failing to keep up with the pace of innovation in its industry.  Most entrepreneurs of startups want to grow and expand into an empire.  As they achieve this ambition, they too will need to implement more structures and controls to ensure the business grows in a particular direction.  Intrapreneurship and the acquisition of new business disruptors will ensure that they remain the dynamic and flexible players they were at the start of their journey.  Their future could depend on it.

Photo copyright: Christopher Futcher

Blog

What are the challenges of IoT?

various smart devices and mesh network, internet of things, wireless sensor network, abstract image visual

Professionals, particularly engineers, are enthusiastic about the promise of the Internet of Things (IoT).  Everybody talked about it when it wasn’t quite here. Now that it’s here, it’s growing exponentially.

Gartner predicted last 2014 that there would be 25 billion devices integrated into the IoT.  Cisco says figures would be near 50 billion. Morgan Stanley believes it will reach around 75 billion.

This growth will get closer to reality as devices become smaller and sleeker and computing grows more powerful and becomes more streamlined.

The IoT is simply the interconnectivity of devices through the Internet.  Great innovation at first sight, but it is not without consequences.

The connectivity that drives IoT is the same that could also cause dire consequences.   For example, there have been reports of hacking of baby monitors and Wired ran a feature on the simulation of hackers taking over control of a jeep on the highway.   Even power interruptions can cause serious problems.

Compatibility
As of now, there’s still no international standard for compatibility in IoT, particularly for tagging and monitoring devices. Of all challenges, this is the one that can be most easily solved. Companies just have to agree on a standard, which already happens in different products and services. The IoT won’t be any different.

Though standardisation is an easy matter to solve, technical issues will still exist.  Even today, Bluetooth, a relatively old way of connecting, still has compatibility problems. Issues about compatibility can lead to customers buying from one company only, developing monopolies that can hurt the industry.

Complexity
Complex systems offer more chances of failure. The Internet of Things can offer massive amounts of these chances.

An example of this failure is double purchasing. Let’s say a couple receives the same note from their refrigerator saying that they need to buy a loaf of bread.  There’s a chance that they both buy one, leading to the purchase of two loaves instead of just one.

Software bugs can also send notes to an owner telling him to buy a new light bulb even when he just bought a new one.

The complexity of the IoT also gives way to more intensive management and maintenance.  How will IoT companies make sure that billions of these devices are online and running? Can takeovers and interruptions be easily handled through billions of connections? Will the IoT require every device to be registered or will it only require a certain identified ‘residence’ to represent all devices within?

IoT will also handle massively growing amounts of data.  How will companies make sure that they deliver the expected results and withstand a growing workload at the same time?  How will consumers know if their devices are able to handle intense data flow?

Privacy and security
Since the IoT is founded on transmitted data, the risk of privacy breaches gets bigger.  We are still not sure of how good data encryption will be.  Sensitive information like medical prescriptions and financial status are exposed to bigger risk.

Extra security may demand higher prices, which will either attract only a few customers or none at all.

Looking at the bigger picture, we also do not know who will be controlling the IoT.   One company controlling it can lead to a monopoly that will do consumers and other competitors no good. Multiple companies handling the system can expose private customer information to many groups, which will compromise the close relationship of the customer to a specific company he adheres to.

The fact that personal data will be exposed to the Internet once IoT gets implemented will render any consumer vulnerable to hacking, fraud, identity theft, and other crimes involving sensitive information.

The government itself, which is supposed to be the most secure entity in any state, can easily be hacked by hacker groups.  The group Anonymous has already done this to the US government.

Personal safety
What if a hacker changes your preferences for medicine, food, and other products?  Once your data is breached, this can happen.  In the IoT, consumer safety depends on how good the system can verify real information that passes through automated processes.

The IoT is constantly growing, and even at its early stage, the whole system, as well as the dangers it faces, are already overwhelming. Data breach can affect huge sectors of the system like a disease.

At the very least, we need to easily spot where problems originate in the system.  Monitoring must be optimum so Big Data tools must be able to alert authorities when security incidents happen.  Threats must be taken care of in real time with little to no delays.  As of now, we need to know what these systems would look like and how companies can make these systems real.

Mass unemployment of unskilled labour
The demand for unskilled workers will plummet to the point of irrelevance as automation will prove itself to be more efficient.  This always happens whenever technology takes a leap and will require humans to level up its education.

This phenomenon can cause social chaos and maybe a change in how people see technology, as technology is supposed to make life easier for people, not harder.  Unemployment will also decrease consumption, which will be bad for a growing IoT industry because any new industry will need a growing market.

Since human involvement in the delivery of products and services will be minimised, the consumer expectations will increase too. Failure to meet expectations may add fuel to an already spreading fire caused by unemployment.

Over reliance on technology
It is almost certain that IoT will make humans a lot more dependent on technology to the point that it will take control of our own lives. As of now, young generations are already attached and addicted to technology for every aspect of their lives.  Do-it-yourself is now do-it-with-gadgets.

