The Importance of Data Visualisation

Here at Whiteark, we love data, it’s at the centre of everything we do, it gives us that facts, and in order to interpret what the data is telling us, and communicating our findings with key stakeholders, data visualisation plays a fundamental role.

What is Data Visualization?

In today’s business environment, and the rise of big data upon us, we need to be able to interpret increasingly larger batches of data. Data visualization takes the raw data, models it, and delivers the data so that conclusions can be reached - it provides visual context of what the data/information means through the use of maps, graphs, tables, infographics or other visual formats. This makes data more natural for the human mind to comprehend and makes it easier to identify trends, patterns, and outliers within large data sets.

Users of Data Visualisation

Data visualisation is used across all industries to improve top line and bottom-line growth across all aspects of the organisation. As a crucial step in data analytics, data visualisation enables companies to unleash the power of their data by highlighting critical insights and messages that would otherwise be lost.

Benefits of Data Visualisation

The key benefit of data visualisation is the positive affect it has on a company’s decision making process – it enables businesses to recognise patterns more easily and faster. Below are some specific ways that companies can benefit from data visualisations:

Understanding Trends:

Analysing current and historical data allows companies to understand trends over a period - where they were and predict where they can potentially go. Applying data visualisation to this type of application is one of the most valuable.

Identifying Frequency:

Frequency is related to Trends Over Time but refers to the rate of particular instances/occurrences – i.e., understanding the frequency of customer purchases and at which point in the customer journey they make their purchase supports companies with predicting/planning different marketing and acquisition strategies for potential new customers.

Recognising Relationships:

Data visualisation simplifies identifying the correlations between the relationship of independent variables – this allows companies to make more informed/better business decisions.

Examining the Market:

Data visualization takes the information from different markets to give you insights into which audiences to focus your attention on and which ones to avoid. We get a clearer picture of the opportunities within those markets by displaying this data in visual representation.

Performance:

The ability to obtain real time information with data displayed clearly on a functional dashboard allows companies to act and respond swiftly. It helps leaders identify challenges/ areas for improvement and provokes decisions to pivot more quickly.

Assessing Risk and Reward:

Analysing value and risk metrics requires expertise because, without data visualization, we must interpret complicated spreadsheets and numbers. Once information is visualized, we can then pinpoint areas that may or may not require action.

Data Visualisation Techniques

There are a range of methods that can be used to distil data/information in a way that can be visualised. It’s important to understand the type of data being modelled and what its intended purpose is, before determining the most appropriate visual representation. Some visualisations are manually created, while others are automated. Below are some examples:

Infographics: infographics take an extensive collection of information and give you a comprehensive depiction. An infographic is excellent for exploring complex and highly subjective topics.

Heatmap: This is a graph with numerical data points highlighted in light, warm and dark colours to indicate whether the data is high-value or low-value.

Area chart: This chart is great for visualising the data’s time-series relationship.

Histogram: Histograms are used for measuring frequencies. These graphs show the distribution of numerical data using an automated data visualisation formula to display a range of values that can be easily interpreted.

Overall, data visualisation is important tool in today’s environment as it summarises a plethora of information in a way that makes it easier to identify patterns and trends, rather than looking through thousands of rows on a spreadsheet. The purpose of data analysis is to gain insights, and data is much more valuable when it is visualised as it simplifies communicating the findings to a broad range of audience groups.

Resilience

Article written by Mark Easdown

Individual, Enterprise & Ecosystem Strategy & Planning, Ways of Working

““The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.””

— Ernest Hemingway

““Resilience is the capacity of any entity – an individual, a community, an organisation, or a natural system – to prepare for disruptions, to recover from shocks and stresses, and to adapt and grow from a disruptive experience.””

— Judith Rodin

““Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will-then your life will flow well.””

— Epictetus

“Kintsugi”: Kin meaning golden & tsugi meaning joinery, so “to join with gold”. In Zen aesthetics a different perspective emerges with broken ceramic pieces repaired using gold leaf and with great care thus highlighting the damaged history rather than hiding it. The object is given a fresh start, proudly wearing the flaws of its accident. Origins attributed to shogun of Japan,  Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408)

According to the Oxford English & Australian Concise Oxford Dictionaries, resilience is a noun, with key attributes;

• Capacity to recovery quickly from difficulties, toughness

• Ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape, elasticity

• Recoiling, resuming original shape after bending, stretching, compression, shock, depression

Yet, the quotations above highlight a unique resilient frame of mind: “strong at the broken places” & “a fresh start, proudly wearing the flaws” & “don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would”. Judith Rodin believes “Resilience isn’t an inherited characteristic, it really is a skill” which would then enable you “to prepare for disruptions”.

Let’s explore some scenarios across individual resilience, ethical resilience & the resilience dividend.    

At the individual level, the global pandemic, economic downturns, recessions and increase in uncertainty and anxiety highlight the need for resilience. As Diane L Coutu “How Resilience Works”, (HBR May 2002) observes, resilient people have certain defining characteristics;

• They take a sober and down to earth look at the reality of the current situation

• They search for and construct meaning for themselves and others, they build bridges to a better and fuller future

• They continually improvise, they imagine new possibilities & put resources to new uses

Are resilient companies filled of optimistic people?  Jim Collins in researching “Good to Great” sought counsel of Admiral Jim Stockdale to learn more…

“You must never confuse faith that you prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be”

Admiral Stockdale was a pilot whos’ plane was shot down over Vietnam in 1965, he endured 7 ½ years of captivity and torture and a POW. He organised a system of discipline & communications with fellow POWs, refusing even under torture to offer his captors any intelligence. He earned the Congressional Medal of Honour. He observed the POWs who broke fastest where the ones who deluded themselves about the reality and severity of their ordeal, they were optimistic they would be out by next week, next month, Christmas ..

The Stockdale Paradox, is that in the face of hardship you must;

• Maintain clarity about your reality  ….. however at the same time … Find positivity and hope for the future

In turning around demoralised workforce or lagging business performance, executives and teams must maintain a sober analysis of current state and conjure up a sense of possibilities and brighter future states.

Constructing meaning out of circumstance, continually improving and staying future focus

Austrian psychiatrist and Auschwitz survivor in his book “Man’s search for meaning” realised that to survive the camp, he created an imagine of himself delivering a lecture after the war on the psychology of the concentration camp to help others understand what they had been through, he constructed concrete goals and endured to deliver his vision.

In “Resilience: Hard won wisdom for a better life” by Eric Greitens, the story of Emil Zatopek shows us happiness and resilience can co-exist. In 1940 at age 18, he was forced by a coach at a Czech shoe factory to run his first race. Yet in adversity and during the race he discovered a love of running and a passion to succeed which set the direction of his life. Within 4 years he held Czech and world records. In the 1952 Olympics, he won the 5km and 10km and decided to run in his first marathon. He was an unorthodox runner, he wore his pleasure and pain for all to see, he crossed a line a winner in a world record time.

In our workplaces, mistakes are made, lack of frameworks and preparation, poor judgements and unintended consequences emerge. In “The Power of Ethics : How to make good choices in a complicated world”, Susan Liautaud gives us the following two real world examples and the need for frameworks around Ethical Resilience, the need for preventative measures, swift action and measures to recovery across leadership team and an organisation.

““Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better””

— Maya Angelou

Natasha’s Law (UK) & Ethical Resilience

On July 17 2016, Natasha Ednan-Laperouse aged 15 boarded a plane at Heathrow with her father and best friend for a vacation in south of France, they stopped to buy breakfast at Pret A Manger. She meticulously examined food labels as he had allergies to nuts, sesame seeds, dairy & bananas, her father double checked the label and there were no warning signs around the store. Tragically Natasha suffers a severe anaphylactic shock, her medicines nor shots of epinephrine would assist, French paramedics rushed her to Nice hospital where she died.  

Sesame seeds had been baked into the dough of the baguette, this was not listed on the package nor visible on the bread. In September 2018, a coroner’s court found Pret A Porter have previously received 21 other instances of allergic reactions, 9 of which involved sesame seeds. Pret A Manager director or risk and compliance testified that the chain had acted in accordance to the law, highlighting differing labelling rules for food prepared in-store and off-site. So, the chain had adhered to food-labelling laws but fallen short of a higher ethical standard.

In October, CEO issued a public apology and instigated wide spread labelling of individual packaging, posted full ingredients online, promised to respond to allergy-related incidents and vowed to work with government, charities, peers to improve the law which emerged in 2019 was known as “Natasha’s law”.  

The CEO was asked by author what steps might have been taken to have built ethical resilience and recovery; his response acknowledged earlier labelling expense concerns, preparing food in-store was to deliver quality and freshness to customer, there had also been concerns about complexity in compliance and in-house labelling with many vulnerabilities and potential points of error in value chain. The CEO acknowledged they should have delivered more than the law required, they should have been proactive and once they saw missteps – they should have told the truth, taken responsibility and moved forward with a plan to recover.

Microsoft conversational AI bot called Tay ( T= Thinking, A=About, Y=You) & Ethical Resilience

In 2016, Microsoft launched a social experiment in Tay, with the intention that the more people chatted with Tay the smarter its learning and natural language would evolve. In less than 16 hours, a particular type of attack saw Tay posting thousands of racist, sexist and anti-semitic comments via Twitter.

Microsoft immediately deleted posts, took Tay offline and apologised for “unintended offensive and hurtful tweets .. which do not represent who we are or what we stand for, nor how we designed Tay”. The company acknowledged it had not anticipated this sort of attack, but should have and outline lessons learned moving forward and the complexity of managing positives and negatives of AI systems.

The author highlights the very public cycle from resilience to recovery; Tell the truth, take responsibility and have a framework and make a plan to fix the problem or flaws.

Trends emerging at the start of the 21st Century have highlighted many crisis; pandemics, cyber-security attacks, storm damage, wildfires, systematic and structural failures that impact communities, cities & ecosystems. These trends can be amplified by;

• movement of populations and urbanisation (stressing social cohesion, infrastructure and services) 

• complex adaptive & evolving systems, with both;

  • globalisation advancing and vulnerabilities for problems to spread quickly across the globe

  • climate change impacting fires, floods, storms & greenhouse gases

In response resilience is being studied across an ever-increasing landscape including: health & wellbeing, psychology, psychiatry, community & human development, change management & workplace, medicine, epidemiology, nursing, education, software and distributed systems, engineering. Infrastructure, economic development, environmental, leadership & strategy.

““In the twenty first century, building resilience is one of our most urgent social and economic issues because we live in a world that is defined by disruption. Not a month goes by that we don’t see some kind of disturbance to the normal flow of life.””

— Judith Rodin

In her book “The Resilience Dividend”, Judith Rodin describes Resilience noting the thinking of ecology, engineering, psychology, systems thinking and adaptive cycles.

“Resilience is the capacity of an entity – an individual, a community, an organisation, or a natural system – to prepare for disruptions, to recover from shocks and stresses and to adapt and grow from a disruptive experience. As you build resilience, therefore you become more able to respond to those you can’t predict or avoid. You also develop greater capacity to bounce back from a crisis, learn from it, and achieve revitalisation. Ideally, as you become more adept at managing disruption and skilled at resilience building, you will be able to create and take advantage of new opportunities in good times and bad. That is the resilience dividend”

So, what attributes might an individual, community or organisation develop to be more resilient ? 

