forward movement Archives - Page 2 of 10

The dark horse

April 9, 2020 by Wim GE De Vos Leave a Comment

Every day we choose between 3 approaches for everything we do:

Custom, tailor-made, one-off
Personalised, configured, repeatable
One-size-fits-all, standard, commoditised

But when we make our choices are we consistent, smart, see them in context?

Ask which of the 3 approaches you choose in the following cases:

connecting with our customers
drafting and sending proposals
delivering control or audiovisual systems
hire and fire
remuneration
training
service
making cars, speakers, systems,…
…

I dare to think we all use far too much custom and standard approaches…

When the personalised, configured, repeatable approach is the dark horse* in the race for success.

Custom is overrated

One-size-fits-all is overused

Personalisation is the dark horse…

Asking ourself some simple questions may have a big impact 🤜🏻 💥

*Definition “dark horse”:
a candidate or competitor about whom little is known but who unexpectedly wins or succeeds

Day 21 – Inside the 1st 🌊: We the people…

April 3, 2020 by Wim GE De Vos 1 Comment

For full video drop – click here.

End of week 3 in lockdown here in Spain. And in a similar situation in many other countries.
Some are amazed how how much we have in common…
As people. You, me, everyone else.
The same is true for small businesses.

As discussed in a previous post, people are the foundation of a businesses.

Distilled from over 40 conversations over the last 3 weeks I propose the following Preamble in these times of business hardship, but hopefully also long after…

WE THE PEOPLE OF SMALL BUSINESSES,

believe in the Power of We, and therefore:

will grow and cherish the Community as a self-healing complex network of organizations. Each of which is the sum ⨋ of individuals to the power of their values. ⨋ (individuals)

will Connect with other people on a daily basis putting the relationship before any short-term gain. Connections are infinite and accumulate value over time.

will have the Courage to accept our own responsibility and attitude. Therefore we will empower others (team members, customers, suppliers) to allow them to rise to the occasion every day and thus contribute to the success of the organization. Freedom and the means to do so will be provided for all.

#thisisastoryaboutpeople

As always – looking forward to hearing from all of you soon. ✌🏼

For more on this “Covid19 – 3 wave 🌊 – storm”… click here

Inside the 1st Wave: Back to basics & #2020BusinessChallenge

March 20, 2020 by Wim GE De Vos 2 Comments

For full Video drop – click here

With this video I wanted to follow up on all the ideas and suggestions I received from you as a reaction to my earlier post “small businesses – 3 Wave Storm coming“. 🙏🏻

Share with you how we as small businesses can get through the first wave of this storm.

I addition I want to propose a #2020businesschallenge to all #businessowners, #directors and #boardmembers:

1. No layoffs

2. zero-profit-year

3. learning opportunity

Looking forward to your feedback as always.

If we work together – learn – be positive, we have the opportunity to come out of this as better people, businesses and as a society.

This is an opportunity in disguise. #bettertogether

#astoryaboutpeople #makewowthestandard #thenewnormal

2020 – making better quality promises.

January 1, 2020 by Wim GE De Vos Leave a Comment

A new year. A new decade. A new approach to the new years resolution list 📜…

Instead of spitting out fresh new promises let us recycle promises ♻️. Recycle with a twist 🍸.

Revive long lost promises. And make them better 👌🏻.

This year I am making better quality promises.

More personal, more precise, more generous.

Small but better promises with a BIG impact 💥 (hopefully).

Let´s try to be a better version of ourselves this year.

Happy 2020 to everyone. 🐬

Digital transformation – where to start

November 9, 2019 by Wim GE De Vos 1 Comment

A recent survey of directors, CEOs, and senior executives found that digital transformation (DT) risk is their #1 concern in 2019. Yet 70% of all DT initiatives do not reach their goals. (source Harvard Business Review)

Digital transformation is a matter of survival for any business. But especially tricky for SME´s.

Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Salesforce, IBM, SAP, but also thousands of specialised players like Xero, Slack, Bootcamp, Mailchimp,… are all promising you the world.

So where do you start? How do you decide?

Look for the perfect “total solution provider”?
Build upon whatever software you already use?
Cloud or local packages?
Departmental approach (accounting, sales, production, shipping, IT, finance,…)

The decision making process I propose is the following:

Start with an in-depth business analysis. Where are we today?
Then lay out your strategic vision for the business. Where are we going?

And then a hybrid, personalised and phased approach will start to emerge.

Some parts will be hosted locally (eg sensitive information), some parts will be hosted in either a private cloud (own infrastructure) or public cloud solutions (external suppliers).

There is no Holy Grail of digital transformation. You are unique. So is the solution you need.

So start with analysing where you are today and plotting where you want to be tomorrow. Not by selecting softwares or vendors.

And I bet you will find that the digital transformation of your business will be hybrid, personal and phased.

Some interesting reads are:

ZDNet: Digital Transformation: making it work in the real world.
Harvard Business Review: Digital Transormation is not about technology.
Insead Knowledge: Setting the stage for Digital Transformation