Today, information is easily searchable through Google.  People who can help you can easily be reached through social networking sites. False news can easily be spread and disproved using search engines. Writing turned into typing and typing turned into taking pictures of texts.

Society must determine how much technology must run human life.

Blog

Will an MBA really make a difference to my career? Choices & Options – David Falzani, SMF President

MBA Blog Part 2 iStock_000061959038_Large EDITED 2

In our previous post in this series, we began to explore in a general sense how an MBA can give your career a huge boost – if you make the most of it and are in it for the right reasons. MBAs give you a toolbox of new skills, enable you to make important contacts, provide access to the school’s brand and help you develop your personal bandwidth. They also can let you gain real-life experience through placements, develop personally as well as professionally, and, of course, specialise.

It’s this specialisation and personalisation that an MBA offers which we’re going to be focusing on today. Of course, choosing the right school is important. Small schools can be tightly-knit communities, inclusive, and cohesive – and may offer unique specialisations. However, they won’t offer as many electives or as much customisation as a larger school, and you may find your thinking will be less challenged at a smaller school.   In contrast, larger schools give you a broad choice of electives and tend to have much larger alumni networks – although it can come at a cost, with such schools sporting, for some, daunting student population sizes.  Thanks to specialised cohorts, however, the size or location of school isn’t nearly as important as programme length and structure.

When it comes to selecting an MBA, you have a wide range of choices and options in terms of course structure, length, and teaching style. We can classify MBAs into three different types: part-time, full-time, and executive. Selecting between them is one of the first major decisions you’ll have to make before applying for an MBA.

Part-time MBAs
Often pursued for their lower financial cost, part-time MBAs are great for people looking to boost their careers without necessarily overhauling or changing things too much – they’re often referred to as career enhancers, rather than career changers. These courses last at least 2 years and you will often be taught during the evenings or weekends.

A part-time course allows you to continue working, which inevitably makes the course less of a financial burden and should put you on a good track to promotion at your current workplace. Some employers will even pay the tuition fees for such a programme in part or in full – but beware, it is likely that you will not have the same access to fellowships or other funding from the business school.

However, the part-time nature of these programmes means you are not exposed to the same intensive learning environment as in a full-time MBA, as we will explore. Whereas you are placed in a tough, immersive environment on a full-time course.   This is why many argue that a part-time MBA is not so much a career changer as it is an enhancer – but if you’re concerned about the cost of tuition, or if you’re set on pursuing promotions in your current job or industry, a part-time MBA could be the right choice for you.

Full-time MBAs
The full-time MBA tends to be the mainstay of most business schools, and with good reason. These are frequently billed as the ‘career changers’ – an opportunity for you to take a complete break from work for up to 24 months and re-evaluate your personal approach, skills set, and mindset towards management.  Of course, as we discussed in the last post, an MBA is what you make it, but a full-time programme is particularly special thanks to the immersive environment it offers.

MBAs attract an incredibly diverse range of people, from a huge variety of personal and professional backgrounds. Like in a real business environment, you will be working with people you may not normally come across in your personal life.

Your interpersonal skills aren’t the only thing that will be tested on a full-time programme. Exposed to new disciplines and what might be entirely new ways of thinking, learning quickly is one of the most important skills you’ll develop thanks to a full-time MBA. The internship opportunities that come as a result of this will open up even wider career opportunities in finance, investment banking, consulting, start-ups, NGOs, and more. In this way, it is not just a career changer, but a potential life-changer.

Full-time programmes aren’t without their issues, of course. There’s the financial element as we’ve already discussed. There’s also a possibility of ‘group think’ developing as a result of working so closely with the same people in such an intense environment. Heterogenity of views can be lost in the process of working together towards common project goals – leading to a lot of people pursuing the same career path after an MBA, such as in consultancy or finance. It’s important to remember that a full-time MBA opens a lot of doors for you, and carving out your own path using the skills and knowledge you acquire is a major benefit of MBA study.

Executive MBAs
An executive MBA is much like a part-time MBA. They’re designed for people who are still working, with flexible timetabling and attendance in recognition of this. They’re designed to be completed in two years or less. The main difference is who they’re designed for: experienced managers, executives, and other entrepreneurs around halfway through their career.

For this reason, the knowledge and skills developed on an executive MBA programme are rarely transformative – instead, an executive MBA is about updating your existing knowledge and skills as well as increasing the number of career options.  Again, they are a career-enhancer.

You will usually be encouraged to pursue an EMBA by your company’s executives, who want to fast-track you ahead in the company hierarchy. While EMBAs do tend to be more expensive than the regular MBA programme, they are usually sponsored by the company – so financial considerations are less significant.

Conclusion
Your career ambitions and tolerance to risk and financial outlay will determine which type of MBA will help you achieve your goals. Once you know the type of MBA you want, you can decide which type of business school will enable you to flourish and make the most of the MBA experience.

Read part 1: Will an MBA really make a difference to my career? 

You may also be interested in reading interviews with the winners of the SMF MBA Scholarship.