• AWARENESS : must be aware of strengths, assets, liabilities, vulnerabilities, the infrastructure, human and natural systems and a willingness to constantly re-assess, take in new information and adjust settings

• DIVERSE: draw from a diversity not any core critical function (individual, organisation, community, capabilities, information sources, technical elements, people and ideas)

  • William Saito served as CTO of NAIIC and deeply involved in Fukushima power plant disaster with 2011 earthquake and tsunami. He maintains it was “group-think” that saw highly skilled and experienced engineers and administrators ignore warnings and place back-up generators in basement and susceptible to flooding.

• INTEGRATED: The left hands must know what the right hand is doing & have alignment of goals, across systems, sectors, divisional or government silos. It needs to presence of feedback loops.

• SELF REGULATING: these domains can withstand disruptions, anomalous situations and will not fail catastrophically. It is enhanced due to elements, planning or design

• ADAPTIVE: capacity to adjust to circumstances, taking new actions, modifying behaviours, making improvements even before s disruption to avoid or mitigate effects.

  • The Vietnamese communities living in public housing in New Orleans had social and community networks in place for their >5,000 people which meant that roughly 80% had left the city before Hurricane Katrina arrived. The community showed resilience and adaptability in emergency accommodation solutions and then in the return, re-build and re-establishing of church and community.

The author provides a large number of real-world examples of what good looks like spanning: Readiness, response and revitalisation (which is a much fuller forward experience than just recovery), the need to get ahead of the threats (what can be reinforced? What can be practiced?), coordinated leadership and well-trained resources,  acknowledging that a crisis will confound all plans and preparation and the importance of social cohesion – as friends, neighbours and colleagues are usually the first asked to respond.

The concept of resilience dividend has a dual meaning;

• It shows the difference between how a disruptive incident, shocks, stresses affects communities / ecosystems who have made reliant-related investments & those communities who did not

• Demonstrates the benefits to communities / ecosystems accrue such as jobs, social cohesion, infrastructure, equity , reduction of poverty and crime

Around the world, this co-benefit & resilience dividend is noted in the design of co-purposed infrastructure for example;

• Amphitheatre, Cedar Rapids, Iowa is both flood control and an entertainment space & community gardens.

• SMART Tunnel, Kuala Lumpur (SMART = Storm water Management and Road Tunnel) is a designed 3 section tunnel combining storm water flood drainage & motor vehicles on differing levels. In category 2 storms, which occur approximately 10 times pa, the tunnel transports both cars and flood waters in lower section. Whilst in category 3 storms, the road is closed and tunnel used for flood water flow.

Building resilience is key at the individual, enterprise and ethical levels. The resilience dividend is an important strategic concept.

In May 2018, the National Resilience Taskforce was established which sought to develop a national disaster mitigation framework to reduce the impact of disasters. A report emerged “Profiling Australia’s Vulnerability: The interconnected causes and effects of systematic disaster risk.  As the report notes on page 41, “ More focus is needed on the intersections & interdependencies in the systems that support us, from local to global levels”

““We need to remember that the future is not pre-determined in any important sense. It is not an unknown land into which we totter unsteadily one day at a time, but an extension of the present that we shape by our decisions and our actions. The future is not somewhere we are going but something we are creating. We all have a role in shaping Australia’s future.””

— Professor Ian Lowe

Source: https://www.aidr.org.au/media/6682/national-resilience-taskforce-profiling-australias-vulnerability.pdf

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LOOKING TO CURATE YOUR BUSINESS STRATEGY? REACH OUT.

Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations with a focus on people just as much as financial outcomes.

We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

Article written by Mark Easdown

Will Covid-19 make or break you?

We have had a year of ambiguity and we will never go back to ‘normal’ for some industries and companies this has meant growth / opportunities and for others it has been meant something quite different.

Regardless of how I have been impacted professionally; everyone has been impacted personally.  This experience could have been positive or not so much. 

However I believe we are in the fork in the road…which path are you going to take?

We are now in May 2021 and you need to be clear is Covid19 going to make or break you?

What we know:

• The world has changed

• Companies have changed

• Households have changed

• How we think about work/life has changed

• A lot has changed

• We are not going back to ‘normal’

• There is ambiguity

• Consumer/Customer expectations have changed

How we respond?

Our initial response is survival – what do we need to do to survive Covid19 – personally and professionally.  The focus was on being able to survive and working out how to work with teams remotely. 

The response then shifted to thrive – how do to create opportunity. Restaurants moved to delivery, takeaway and industries and businesses pivoted.  Looking for opportunities to capitalise/optimise the business.

We are now living with ambiguity but businesses need to start revisiting its strategy, priorities and operations to ensure it is maximising its results.  We don’t have all the answers, we don’t know what normal is but continuing to move forward, make decisions and pivoting on changes is critical.

Key things to ensure you consider:

1. Customer/consumer expectations & how this has changed. Use data to validate.

2. Do you need to rethink your supply chain, suppliers and how you source your key services/goods?

3. How can you make your operations more cost effective?

4. Do you need to rethink your talent strategy – what do you need to own, what can be outsource/partnering  

5. Measuring what matters and report regularly so changes can be made?

6. How do we maximise the cash flow of the business? Focus on short term and long-term initiatives to drive improvement in cashflow

7. Revisiting investments to ensure it supports new priorities reviewing investments to ensure it supports new priorities and ensure aligned return on investment.

As a leader in an organisation it’s imperative that you take decisive action to ensure you set up your business for success.  Running scenario analysis and understanding the ‘what if’ are important to understand how you will pivot if something changes.

It’s a chance to relook at priorities, operating model and how you measure success for your business.  It’s the chance to show strong leadership with your organisation and team and ensure it maximise it chance for success.

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Need support in your organisation? Reach out.

Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations with a focus on people just as much as financial outcomes.

We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

Article by Jo Hands, Co-Founder Whiteark

The Whiteark Guide to Supply Chain Optimisation

The coronavirus pandemic highlighted the need for companies to focus on transforming their traditional supply chain models to digital supply networks, in order to better manage supply chain risk and disruption.

With the growing emergence of new supply chain technologies, organisations can invest in enablers that will support their supply chain network in resisting unexpected disruption. These technologies significantly improve visibility across the supply chain and are designed to anticipate and meet future challenges.

Some of these enablers include:

Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Intelligent, self-correcting AI will make inventory monitoring more accurate and reduce material waste.

Blockchain
Will verify authenticity, improve traceability and visibility, and improve transactional trust.

Quantum Computing
Unprecedented computational power will solve previously unsolvable problems.

Internet of Things (IoT)
Data from IoT sensors will provide insight into inventory location and status.

Intelligent Order Management
Supply chains will master inventory visibility with improved demand forecasting and automation.

Digital Twins
Virtual representations of complex creations — let you track objects through entire lifecycles.

Digital supply networks, breakdown functional silos and allow companies to become connected to their complete supply network to empower end to end visibility, collaboration, agility, and optimisation. Organisations that deploy Digital supply networks will be equipped to deal with unexpected events.

Supply chain optimisation.

Supply chain optimisation makes the best use of technology and resources such as blockchain, AI and IoT to improve efficiency, responsiveness and performance in a supply network so that companies can provide customers with what they want, when and where they want it – in a way that positively contributes to the organisation’s profitability and sustainability. An organisation’s supply chain is a critical business process that is crucial for a successful customer experience.

Goals of Supply Chain Optimisation

Top supply chain trends for 2021.

Contents of the Guide.

• Mitigating supply chain disruption.

• Supply chain optimisation.

• The process for optimising your supply chain.

• Key features of effective supply chain optimisation.

• The importance for supply chain optimisation.

• Supply chain trends.

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Looking to transform your Supply Chain? Reach out.

Our team has extensive global experience leading large scale Supply Chain Transformations from Factory to Customer across multiple industries. We have in depth capabilities around designing and delivering value in the Physical, Financial and Information (Digital) Supply Chain and can help your organisation create competitive advantage and value centred on the global supply chain.

We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. So, if you’re looking to transform, reimagine or upgrade your supply chain then complete the form below or give us a call on 1300 240 047 for an no-obligation conversation.

Quick tips for engaging your workforce

Engaging your workforce isn’t easy.  Every generation is engaged differently.  So, one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to increasing engaging with your workforce doesn’t work.  You need to think outside the box and ensure your approach is tailored.

Statistics show (and it make sense), if you have an engaged workforce they are more productive, more gets done and the financial results of the organisation are improved.  So all in all it’s a great result.  Every company should want this outcome but how do they get it and what do companies do wrong? 

Most companies do their annual employee engagement survey and measure what they need to improve.  They then come up with a number of initiatives to drive improvement – they focus on them for about 2-3 months and then they fall off. 

These activities are normally determined by management on what they think will fix the engagement.  Without engagement from the right level of people these activities don’t do the trick.

What I have seen work really well is to have a People Committee – this committee is made up of representatives from each team and they are responsible for regular / informal pulse checks and work on key initiatives that can put in place to increase engagement. This works really well and I have done this in 4 separate companies. 

The team determine what they want to do and all you need to do as leader is give them the support to put the initiatives in place.  They will come up with initiatives you will never have thought of, they will drive them and execute them and feel part of the improvement that is being put in place/made. 

This will drive engagement.

Have fire side chats with the team to talk through what drives them, what needs to change and where they need support.  When you start a new role or on an annual basis make sure you speak to every single person in your team and really understand how people feel and how you can make a difference.

Engagement is more important than ever.  What are you tips to engage with your employees?  Please feel free to share in the comments or join the conversation on LinkedIn.

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 Looking to develop your team? Reach out.

Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations with a focus on people just as much as financial outcomes.

We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

Article by Jo Hands, Co-Founder Whiteark

Prospective Hindsight and the Pre-Mortem

Article written by Mark Easdown

Business Strategy, Leadership, Collaboration, Ways Of Thinking & Working

““We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.” - Greek lyrical poet, Archilochus.
Or restated: ‘you do not rise to the challenge, you fall to the level of preparedness’”

““If you want a man to keep his head when a crisis comes you must give him training before it comes” ”

— Seneca

““Hope for the best, plan for the worst” ”

— Lee Childs (Character Jack Reacher)

In a nutshell, What is Prospective hindsight?

It is the generation of an explanation, reason, narrative for a future event (as if it had already happened). As if one had taken a time machine forward and looked backwards.

A simple and effective example this shift in thinking is provided in the below 1989 study: ……. “ consider predicting the winner of the first basketball game of a championship series. Before the game predicting the winner is based on general factors: match-ups between key players, team strengths and weaknesses, etc. Even past games are used to identify factors relevant to the imminent contest. After the game it's a different story. The defeat of one team is explained both by these general factors and by specific events like Player A's early foul trouble Player B's 'off night', too much inactivity since the team won its previous series, etc. Such events are too numerous to anticipate beforehand and to relevant to ignore afterward.”

Your executive and team makes sense of its environment by observing what happens and reasoning why these things have happened. Your CFO or COO may have a deeper understanding of business drivers and processes and possess greater explanatory skills whilst your new recruit may generate a new fresh insight with less knowledge of the context.

We usually explain the past (why did this occur) and predict the future (what if scenarios). We analyse the past often to draw meaning and insights to apply to forward thinking. Strategically, it would be very beneficial if we could improve how we anticipate future events and help us make more successful decisions and next steps. 

Back to the Future : A Prospective Hindsight study, 1989

In 1989, Deborah Mitchell, Edward Russo and Nancy Pennington undertook a study: “Back to the Future: Temporal Perspective in the Explanation of Events”;  on how people think and what role does certainty play in people generating reasons, explanations, narratives about an event? If people generate more explanations about past events, is this because the event had happened in the past? Or because of the certainty with which people think about things in the past?  The experiment findings were;

• Certainty matters more than past of future in itself

• People who thought about a future event with certainty generated more reasons and explanations than those who considered a past event with uncertainty

• Adding certainty added 30% more reasons and twice as many action-based reasons than abstract reasons

“Winning Decisions, Getting it right the first time”, Russo & Shoemaker, 2002

An experiment found prospective hindsight generated 25% more reasons for the following questions;

“How likely is it a woman will be elected the leader of your country in the first election after the next one” Think about all the reasons why this might happen. For specificity, provide a numerical probability.

&

“Imagine that the first election after the next one has occurred and a woman has been elected the leader of your country. Think about the reasons why this might have occurred. Then provide a numerical probability of this actually occurring”

Given the importance and value of improving the decision-making process, researchers, social scientists and psychologists set about leveraging the findings of prospective hindsight studies and try to identify a framework upfront to identify your decisions that might lead to poor outcomes and create a safe environment for dissent in views. In 1992, Gary Klein, a cognitive psychologist developed a pre-mortem risk assessment approach.

The Pre-Mortem

The pre-mortem framework and strategy;

• Considers the reasons around why something might fail, enhances collective intelligence of the group

• Encourages prospective thinking (rather than retrospective thinking) , leverages findings of studies in field

• Consider upfront future events before a decision is made (things within your control and outside your control)

• Considers factors that have resulted in the failure of a project or initiative, all voices are equal

• Creates a safe environment for participants to utilise expertise, experience and intuition to aid decision making  

If you choose a multi-disciplinary and cross functional team of participants what will fall out of this process are valuable insights into weaknesses in current state business environment and processes, the new initiative and any integration concerns. This exploration of the initiative, the pre-mortem findings, the countermeasures proposed will also likely reveal the positivity and attitude of participants to the project. The process liberates participants to speak up whereas in other situations they would feel they were not seen as team-players.

The basic steps

Gary Klein suggests some basic steps;

• Bring together a diverse and informed team familiar with decision or initiative

• Imagine a worst-case scenario (embarrassing & devastating), Imagine a crystal ball good enough to see failure but not the reasons

• Ask team members to spend some time independently and silently generating reasons for the failure

• Collate and consolidate a comprehensive list of concerns and issues

• With a prospective viewpoint, the team is now able to reconsider plan/initiative and countermeasures

• Keep revisiting the list, which keeps the possibility of failure alive and reduces overconfidence or group-think   

It is not the steps followed, the importance of pre-mortems is in the ability to switch thinking and the prospective hindsight viewpoint. 

Daniel Kahneman (2002, Nobel prize winner and expert in judgement and decision making) describes a simpler version;

…. When the organisation has almost come to an important decision but has not formally committed itself, Klein proposes gathering a brief group of individuals who are knowledgeable about the decision. The premise of the session is a short speech: “Imagine that we are a year into the future. We implemented the plan as it now exists. The outcome was a disaster. Please take 5 to 10 minutes to write a brief history of that disaster”

In which domains might pre-mortems be valuable?

Program and Project Management

• Ongoing risk analysis, risk mitigation measures, addressing weaknesses and integration issues

• Improving structural integrity of initiative and identify opportunities, quicker responses through project lifecycle

• Pre-emptively, in any domain that a “Post Implementation review” or “Post Mortem” is undertaken

Product Development and launch

• Workshop 6-month ahead scenarios ; “Product failed to launch”, “Product failed to deliver”

• Flawed beliefs may emerge, may be an alternate way to deal with ambiguity, highlight potential failure points, enhances greater collective awareness

• With findings run mini experiments on pilot, devise risk mitigation and test app, take small bets, perhaps UX professionals can de-risk initiative

Investment Opportunities

• Mitigate group-think, ensure a sufficient range of alternative model input assumptions, approaches and viewpoints considered, enhance investment business case, mitigate downside risks, poor practices and avoid making material mistakes, record findings and revisit frequently

Strategy, Resilience and Risk Management

• Workshop “Kill the company” or “Kill the budget” or “Kill the forecast”, “Risk Management: BCP, DR, Contingency Planning” identify ways in which these could fail, identify the challenges, points of failure, assumptions and develop mitigation plans

• Complement a HAZOP; Hazard and Operability Study to see how system and plant deviate from design intent and may create risks to manage 

• Workshop new strategic partnership proposal covering pricing, inventory, distribution, commercial size and acumen of partner, mutual ways of working

• Strategic planning tool for innovation and risks for domains such as : environmental, social, ethical, economic or empowerment

So, is this pre-mortem just another to-do list or a glass half empty view of the world?

Certainly, throughout history success has derived through good mental models, pre-empting and avoiding mistakes, inverted and switch thinking and leveraging prospective hindsight;

““... prevention is worth a pound of cure” ”

— Benjamin Franklin

““The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way””

— Marcus Aurelius

““When I begin my work in the morning, I expect to have a successful and pleasant day of it, but at the same time I prepare myself to hear that one of our school buildings is on fire, or has burned, or that some disagreeable accident had occurred, or that someone has abused me in a public address or a printed article, for something that I have done or omitted to do, or something that he had heard that I had said—probably something I had never thought of saying.””

— Booker T Washington

““Invert, always invert: Turn a situation or problem upside down. Look at it backward. What happens if all our plans go wrong? Where don’t we want to go, and how do you get there? Instead of looking for success, make a list of how to fail instead–through sloth, envy, resentment, self-pity, entitlement, all the mental habits of self-defeat. Avoid these qualities and you will succeed. Tell me where I’m going to die so I don’t go there.” ”

— Charlie Munger (Berkshire Hathaway)

Pre-Mortems might be a useful tool business hack that could take as little as 30-90 minutes or multiple sessions, perhaps it might be your unfair advantage, your “low-cost and high-payoff kind of thing” (see below).

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/strategic-decisions-when-can-you-trust-your-gut

Gary Klein: “The premortem technique is a sneaky way to get people to do contrarian, devil’s advocate thinking without encountering resistance. “

Daniel Kahneman: “The premortem is a great idea…  in general, doing a premortem on a plan that is about to be adopted won’t cause it to be abandoned. But it will probably be tweaked in ways that everybody will recognize as beneficial. So, the premortem is a low-cost, high-payoff kind of thing.

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LOOKING TO CURATE YOUR BUSINESS STRATEGY? REACH OUT.

Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations with a focus on people just as much as financial outcomes.

We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

Article written by Mark Easdown

Digital Transformation: Part 2

Article written by Pete Crawford

Executing Digital Transformation

This is the second of two articles on digital transformation. The first piece illustrated several components – relating to employee experience, customer experience, operations and business models – that offer transformational opportunities. Here, we will describe a framework to orchestrate and execute these opportunities.

“Insights from Pete Crawford | Head of Data, Analytics & AI, Pete Crawford spends his day-to-day leading strategy, governance and execution over enterprise data platforms, data science and AI capabilities. Speaking at leading industry AI and data events, Pete is experienced in forming and directing multi-disciplined teams to manage enterprise information assets and deliver business outcomes through advanced analytics.”

Digital Transformation Execution Depends on Cultural Change

Just as the approach to digital transformation requires a strategic, cross-functional and customer-focused mindset – rather than a focus on technological outputs – the success of execution depends on embracing new orientations:

i)      Transformational change is ongoing and cultural, not finite or punctuated like a project.[i]

ii)     Delivery is a series of agile enterprise-wide micro-transformations, not one ‘big bang’.

iii)   Achievement is the creation of a modern enterprise that is inclusive; genuinely committed to sustainability; and able to handle data at scale – not just a digital platform connected to a new business model.

The big question, of course, is why not just follow traditional change management principles and best practices as a digital transformation execution strategy? However, while there are many overlaps, traditional change methodologies typically follow a beginning-end pattern. The nature of digital transformation is also dynamic, interdependent and contingent on network interactions both inside and outside of the organisation. Not accommodating these factors has contributed to a 70% failure rate of transformation initiatives and sustained success in a only 16% of cases[ii]. What emerges is an approach to orchestrating successful transformation based on five main themes.

Digital Transformation Execution Framework

Theme	What Needs to be Answered?	Components
1. Strategic Foundation	Why is change necessary? What is the end goal? How are we going to get there?	• Vision and communications • Investment and commitment • Targets and tracking
2. Operating Model Choices	How are we going to organise and coordinate the transformation?	• Traditional PMO? • Transformational office? • Product-led transformation?
3. Data and Technology Ecosystem Needs	Does the technology stack help transform the customer experience and does the data ecosystem transform the employee experience?	• Data strategy • Data infrastructure • Data literacy and privacy
4. Workforce Needs	Do we have the tools and the talent at all levels of the organisation to fully leverage new opportunities?	• Digital tools • Data skills • Coaching, learning and hiring
5. Ways of Working	Is the entire organisation aligned and equipped to accelerate and sustain transformational capabilities?	• Cross-functional • Customer networked • Experiment and urgency

The Themes of Transformational Execution

1. Strategic Foundation

Not unlike any major initiative or program, orchestrating a digital transformation starts with a series of strategic choices. These choices either affect how ideas are embraced within an organisation – in which case they establish a new set of cultural norms – or they are resisted. Gaining acceptance means:

• Having a clear business strategy. The transformation can only be validated if it structurally aligned and measured in accordance with the wider business strategy.

• Link investment to clear, ambitious targets. Conveying external benchmarks, establishing exponential change targets and issuing timelines are crucial signals of strategic importance.

• Communicating strategic context to reinforce the urgency, commitment and significance of the transformation targets. Employees and business partners need to be fully immersed and committed to a clear narrative which articulates why change is necessary and what the end state will look like. Inevitably, this produces tension between challenging targets, autonomous teams who are accountable for results and the development of workforce capabilities. Communications needs to acknowledge these tensions and resolve them by being:

  • Audience specific (investors; government regulators; customer/user education; talent/recruitment; internal employees).

  • Customer-centric with an emphasis on customer needs and jobs to be done.

  • Customised to employee roles to help them adapt their own jobs and beliefs and, in particular, addressing transformation as a threat by discussing training paths to upgrade expertise.

  • Augmented by access to authoritative documentation (reasoning; goals; expected timeline with constraints; resources and points of contact).

• Setting cross-organisational metrics and markers of digital progress. The most relevant measures typically address aspects such as digital ROI; time to market of digital apps; and track whether key talent has been attracted, promoted and retained.

• Presenting a simple outcome-oriented transformation roadmap. The role of the roadmap is to prioritise and promote three to five initiatives that can be scaled to change customer behaviour.

2. Operating Model Choices

In simple terms, an operating model is the conduit between strategy, technology stack, development environment, and the organisation of talent to achieve business outcomes. At the centre of the operating model the question of how best to organise and coordinate targets, performance metrics, leadership, and scope across workstreams. Four main approaches emerge to closing the gap between strategy and execution. These approaches are summarised below.

• A dedicated transformation hub. This is a good option when transformation is enterprise wide and no single business function has the experience to coordinate the scope or speed of parallel workstreams. Advantages include:

  • Direct translation of corporate strategy into digital priorities.

  • Centralised strategic planning, cost control and procurement over innovative technologies.

  • Governance and communications ‘nerve centre’.

  • Leverages specialisation and expertise over multiple use cases.

  • Integrates with other centre of excellence models (i.e. AI, RPA).

• Product-led transformation. This option can be considered if the organisation has already established an effective information product management function built around strong data and analytics capabilities. Advantages include:

  • Pre-existing cross-functional navigation.

  • Geared to identify and understand customers (internal and external).

  • Experiment and prototype mindset to assist with speed-to-market.

  • Can be cross-pollinated with domain experts to build a lean, learning culture.

  • Funding a team rather than a project aids sequencing of initiatives.

• A standard project management office. This option is constrained by primarily working within the context of a business function or silo. This approach only warrants consideration if investment is significant but not strategic. Not recommended.

• The digital innovation lab. This is an option taken when organisations seek to experiment, learn and place multiple bets without large up-front investments. It is also synonymous with internal entrepreneurial divisions. While this approach may be valuable for ‘incubating’ transformational strategies such as new business models it is not recommended as a way of orchestrating transformational delivery. These types of units often have weak connections to core IT or lines of business.

3. Data and Technology Ecosystem Needs

The adoption of cloud-native data management platforms aimed at consolidating transactional, interactive and social data are central to the promise of digital transformation. Data platforms, supporting analytics capabilities embedded at a business domain level, are a transformational source of customer intelligence and innovation. Data architecture and infrastructure requirements can be as modest as business intelligence systems or as ambitious as the convergence of analytical and operational ecosystems that feed machine learning frameworks. In either case, choosing the right data analytics capability is paramount. In this sense, execution relies on:

• Understanding the context and demands on the data ecosystem.

  This requires discovering:

  • How the organisation decides when to collect data or purchase external data?

  • What types of data are collected and what is the primary source for each type?

  • Which stakeholders are the nominal ‘owners’ of each data source?

  • How granular is each data source? How has it been used in the past? Are usage events tracked?

  • Is there a unifying element (i.e. customer_id) that joins different data sources for data modelling purposes?

  • What tools and processes are available to move data between systems and formats?

  • How are the data sources accessed by different groups of users?

  • What data access tools are available? How many people use each of these tools, and what are their positions?

  • How are users informed of new and changed data elements?

  • How are decisions made regarding data access restrictions? By whom? Based on what criteria? How is this tracked?

  • What analytic tools have been tried?

  • How have the results of this analysis been judged? What were the metrics and benchmarks?

Ensuring that data strategy and data privacy management is supported by infrastructure best practice.

Weak Infrastructure	Strong Infrastructure	Comments
Siloed	Interoperable	Systems can be easily integrated
Proprietary	Open Source	Systems can be easily replaced and are not vendor dependent
Bespoke	Off-the-Shelf	No vendor lock-in or inflated pricing
Hosted In-house	Cloud	Reduced cost and secure, remote access
Hyper-specialised analytics units	Self-Service Insights	Analyst tools are becoming available to non-technical users
Irregular Data Formats	Standardised APIs	Data can be easily shared
Ad-hoc Security	Privacy-by-Design and Differential Privacy	Data platforms are protected from abuse of personal data with built-in governance mechanisms

4. Workforce Needs

Much of the strategic foundations, operational planning and technology ecosystem of digital transformation will go to waste unless there is universal user readiness, tool adoption and a collective commitment to sharing relevant information. To this end, organisations must activate a culture of continuous learning in the areas of:

• The identification and acquisition of data skills. To unlock the full value of data there needs to be a fundamental skills framework featuring:

  • Defining data.

  • Classifying data.

  • Improving data usability.

  • Understanding data visualisations.

  • Communicating evidence to decision makers.

  • Why data privacy matters and how privacy practices affect employees, customers and partners.

• The availability and implementation of digital tools. Digital self-service coupled with self-sufficiency in using tools make the power of transformation innovations accessible. The adoption of particular tools depends on business context but can include:

  • Messaging and virtual design or content collaboration.

  • Real-time data workflow and tracking management.

  • Self-service data analytics.

  • Dashboards connected to centralised data platforms.

  • Learning management systems to create training courses. 

• Coaching and talent identification to encourage the growth of new behaviours. Data skills and digital tools alone are not going to achieve cultural change or the creation of a continuous learning culture. Empowered employees, collaboration and urgency depends on distributed leadership and effective responsibility existing at all levels of the organisation. This requires:

  • Leadership development programs to challenge old ways of working.

  • Prioritising coaching to help team members grow through structured one-on-one sessions.

  • Having leaders dedicate time on hiring goals based on identified specific skill gaps.

  • Treat learning as a deliberate practice by providing immediate task feedback to individuals as in the form of small lessons taught by the most talented colleagues. Repeatedly reinforce positive behaviour.

  • Set OKRs for cultural change and track them relentlessly. Measures include the percentage of workforce actively involved in cross-functional teams; recognition of people who collaborate; and cultural gap identification with the use of assessment instruments.

5. Ways of Working

Ways of working is the articulation of culture across an organisation. A sustainable environment for digital transformation execution is cross-functional; experimental (and, equally importantly, tolerates data-informed failure); and operates with a sense of urgency. A number of traits contribute to embedding this culture:

• Leveraging internal knowledge networks.

• Eliciting and sharing in-depth input from customers.

• Sequencing transformation workstreams to focus on one business domain at a time (maximising ROI).

• Utilising similar datasets, technology solutions and team members for multiple use cases to reduce expense.

• Applying agility by investing in high-fidelity prototypes anchored in data to validate risk as early as possible.

In conclusion, we can consolidate many of the themes and components necessary to orchestrate a successful digital transformation using a simple roadmap example.

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FOOTNOTES

[i] A notable 63% of respondents (from 690 organisations) ranked cultural challenges as the biggest impediment to transformational efforts, Harvard Business Review, Rethinking Digital Transformation, November 2019.

[ii] ‘Unlocking success in digital transformations’, McKinsey survey, 29 October 2018.

LOOKING TO Leverage and utilise your data? REACH OUT.

Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations with a focus on people just as much as financial outcomes.

We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you.

Article by Pete Crawford

Practical Wisdom: Making sense of the eco-system

Article written by Mark Easdown

Business Strategy, Leadership, Collaboration, Ways Of Thinking & Working

““It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.””

— Richard Feynman

““Without this texture of experience, the data shoved before these executives’ eyes loses any truth. Context and colour are absent; all that remains are abstract representations of the world rather than the world itself.””

— Christian Madsbjerg, Sensemaking

““Practical wisdom,” Aristotle told us, “is the combination of moral will and moral skill.””

— Barry Schwartz

What is it when you encountered an executive team, your boss, a colleague, a team member, a peer displaying these following characteristics;

• Understanding the context, the enterprise strategy and how to serve the common good

• A balancing of conflicting directives, interpretation of rules in light of the situation

• Perception, sharing others views, see the shades of grey, can apply practical solutions to particular problems

• Does the right thing because it was the right thing to do, with the interest of the common good in front of mind

• Applies wisdom, knowledge and experience, learnings from previous mistakes to a specific context

 It is Practical Wisdom in action…

Aristotle (384-322 BC) in the Nicomachean Ethics distinguishes between three types of knowledge:

• Episteme (universal, theoretical understanding),

• Techne (skill, craft, technique understanding)

• Phronesis (practical wisdom, prudence, ethical knowledge, rational, linked to the senses, to perceive, to deliberate and action orientated).

  • His basic ingredients of Practical Wisdom were: Knowing one’s role or objective, perception of particular situations, an informed intelligence, learning from experience, deliberation on the best course of action, it is not enough just to be wise, you must actually do it. 

  • Practical Wisdom has evolved through time with the writings of Thomas Aquinas and many modern-day scholars, thought leaders and business schools.

So, Why (Where) is Practical Wisdom still relevant and of interest today?

Practical Wisdom within law-making

In 2019, the final report of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry was handed down by Commissioner Kenneth Hayne. The report underscores many fundamental themes;

• Importance of boards getting the right information and challenging management (yet adds the caution:  “Often, improving the quality of information given to boards will require giving directors less material”)

• A call to arms to fix corporate culture (assess culture and governance, identify problems, deal effectively with problems, set the tone from the top, ensure ongoing and robust reviews)

• Remuneration and Incentives tell staff what the company values

• Best interests of a company is not a binary choice between the customer and shareholders

Commissioner Hayne offered the following practical wisdom/principles to guide a review of ethics and conduct for boards and business leaders;

• Obey the law

• Do not mislead or deceive

• Be fair

• Provide services that are fit for purpose

• Deliver services with reasonable care and skill

• When acting for another, act in the best interests of that other

Practical Wisdom and the role of leaders

Wisdom, knowledge and experience are required for leadership and managerial decision making in; goal setting and an integrated view (including an ethical, moral and societal view), pricing policies (fair & equitable outcomes, supporting strategy (grounded in data plus context), budgeting (dealing with uncertainty, unpredictability, models and assumptions), leading through crisis (need for eco-system thinking) staff wellbeing ( the individual needs and the common good), strategic partnership balanced scorecards (ability to see through conflicting scores at what is really important in relationship).

Leadership should not wait for a crisis, for revenues and budgets to go off-track to engage the wider views. Pandemic of 2020, has been a great example of leadership teams who have been forced to stop, listen and reach out across their ecosystem (customers, employees, suppliers, relationships with banks and government) and to re-invent and re-imagine themselves.

Often when things start going wrong, there is an inclination is to either make more rules to prevent certain outcomes occurring or to put in smarter incentives to encourage the right outcomes. Practical Wisdom can be a guide when many conflicting rules appear at odds with the underlying principle & enterprise strategy  (see Starbucks example).

https://www.reutersevents.com/sustainability/comment-what-aristotle-and-confucius-can-teach-todays-csr-professionals

““The problem with a rule-book based approach is that it actively undermines practical wisdom. When people become used to complying with policies, they stop thinking for themselves. This is probably in part behind the terrible incident at a Starbucks in Philadelphia when a manager called the police to remove two black men. Racism was clearly a factor, but the incident began when the manager refused to allow one of the men to use the restroom, in accordance with company policy that they were for customers only. Had the manager followed the principle of hospitality, which should be at the heart of the coffee chain’s ethos, rather than one of its policies, the situation would probably not have escalated””

Practical Wisdom and desirable characteristics of individuals and teams 

How might your organisation better consider virtues and practical wisdom in the recruitment of individuals, the building and binding of teams, project sprints or cross functional collaborations?

Practical wisdom would be demonstrated in the masterful blending of knowledge and experience, an understanding of both the specific context of a situation and a wider more integrated perspective, wisdom and action. The ability of individuals and teams to  work for the common good and do the right thing at the correct time because it is the right thing to do, suggests a balance: a challenge of group-think and dominant assumptions, awareness of limitations and willingness to seek inspiration externally, ensure cognitive diversity and balance creativity/breaking through thinking with obedience to rules and resistance to change.

Yet, nurturing practical wisdom may even appear add odds with our enterprises and societies which are becoming more complex and interconnected, more specialised, more bureaucratic with rules, regulations and letter of the law compliance focus. It is balance to be found for each sector and enterprise (see Timpson example).

https://www.reutersevents.com/sustainability/comment-what-aristotle-and-confucius-can-teach-todays-csr-professionals

“UK key-cutting and shoe-repair chain Timpson; “Under founder John Timpson’s principle of “upside down management”, all staff are authorized to do whatever they judge is necessary to give the customer the best experience. This empowers everyone in the organization to think about how to do the right thing on a daily basis and never hide behind the policy book. The company does have some specific policies, too, but these reinforce rather than replace the emphasis on principle.””

Practical Wisdom and thinking about data and analysis

In 1973, Clifford Geertz, an anthropologist characterised his field notes and data as a “thick description” which was a multi-faceted examination of human behaviour (facts) plus how it related to the deeper cultural context. The aim was to observe, record, analyse and interpret a “thick description” to gain a deeper understanding and meaning.

Practical wisdom may be applied to your data in the steps you take to understand the enterprise strategy and desired outcomes (What do you want to achieve? Be direct and specific), How you engage across business to understand the source of data, cost/benefit and data integrity, whether any recent material changes in technology, enterprise practices, calculation or collection of time series of data. A constant reflection on choosing meaningful metrics, ask yourself “how do I know that” and “why is that important?”. The willingness to sense-check data analysis with subject matter experts, review lessons learned from prior errors, periods or external eco-system or industry benchmarks.

https://www.marketingweek.com/adidas-marketing-effectiveness/

““Adidas is on a journey to shift from marketing efficiency to marketing effectiveness, admitting a focus on ROI led it to over-invest in digital and performance marketing at the expense of brand building.” ….
Wrong metrics “ led Adidas to over-invest in paid search ….. an error it uncovered in its Latin America market when a breakdown at Google AdWords and therefore inability to invest in paid search didn’t lead to a dip in traffic or revenue coming from SEO.””

The purpose of an enterprise is evolving rapidly and is no longer just to “maximise shareholder value” declared the Business Roundtable in 2019. In 2020 CEO Larry Fink of Blackrock informed clients of a new ESG standard: “making sustainability integral to the way we manage risk, generate alpha, build portfolios, and pursue investment stewardship, in order to help improve your investment outcomes”. In 2020, the Pandemic forced business to re-examine and re-imagine themselves. As these trends continue there is a need for something fresh and new (or perhaps revisit something rather old).

Practical Wisdom; making sense of the eco-system is a “secret sauce” for individuals, teams , management and enterprise. As a way’s of working and thinking, it remains highly relevant today. Read deeply, reflect, listen, build cognitively diverse teams, collaborate and play it forward. Whiteark is here to assist.

“ “Virtue makes us aim at the right end, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means””

— Aristotle

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LOOKING TO CURATE YOUR BUSINESS STRATEGY? REACH OUT.

Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations with a focus on people just as much as financial outcomes.

We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

Article written by Mark Easdown

The challenge has been laid to develop a Supply Chain Strategy that supports Australia’s renewed obsession with lifestyle

Article written by Matthew Webber

The way that we buy, move and sell Is shifting in seismic proportions. We have had all the indicators within our radar for some  – the uptake of ecommerce as a legitimate and safe platform for retail shopping, geo political trade wars playing out between large, industrialised nations and emerging nations along with increase consumer insistence on visibility and ethical sourcing practices. In amongst that we have had significant environmental impacts such as fires that have wiped out communities along with floods that have isolated regions.

“Insights from Matthew Webber | Matthew Webber is a specialist in strategy, program delivery and training, focused on driving business performance by developing commercial, operational and innovation capability. With over twenty years international experience, Matthew has worked across the globe with organisations undergoing immense change and comprehensive transformations. Inspired to create a world championed by kindness, where equitable opportunity is available for all - Matthew shares his vision through best-selling books and his sought-after keynotes. ”

Australian Supply Chains continue to be impacted by global events – necessitating a rethink of the sovereignty of our Supply Chains

Only in the last week have we seen how truly volatile our global supply chain networks are with the blocking of the Suez Canal by the Evergreen Cargo Ship ‘MV Ever Given’ in an unfortunate accident as the result of a sandstorm -  potentially blocking up to 15% of global trade as goods need to pass between Asia and Europe. The question my Australian reading audience may ask, what would the Asia- Europe trade lane between have to do with Australian trade – and the answer is a lot. For a start, ports will become congested – the same ports that need to unload Australian export cargo, capacity will be stripped from the shipping market driving prices up, supply will be interrupted for manufacturing and oil prices will be driven up. That is just the start. This is one ship that has interrupted a global economy and it impacts your business, your people and your customers

Then of course we have had COVID-19. I reluctantly bring up the pandemic – because it is not the only issue of our times – yet it is so big – we cannot ignore to comment and acknowledge the shift that it will have in our psychology as a nation. Not to dissimilar to a war period – we are seeing fundamental shifts in our attitudes and behaviours – not just as a market, but as a people.  The pandemic has been an ongoing issue for the global economy for well over a year now. The reactions, repositioning and rethinking of supply chains has been considerable

These are obvious impacts that have been impacting and shaping our supply chain strategies. For some organisations this has provided significant opportunity as they have created new business models or adapted exiting ones to suit. For other businesses, they have been slow to respond, and as a result have been lagging behind – and sadly for some the slow response has resulted in their demise. For those that have been fast to react – there is a chance that the successes may be short lived unless we start unpacking what is actually happening to the psychology, behaviour and ambitions of our nation.  

“What does a Post Pandemic Australia look like?

On Wednesday 24th March 2021, I had the wonderful fortune of attending a Whiteark event where Bernard Salt, leading Demographer and commentator, presented a fascinating and insightful talk on the ‘Post Pandemic Australia: What we can expect’ .”

Bernard’s discussion of course was validating many of the impacts that global disruption has had on supply chains, and Bernard himself has publicly spoken about the opportunity to rethink our global supply chains and consider carefully the need to make our Supply Chains more sovereign. Put simply – the global environment is too volatile not to protect the key manufacturing capability and product availability of key necessities for the welfare of our nation –from a healthcare, security or economic perspective. This philosophy cascades to an organisational level where our organisations need to rethink the sovereignty of their supply chain and have key and strategic lines available and protected from global disruption – like we have seen in the pandemic, the Suez canal incident or more broadly many of the global economic disruptions from moving from an industrialised era to a digitised one.

Of course, though, Bernard Salt challenged my thinking further on the topic of Supply Chain strategy – beyond the obvious. Bernard’s discussion was focussed deeply on the psychology and aspirations of everyday Australian’s. And the theme, and label, that kept recurring was that of Lifestyle. As Australian’s we are obsessed with lifestyle – and the centre of gravity for our lifestyle rests in our home. This obsession has only renewed.

Supply chains need to be geared towards a lifestyle obsessed Australia

What all of these disruptions have done, particularly the major disruption of the pandemic, has reinforced how important lifestyle is to everyday Australians. The pandemic – for all of its pain – has brought with it an opportunity for us to reconnect with our neighbours friends and families. It has allowed us to spend more time in our homes. It has for many cut the daily commute by hours – time that can be spent connecting and enjoying the lifestyle and balance we so desire. Our attitudes to the way that we work have fundamentally been tipped upside down, as we revert to our natural desire of seeking a better lifestyle for our families.

What does this mean – what does it mean for our cities, for our suburbs, for our regional centres. Simply – our suburbs and our regional centres will be activated. The way that we work, the way that we engage, the way that we shop – will fundamentally shift. Not only do we now have some ‘more mature’ age consumers adopting ecommerce, but we also have whole generations behind us (such as the ‘Millenials’ that will up the imperative on placing value on experience and lifestyle even further. Our homes have, and will continue to become, bigger – and who would have thought that now a home office – or ‘zoom’ room would be a required feature of any home.

You may be rightfully asking, what does this have to do with my Supply Chain? The answer is a great deal. If we understand the psychology, behaviours and what ordinary Australian’s value, we can design and build our supply chains to support.

The way that we buy, move and sell will fundamentally shift as Australians adopt to their reinvigorated obsession with lifestyle. Our supply chains will need to be established to support the reactivation of suburbia and provincial Australia. If your supply chain does not directly serve these Australians – it will most certainly need to be supporting the businesses that do.

Our commuting, social, work and leisure activities have fundamentally returned us to be being closer to home – in close proximity to the things that matter to us most – our families, friend and our homes.

You supply chain needs to adapt to the reinvigorated obsession of Australians to their love of lifestyle. Your supply chain will need to be fast, accessible, sovereign and support the new behaviours and attitudes of everyday Australians – the everyday Australians that will be spending their leisure and work time at home or very near to home – and not at shopping centres, high streets, city offices or stuck in traffic on the daily commute.

How is your Supply Chain supporting Australia’s renewed obsession with lifestyle and connection?

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LOOKING TO rethink your Supply Chain? REACH OUT.

Our leadership team at Whiteark  have decades of experience in leading Supply Chain Transformations from Factory through to Customer, developing Market and Customer strategies that ensure relevance and desirability . We design the business model to deliver commercial feasibility and  to ensure that your business is ready to not only deal with disruption, but to thrive in it. From strategy to design and execution. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au or explore our supply chain transformation services here.

Article written by Matthew Webber

The Importance of Continuous Improvement

Continuous improvement refers to the process of defining, analyzing, and improving business processes to increase overall quality, while removing as many waste activities as possible.

“Article by Jo Hands, Whiteark Co-Founder & Director”

There are three types of waste in Lean:

1. Muda

The major process wastes including, transport, inventory, motion, waiting, overproduction, over-processing and defects.

2. Mura

The waste of unevenness or inconsistency in your process. It stops your tasks from flowing smoothly across your work process and therefore gets in your way of reaching continuous flow.

3. Muri

The waste of overburden, when you assign too much work to your team, you place unnecessary stress on both your team and process.

If you want continuous improvement to become part of your culture, you need to focus on getting rid of the unevenness/inconsistency wastes (Mura) and overburden wastes (Muri) first. Eliminating all major process wastes (Muda) is almost impossible but focusing on reducing their adverse impacts on your work is key for implementing continuous improvement.

Companies should consider having a funding model for Continuous Improvement initiatives - making changes to processes to increase their profit, improve employee satisfaction, and accelerate productivity and efficiencies. Most often, business budgets do not include an allocation for continuous improvement – and a large amount of money is not required to make a substantial impact. Organisations should create a continuous improvement culture and encourage their people to look for opportunities to improve processes across the business and where the identified opportunities,

1. Align to the company’s strategic priorities/strategic direction and;

2. Size up to have biggest impact

There should be a funding model to support these initiatives. To execute on a continuous improvement process, benefits should be associated.

Below is a simple, common model that is used for Continuous Improvement, referred to as the Deming Circle – Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA). This model is a never-ending cycle that aims to help companies improve further based on achieved results.

Phase1 – Plan:

Define the objectives and processes required to achieve the desired goal. Setting output expectations is critical to achieving continuous improvement, as the precision of the goals and their completeness is a fundamental component of the process of improving.

Phase2 – Do:

Apply all that has been considered in the Planning phase. Expect that unpredicted problems may occur, which is why, if it is possible, you should test your plan on a small scale and in a controlled environment. Standardisation will assist with applying the plan smoothly – clear roles and responsibilities are essential.

Phase3 – Check:

Audit your plan’s execution “Do” phase and assess if your objectives and processes and goals from the “Plan” phase worked. To avoid recurring mistakes or if the team identified problems with the process that need to be eliminated in the future you need to undertake a root-cause analysis.

Phase4 – Act:

You developed, applied, and assessed your plan, now you need to act. If everything in “Do” worked well and you were able to achieve the original goals, then you can proceed and apply your initial plan. Your PDCA model will become the new baseline.

The benefits of the PDCAs model, includes: helping your team identify and test solutions and improve them through a waste-reducing cycle, stimulates continuous improvement culture (people and processes), allows your team to test possible solutions on a small scale and in a controlled environment, and prevents the work process from recurring mistakes.

Companies are looking for ways to increase their quality and reduce their costs which is why process improvement has become so important in today’s operating environment for the following reasons: customers have higher quality expectations, strong competition within the market and an unpredictable economic environment.

Whiteark has the expertise to help you with your continuous improvement needs, if this is something your business would like to explore, please reach out to Whiteark for a no obligation consultation.

Some key people capabilities for companies to consider

Capabilities describe the skills, knowledge or attitudes needed for a given task and are used to assess an employee's effectiveness. They can be looked at as human or people capabilities and technical capabilities. In this article we are focusing on some of the key people capabilities that companies should consider as essential for their organisation.  These are particularly helpful in informing and supporting your decisions in attracting, developing, rewarding, and retaining employees.

Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand someone else’s thoughts and feelings. It is about taking the time to listen to team members and fellow employees and consider their thoughts and concerns, not just your own. If you have empathy you are able to better communicate with others in a way that makes sense to the them.  It also gives you a better understanding of how people are communicating and interacting with you.

According to Forbes, empathy is “increasingly recognized as a pivotal leadership tool in today’s global market, benefiting leadership effectiveness”. Where empathy can be very powerful at work, especially with leaders, is when empathy is demonstrated, it shows that they care about their team a human and individual and aren’t just following the policies and rules without considering the person. If you treat others as you expect to be treated and show empathy, this will almost always result in a better outcome for the individual and the organisation.

Communication

Communication is a fundamental capability that you need to have to be effective and ultimately successful. Communication skills are so important, they allow you to understand and be understood by others through; clearly explaining ideas to others, actively listening, speaking to audiences, and giving and receiving feedback.

Great communication is essential to having a productive, successful, and efficient company.

Effective communication plays a big part in helping to have a strong, efficient, and happy team, has a very positive impact on employee engagement, improves customer satisfaction and increases productivity.

Resilience

Headsup describes resilience as “the ability to cope with the ups and downs and bounce back from challenges”. At work there will always be tricky situations from workload pressures, difficult working relationships, and the challenge of juggling personal situations at the same time. If you have greater resilience this will go a long way in helping you manage stress.  As it is well known, high levels of stress can often lead to mental health conditions.

Resilient teams are able to bounce back from setbacks and failures and embrace new challenges with energy.  Having empathy and caring relationships within your team will assist your team in being resilient too.

If you are resilient you are usually able to demonstrate strength in being adaptable as well. During these Covid times, this has been more important than ever as many people have had to move from working very quickly in the office to home, dealing with so much uncertainty and change personally and professionally.

Flexibility

These days when we talk about flexibility we automatically think of working from home and having a flexible work arrangement.  As a people capability, MindTools defines flexibility well as, “the capacity to adjust to short-term change quickly and calmly, so that you can deal with unexpected problems or tasks effectively”. Being open to change and different ways of doing things is critical to being successful as a ‘flexible’ employee. Employees and leaders who can demonstrate flexibility in a range of situations and can communicate well will be more efficient and effective.

An effective leader who has strength in this capability, listens to others, communicates well, adapts their style for the situation and audience, has strong relationships and easily change plans as the situations change. 

Many of these capabilities link together, if you have strength in one you will often have strength in others. As an employer, if your people plan considers key people capabilities in all stages of the employee life cycle, this will have a positive impact on retention, productivity, engagement and ultimately your company’s success.

Looking to develop your team? Reach out.

Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations with a focus on people just as much as financial outcomes.

We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

Article by Phoebe Reid

Digital Transformation: Part 1

Article written by Pete Crawford

Transforming Key Strategic Capabilities

This is the first of two articles on digital transformation. Here, we will look at how the digital economy has reconfigured the business value chain and its effect on four key strategic capabilities – employees, customers, operations, and business models. Understanding the transformational components of these capabilities offers revenue maximisation and cost optimisation opportunities. In the second article we will examine execution and orchestration in order to take advantage of these opportunities.

“Insights from Pete Crawford | Head of Data, Analytics & AI, Pete Crawford spends his day-to-day leading strategy, governance and execution over enterprise data platforms, data science and AI capabilities. Speaking at leading industry AI and data events, Pete is experienced in forming and directing multi-disciplined teams to manage enterprise information assets and deliver business outcomes through advanced analytics.”

Digital Transformation is Strategic, Cross-Functional and Customer Focused

The term ‘transformation’ is not incidental. It is far more powerful than ‘change’. It implies creating something entirely new. The recent wave of innovative technologies – such as managed cloud services; data platforms, natural language understanding; computer vision; robotics; machine learning; and blockchain – have been accelerated by forced experiments owing to the COVID pandemic. However, technology adoption is the wrong way to frame opportunities. Instead, digital transformation can be distinguished from earlier eras of business transition in that:

i) Strategy, not technology, is the driver.

ii) Cross-functional business processes, not only IT infrastructure, are the enablers.

iii) Competing for attention to create direct customer relationships, not competing to create exclusive supplier relations, is the focus.

Data is the Strategic Asset Shaping the Scope of Transformation

A second factor distinguishing digital transformation is the emergence of the ‘digital economy’ and the notion of data as a strategic asset. To be clear, data is not analogous to models of ownership or the utilisation of physical commodities[1]. Succeeding with any digital transformation program will ultimately demand managing, governing, using and sharing data to create value. It helps to start from an understanding of the unique characteristics of information:

• Data is non-depletable.

• Data is non-rivalrous (millions can use it simultaneously and a single piece of data can be used by multiple algorithms, analytics or applications at once).

• Data can become less relevant, and less valuable, over time.

• Value can multiply when aggregated and analysed with other relevant data.

• The price of data is often indeterminate of supply and demand.

• Data is not only personal to us but is also created through interactions with other people or services; therefore, data has both a private and a social value (i.e. COVID tracking apps).

• Data can influence our own behaviour through feedback mechanisms (i.e. wearable tech and fitness trackers).

The notion of data as an asset, and an adjunct to innovative technologies, is illuminated by the real-time monitoring of environmental variables derived from Internet of Things (IoT) applications. For example, the insurance and energy sectors have embraced embedded sensors. Innovative automotive insurers have been able to improve forecasting and claim reviews by monitoring driving habits accumulated over millions of kilometres of driving data. The collection of attributes, such as speed, acceleration, braking and turning motions, has also ensured that they are able to base premiums on personalised behaviours rather than general inferences. Ironically, however, sensors are expensive to fix when cars do crash – contributing to raising insurance rates.

The Business Value Chain Has Been Reconfigured

The confluence of digitalisation and technological innovation has not only disrupted consumer habits but has reconfigured the business value chain. For many organisations, the point of integration in the value chain on which their sustainable differentiation is built has changed. Consequently, digital transformation has become inescapable when reckoning with a new set of competitive forces that affect how goods or services are supplied, distributed and consumed.

Reconfiguration of supply

Suppliers and content creators, especially those with differentiated product, niche focus and high quality, can attempt to attract consumers directly to avoid the risk of becoming commodified or abandoned. For example, musicians are using StageIt to distribute their performance to reach widely distributed audiences. Or The New York Times, which remains profitable (with a wider reach) by adopting a paywall and subscription model to counter decimated advertising revenues in traditional media.

Reconfiguration of distribution

Distributors of digital goods are no longer constrained by geography; by transaction costs; or by the need to seek exclusive integration with suppliers. Businesses that aggregate demand (i.e. Google, Facebook, Spotify, Trip Advisor) act as intermediaries that control the relationship between third-party suppliers/content creators by integrating forward in the value chain. They aim to attract end users through network effects so that the value of the service increases as the number of users increases. This often leaves suppliers and creators dependent on algorithm-led discovery such as search and recommendation systems in order to reach end users.

Reconfiguration of consumption

What determines the creation of value has shifted away from controlling the supply of a good, or the distribution of scarce resources, to controlling demand for abundant resources – users. Companies such as Apple and Disney have been successful by a strategy placing user experience and creativity at the centre of a differentiated and fully integrated value chain.

The Transformational Components of Strategic Capabilities

In response to reconfigurations in industry value chains, the transformation of key strategic business capabilities depends on developing or re-evaluating a series of components. This section will focus on these components with specific use cases.

1.     Transformation of employee experience

Start with employees and cultural norms. Employees can be either the greatest impediment to change or leading advocates. Organisations which focus on the employee experience can establish a culture conducive to successful digital transformation. Employee experience encompasses daily activities in the workplace, a sense of purpose and value and, crucially, aligning expectations with the organisation’s goals and vision. Key to this vision is an investment in principles, processes and training which entrench:

• Self-sufficient access to domain-specific information. Particularly around real-time customer intelligence and the reduction of time-intensive insight discovery. More specifically, the advent of self-service analytics still leaves gaps with introducing bias with data selection or problems with consistent insight interpretation. What is really required is self-sufficiency with access, management and maintenance of information systems.

• A common knowledge base. Tools which consolidate and share knowledge help break organisational silos and enable groups to communicate and collaborate in real time. An example is Xero’s service design initiative to document, communicate and visualise customer and staff journeys across time zones and remote workplaces.

• Distributed responsibility. The ability to rapidly restructure operating models to better coordinate cross-functional teams, external partnerships or co-designed customer solutions. This is best exemplified by the GoodSAM app. Here, emergency calls for cardiac arrest simultaneously alert Ambulance Victoria as well as qualified first aiders in the immediate vicinity who are directed to the incident. Widening the scope of responsibility has saved lives.

• A continuous learning culture. Learning within an organisation needs to be viewed as a deliberate, formal practice. This practice can entail customised and highly targeted online courses alongside having highly proficient employees teach key skills to colleagues in small groups. Canva, which aims to democratise design, is one company to take this approach by establishing cultural norms which foster feedback and radical candor.

2.     Transformation of customer experience

A focus on building meaningful customer relationships is not new. However, the foundation of digital transformation is to gain a clearer understanding of what customers experience.

The application of digital tools, cross-disciplinary design methods and engagement strategies has accentuated customer experience with: 

• Feedback loops. Feedback between content creation and content consumption drive a great sense of intimacy between users and creators. This is evidenced by innovation in the media and content creation space with the emergence of models (many of which are direct payment) like Clubhouse, Onlyfans, Substack and Twitter’s recent announcement of Super Follow.

• Customer intelligence. A greater awareness of individual preferences or behaviours by integrating customer data across multitudes sources and silos into a data platform to provide a ‘360-degree view of the customer’. For instance, the food retail chain Chipotle created a unified view of over 2,400 restaurant operations to increase customer loyalty by 30%.

• User participation and co-creation. Human-centred design tools can be used to enable customers to participate in an organisation’s value chain. This spans collaborative content co-creation (i.e. platforms which source early-stage concepts from consumers to create prototypes such as the clothing company Betabrand); to near real-time insights about new products or services (i.e. Remesh engages with customers via live video diaries and then uses AI to organise responses); or direct advocacy where consumers become the brand media.

• Transparent data and AI ethics. Personal privacy and information transparency can become a business feature through an ethical consideration of data collection and algorithmic decision making. In terms of transparency (or simply getting in front of AI regulation), companies need to consider launching AI registers that explain how they use algorithms as part of their product services. The City of Amsterdam’s automated parking control register is an excellent reference point with concise details about the information used by the system, the operating logic, and its governance.

Of course, when it comes to understanding the customer experience, don’t become too data and algorithm dependent – get out and talk to real people.

3.     Transformation of operations

Advances in robotics, sensors, IoT and AI are now offering to transform operations outside of supply chains or back office processes. The key components to turning efficiency gains into profit drivers and cost optimisation are:

• Linking and combining cross-functional data. Is the first step to transforming supply chain management through the integration of data streams from internal sources with external supply networks in a data hub. The power of data is compounded when new data, such as streamed operational data from sensor devices, is attached to data which has already been modelled – typically from finance or sales – to better understand, for instance, the real-time cost of downtime for a given manufacturing process.

• Demand forecasting with machine learning. Estimating demand serves as the starting point for warehousing, shipping, price forecasting, supply planning and the anticipated needs of customers. Machine learning improves on traditional forecasting methods where there are volatile demand patterns, rapidly changing environments or new product launches. Adding complex variables to financial or sales reports such as social media signals; click streams; geo-location devices; IoT; natural language transcriptions etc is an additional benefit.

• Decision intelligence and modelling alternative scenario simulations. The ability to model ‘what if’ scenarios can be addressed with ‘digital twins’ – digital replicas that help test, model and predict the impact of various choices on our future. Singapore has embraced digital twins for urban planning and identifying the impact of environmental change.

• Providing secure and governed access to a shared information ecosystem. Blockchain technology offers a new architecture of trust based on decentralised control; a shared view of the truth; and the direct exchange of value through tokens. The FMCG industry, specifically major grocery distributors, have trialled blockchain to track food throughout the supply chain, gathering real-time data to spot inefficiencies and create trustworthy audit trails. Unilever are testing blockchain for media buying and the reconciliation of data among advertisers, agencies and publishers.

4.     Transformation of business models

Business models are essentially stories that explain how organisations work and provide insight into how to deliver value to customers at a particular cost. Digital transformation clears the stage for new stories and their relationship with strategy. It also encourages companies to experiment, learn, and place multiple bets on new models by setting up internal innovation (intrapreneurial) units. However, to be effective, these units must have influence and input with product development and sales functions.

Business model transformation greatly depends on the initial success of transforming the capabilities previously discussed. It helps to sense and respond to market, competitive and regulatory disruptions. And no new business model or technology innovation will ever transform an industry unless it can be connected to emerging or scalable market needs. Prevailing models in the digital economy include:

• Subscription services. Subscription models such as Netflix or the New York Times, as well as on-demand loaning of goods or services (SaaS providers such as AWS), can succeed through capturing significant consumer attention or being recognised for high-quality niche focus. The fact remains, of course, that content creation with differentiated value is hard.

• Digital platforms. Platforms such as Coursera and Shopify facilitate a relationship between third-party suppliers/content creators and end user. These platforms succeed by commoditising trust and increasing the economic value of everybody that uses the platform. As discussed earlier, demand aggregators fit into this pattern, but use network effects to capture the total economic value – hence the stoush between Australian media publishers and Facebook.

• Integrators. Businesses which integrate across the whole business value chain provide sustainable competitive benefits including differentiation based on design (in the case of Apple, their operating system); an easier adoption path for new products (annual generations of iPhones); and profit maximisation owing to the ability to apply premium pricing for a superior user experience.

• Data products. This entails the aggregation, augmentation and transformation of diverse data sets into information-based services. This approach typically takes two forms. Data as a service which offers direct revenue potential such as credit card transaction data used for customer behaviour and retail spend analysis. Or companies such as CoreLogic which provide subscription-based products that access rich property data. And secondly, data-enhanced products which maximise revenue by improving price or sales quantity such as cycling apps that measure movement in real-time and positioning in 3D space so as to simulate and gamify racing.
  

[1] Such as the trite and lazy analogy that ‘data is the new oil’.

LOOKING TO Leverage and utilise your data? REACH OUT.

Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations with a focus on people just as much as financial outcomes.

We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you.

Article by Pete Crawford

M&A Trends and Insights

The economic impact of COVID-19 has led to a material decline in M&A activity globally including Australia. As a result, we have seen fewer transactions and according to Refinitiv (formerly Thomson Reuters), worldwide M&A activity totaled US$1.2 trillion during H1 of 2020, a drop of 41% compared to a year ago and the slowest opening six-month period since 2013. M&A activity abroad appears to have rebounded to some degree since the end of June 2020, presumably as economies have started to reopen. The Financial Times reported that since the end of June, 8 deals each worth more than US$10 billion have been announced.

Australian Private Equity History

Compared to the US and UK private equity (PE) markets, the Australian PE market is relatively immature.  The first venture capital fund was established in the mid-1980s by Bill Ferris, and the fund performed well but it was not until the Australian Government set up an Innovation Fund in the mid-1990s offering A$2 funding for every A$1 raised that the venture capital industry accelerated.

Between 2000 and 2010, deal sizes and fund sizes grew exponentially in Australia and many global private equity players such as KKR, Carlyle, TPG and Blackstone opened offices in Australia with a view to acquiring large businesses beyond the reach of the smaller newly formed local funds.

Australian Private Equity Landscape

Fundraising in Australia has become global with Australian institutions seeking global exposure and Australian PE managers having to raise funds abroad in competition with fund managers across the globe. Consequently, only the best performing funds have raised new and larger funds in Australia, while only a small number of Australian fund managers from the early 2000s are still active.

A decade ago, the vast majority of PE deals in Australia were by Australian managers investing Australian institutional money.  By 2019,  between 60-70 % of PE investment in Australia came from offshore funds with many adopting the “fly in fly out” model investing from their home base or from regional APAC offices in Hong Kong or Singapore. This trend for increased investment by offshore PE in Australia is set to continue for a number of reasons including:

• Higher levels of local competition and high prices in their home markets of US and Europe, some growth capital funds, and buyout funds, have abroad for investments;

• Australia has a stable political environment, first rate governance and rule of law, a strong economy and a reputation for technology and innovation;

• Australia has reduced competition from local funds due to consolidation and the relative weakness of the Australian dollar to the US dollar, it is easy to see why Australian deal values have been attractive to US investors.

Australian M&A Market

In Australia, M&A activity for the first half was subdued. Announced deals in Australia and New Zealand dropped 51% in value terms with the largest public company transactions being:

• Iberdrola’s bid for Infigen at $1.5 billion (topping an earlier bid by UAC Energy, a joint venture between AC Energy and UPC Renewables);

• Uniti Group’s proposed merger with OptiComm, valued at $540m;

• Shandong Gold Mining’s bid for Cardinal Resources, valued at $335m.

All other deals announced in that period had a lower value, though this excludes a number of significant transactions including:

• Bain Capital’s acquisition of Virgin Australia (in administration), agreed in June, but not strictly a public company transaction, given the nature of the transaction;

• TPG’s $15 billion merger with Vodafone which completed in July, as that was announced in 2018;

• BGH’s $542m recommended bid for Village Roadshow as it was agreed in August.

… download the full guide to read more.

“CONTENTS

> Introduction
> Australian PE History
> Australian Private Equity Landscape
> Australian M&A Market
> Recent Market Developments- Revised Foreign Investment Rules
> Impact of COVID on Asset Valuations- Digital and Technology assets
> Variable Consideration as part of Asset Valuation
> Renegotiation and Reneging on Agreed Transactions
Key insights from the 2H of 2020
> Deal makers widen assessment of value creation to non-traditional sources
> The impact of a hot IPO market on M&A
> Looking ahead: Resilience and innovation”

Need support with your M&A? Reach out to the Whiteark team.

We’re a team of doers led by Jo Hands and James Ciuffetelli. We don’t believe in unnecessary layers; and between us we have over 50 years of collective experience, expertise and global connections. Delicately weaving these together, we engage with you directly, with a single-minded focus on the task at hand. Collaborating at a senior level to propel organisations forward, we intricately map out and execute your next move, ensuring you’re prepared, protected and prosperous.

Fuelled by passion, we revel in working with Private Equity; the pace, targeted focus on business optimisation and limited timeframes spark unforeseen transformation opportunities, which we’re excited to deliver on. Our approach is rooted in data, ensuring the right decisions are made – based on accurate information. Hands-on, we get into the trenches with you, working directly with the management team to realise outcomes expected by shareholders. We offer a range of transformation services which can be tailored to suit standard private equity options; always accompanied by a laser focus on profit optimisation of the business.

Put your hat on and get ready to problem solve with your team?

The Six Thinking Hat technique is used in companies around the world to facilitate decision making and getting people to have good brainstorming conversations.

Before you start you need to educate your team on the 6 hats and background. You can do this by:

• Reading our hats articles

• Watching our Hats video

• Download our free Powerpoint template

Group Exercise

Pick a problem to solve with the team/ group. 

Allocate a hat to each person; the point isn’t to put people to the natural hat but make people outside of their comfort zone and ensure it creates good conversation.

Teams can use these hats in any order during a discussion, but typically progress from blue, to white, to green, to yellow, to red, and finally to black.

This order organizes the discussion:

• Blue: Start with the approach and process

• White: Review the facts

• Green: Generate new ideas without judgement

• Yellow: Focus on the benefits

• Red: Consider emotional responses to any ideas

• Black: Apply critical thinking after the benefits have been explored to test the viability of the new ideas

Any hat could make a reappearance in the discussion. For example, after facts (white) are laid out, more process (blue) may be applied, or after pros (yellow) and cons (black) are discussed, new ideas (green) may surface.

Using these hats takes some practice. Remember that this approach is not intended to "feel natural" at first. It is intended to help individuals focus on problem solving. Practice, however, can help the team flow through the hats more easily, and gives everyone in the organization a shorthand to focus on the analysis rather than their complicated thoughts and responses to the process.

 

Tips

Here are a few tips for running a “Six Hats” meeting:

• Empower a moderator (a designated blue hat) who has read de Bono’s book beforehand to set an agenda and facilitate the meeting.

• Use six physical hats of different colours (or labelled with the different roles) to remind participants of the different thinking categories and signal what category is the current focus.

• Ensure that participants all have a way to record ideas, either for brainstorming, or to save for when the conversation moves to the appropriate hat.

For more practical examples of how this works please follow us on LinkedIn and YouTube for some Whiteark bites that provide some practical examples.

Need more information on the hats?

Watch the videos below where Jo Hands and James Ciuffetelli unpack each of DeBono’s hats in less than 5 minutes…

Whiteark is aligned with the White Hat.
Let us explain more….

We’re a team of doers led by Jo Hands and James Ciuffetelli. We don’t believe in unnecessary layers; and between us we have over 50 years of collective experience, expertise and global connections. Delicately weaving these together, we engage with you directly, with a single-minded focus on the task at hand. Collaborating at a senior level to propel organisations forward, we intricately map out and execute your next move, ensuring you’re prepared, protected and prosperous.

We’re nimble; we will assemble the best team for your problem, guaranteeing you have the skillset and people you need - no more, no less. Using data (de Bono’s White Hat) we load up your arsenal with the information needed to define and craft your next move; your strategy. Then together we’ll use this knowledge to carve out a unique set of priorities and objectives, bringing the entire team into the fold so they’re aligned towards the same targets and goal.

Digital Transformation Playbook

Technology is changing at a rapid pace and while technology is changing, companies will continue to be forced to change. New technologies can disrupt established businesses, but more importantly they stimulate opportunities for innovation. In today’s environment, business owners are more concerned about missing opportunities to grow, than become obsolete.

Technology prompts companies to rethink how they do business.

Technologies including big data, the cloud, the Internet of Things, and Artificial Intelligence are helping entrepreneurs to develop new business models and disrupt the established way of running operations.

Digital technologies are:

• Enabling businesses to operate in new ways to deliver more value to customers and generate more productivity and cost efficiencies

• Altering competitive landscapes

• Changing the economics of markets

“CONTENTS

> Technology
> What is digital transformation?
> Guiding your digital transformation strategy
> A digital transformation approach
> Tips for successful digital transformation
> Benefits of digital transformation”

Guiding your digital transformation strategy

Digital Strategy

A clear strategy determines your organisation's ability to reimagine and transform your business for the digital world. A multi-year digital strategy focused on driving customer experience, operational efficiency, and new revenue.

The digital strategy is the foundation for operating the business and delivering on business targets. New revenue streams, customer experience, and operational efficiency will all be viewed from a digital lens.

Technology modernisation is critical to your ability to meet changing market demands.

12 benefits of digital transformation

Need support with your digital transformation? Reach out to the Whiteark team.

We’re a team of doers led by Jo Hands and James Ciuffetelli. We don’t believe in unnecessary layers; and between us we have over 50 years of collective experience, expertise and global connections. Delicately weaving these together, we engage with you directly, with a single-minded focus on the task at hand. Collaborating at a senior level to propel organisations forward, we intricately map out and execute your next move, ensuring you’re prepared, protected and prosperous. Contact us to book in an obligation free conversation today.

Supply Chain Transformation Leadership in Action

Article written by Matthew Webber

One of the key attributes for any prosperous supply chain of the modern era is to have the ability to adapt and respond. We can design our supply chains structurally, and technically, to deliver on this outcome, however we do have to move our supply chains from where they are today, to where they need to be in the future.  We need to do that through leading our people, our partners and our communities in which we operate.

“Insights from Matthew Webber | Matthew Webber is a specialist in strategy, program delivery and training, focused on driving business performance by developing commercial, operational and innovation capability. With over twenty years international experience, Matthew has worked across the globe with organisations undergoing immense change and comprehensive transformations. Inspired to create a world championed by kindness, where equitable opportunity is available for all - Matthew shares his vision through best-selling books and his sought-after keynotes. ”

We are in effect leading our supply chains to be change ready. Being change ready is a question of culture, and culture needs to be led.

Change is difficult at the best of times, but when you are trying to change a global supply chain with multiple interested parties, suppliers and communities the need to  be omnipresent and lead through action is telling.

The key actions required by a supply chain leader when navigating transformative challenges are to:

• Lead the vision

• Build confidence

• Empower people

• Communicate effectively

• Build the right team

Now let’s take a closer look at how to go about this.

Lead the vision

Leaders will be very good at finding the common thread that connects people to a mission or a cause.

Great supply chain leaders will be able to share a vision across the entire supply chain. They will also respect different cultures (geographical, industry, organisational) and needs within their supply chain community and embrace the differences as an advantage.

Given that the vision will cross so many organisation and cultural boundaries, it needs to be stated in a way that provides both brevity and clarity, and something that is able to be understood at all levels, in all organisations, in all geographies.

The vision must state where it is that you are going, why you are going there and importantly what are the key steps that need to be undertaken in getting there.

The collective vision will be a powerful foundation for all parties in your supply chain to engage with and provide as a beacon when making difficult decisions or provide guidance when confronted with difficult challenges.

If your vision is not a collective vision and does not value the contribution that all your stakeholders make to your supply chain, it will be very difficult to harmonise towards a common goal.

Build confidence

We can almost become fatigued by the disruption that impacts our supply chains – bushfires, pandemics, new systems, new ways of working, change in governments and policy – the list, as you are aware, goes on. We need to build confidence, and resilience,  for our people to be able to face into each challenge as they arise. Being challenge ready and having the tools and support available to address the challenges is part of the solution.

People need to believe that the change is realistic and will create value. How many times has something been promised but not delivered? Where is the plan? How is it going to be resourced? Where does it start? How long will it take? What does it mean for me? Have they considered my situation? These are just some of the conscious and subconscious thoughts that could be going through people’s (as well as suppliers, service providers and communities) minds.

People gain confidence from wins, but those wins must not be rhetoric – they must be real wins that can be measured and are meaningful. Supply Chains can be big moving beasts, so being able to break it down into meaningful parts to create many small wins that support a broader, strategic intent is important.

And of course, believing that change and value creation can be sustained will provide confidence. You need to demonstrate that a new process, business model, distribution or manufacturing technique can survive past the initial implementation phase. You must measure, and be able to communicate, your ability to sustain an initiative.

Empower your people

Empowerment in your supply chain is about making sure the people, the communities, your partners are equipped and enabled to deliver their part of the value. We need to show support, provide the tools and training and create the space for this empowerment to occur. They need the capacity, competence and confidence in what they are being asked to deliver.

We also have to think about how teams in different environments and cultures learn and operate. For instance, a development program in one organisation, in one country may not be the most appropriate as in another organisation or another country.

It is important that everybody in the supply chain is empowered and equipped with the right tools, methods and mindsets to be able to cope with the change that is upon us. We not only need this capability, but we also need resilience so that when times are tough or we are under pressure, we actually have the capacity and capability to deal with the challenge without sacrificing our commitment to value creation.

Communicate, communicate, communicate

There is a lot of communication noise out there. Think of all the news services, all the work emails, all the social media – we are completely saturated by information and it is very difficult just to absorb everything, let alone understand it. So now let’s think about that in a Global Supply Chain context – with all the various parties and stakeholders, and all the moving parts, it can be overwhelming to say the least, and communications are in danger of becoming just a lot of meaningless noise.

You have to be able to cut through that noise so that your messages can be received and understood. This is why it is absolutely critical to have a consistent, systematic and deliberate routine for communicating valuable and meaningful information.

The words used, how they are said, and the tone used are very important in a global setting. You really need to ensure that you adjust your communications to suit the local situation – and you should do this with the support of the local teams. You also need to have systems in place that ensure that communications are received and understood and are in fact interpreted correctly.

Build the right team

For any business, the only real competitive advantage is people. While process, the way a business is organised, how resources are used, or how goods and services are marketed are all contributors to competitive advantage, they actually arise because of the people.

We can see that if we have people that are not culturally, or perhaps philosophically, aligned that it will slow down the transformation effort. 

This must be a collective effort, and you must take necessary efforts and steps to ensure that the people operating in this setting are safe and have the right support and structure around them to help them be a success. 

Your team extends beyond just your organisation – it reaches into the collective team of your partners and the communities you operate in.

We need to be able to link the supply chain through people and engagement – after all it is the people that will make our supply chains operate effectively and deliver value.

A common mistake that is made in the transformative efforts of supply chains is that they focus solely on the structural, or technical, elements of the supply chain. The biggest transformative failure comes when we do not consider the change readiness or capability of our people, partners and communities. Transformation in our supply chains must be led, and it must be led through action.

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LOOKING TO rethink your Supply Chain? REACH OUT.

Our leadership team at Whiteark  have decades of experience in leading Supply Chain Transformations from Factory through to Customer, developing Market and Customer strategies that ensure relevance and desirability . We design the business model to deliver commercial feasibility and  to ensure that your business is ready to not only deal with disruption, but to thrive in it. From strategy to design and execution. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au or explore our supply chain transformation services here.

Article written by Matthew Webber

What hat are you naturally and what hat is outside your comfort zone?

Following on from our thought leadership article on “What hat you wear can change the game - are you ready to play?”  here we unpack the six different hats in more detail, and explain the pros and cons in a little more detail.

As you are reading through these descriptions you should consider:

• In a meeting what hat is my default?

• What default hats do I have on my leadership team?

• What hats are missing from my leadership team?

The White Thinking Hat 

The white hat is like a detective who gathers, organizes, analyzes, and presents current information. As detectives gather clues and facts, they remain neutral and unbiased to avoid jumping to conclusions based on single bits of information. Instead, all clues, facts, and evidence must be analyzed and weighed to see what they have and what is missing. 

In the same fashion, while “wearing” a white thinking hat, you should collect known information and analyse it to reach fact-based solutions. Analysis of the gathered data will help you find gaps so you can look for ways to fill them or at least take note of them so you have a better idea of how to direct your conversations. 

Start gathering facts and data based on these problem-solving questions:

• What do we know about this issue?

• What don’t we know about this issue?

• What can we learn from this situation?

• What information do we need to solve this problem?

• Are there potential existing solutions that we can use to solve this problem?

Work through these questions as a team to gather more information as each person shares their unique knowledge of a particular issue or problem.  

The Yellow Thinking Hat

This hat represents enthusiasm and optimism. Like a bright, sunny day, the yellow hat is used to bring positive energy and life to every idea.

With the yellow thinking hat, you seek to find the benefits and value of ideas. You should not be hampered by limitations or boundaries, but rather believe that when there’s a will, there’s a way. 

Yellow hat questions could include:

• What is the best way to approach the problem?

• What can we do to make this work?

• What are the long-term benefits of this action?

These questions are only a starting point. As you work through your Six Thinking Hats exercises, you may want to come up with more questions that take into account the optimistic role of the yellow hat.

The Black Thinking Hat

The black hat is the opposite of the yellow hat and represents judgment. Wearers of this hat look for ways that the situation can go wrong.

The black hat is used to expose flaws, weaknesses, and possible dangers of proposed ideas. On the surface, the ideas you got from the yellow hat session may seem perfect. The black hat dives below the surface to find any potential problems. The black hat is essential to keep you from jumping headfirst into a potentially disastrous situation. However, the black hat’s role is not just to sit around and be all judgy. In addition, this role looks for and identifies resources that may be needed to accomplish your goals.

Questions to help you think from the black hat perspective can include:

• How will this idea likely fail?

• What is this idea’s fatal flaw?

• What are the potential risks and consequences?

• Do we have the resources, skills, and ability to make this work?

The Red Thinking Hat

While you have the red thinking hat on, your primary goal is to intuitively suggest proposals and plans of action based on feelings and hunches. This hat is open-minded and non-judgmental. Using the information gathered from feelings and emotions, you should be able to intuitively relate these feelings to the problem you are trying to solve.

A red hat thinker’s objectives include:

• Make intuitive insights known.

• Seek out your team’s hunches and feelings.

• Reveal an idea’s hidden strengths.

• Use instinct to identify potential weaknesses.

• Find internal conflicts.

For example, some ideas and plans may seem weak or impractical but if someone wearing the red hat can identify a new idea or plan that “feels” right, this idea should open up discussion and exploration of additional opportunities you may never have considered.

Red thinking hat questions may include:

• What is my gut feeling about this solution?

• Based on feelings, is there another way to fix this problem?

• What are our feelings about the choice we are making?

• Does our intuition tell us this is the right solution?

The Green Thinking Hat

Green hats are used for creative thinking. Wearing this hat lets you think outside the box to explore more possibilities and bend the rules of problem-solving. This creative thinking should be free from judgment and criticism. 

Because the green hat is not bound by rules or limitations, this is where you can think beyond the norms of reality. The green hat lets you conduct a brainstorming session where no idea is too wild or crazy to be noted or immediately shot down. The green hat must refrain from criticizing or judging any ideas or suggestions that come up. The idea is to expand your thinking as you explore possible solutions.

The green hat may ask questions such as:

• Do alternative possibilities exist?

• Can we do this another way?

• How can we look at this problem from other perspectives?

• How do we think outside the box?

Keep in mind that as you work with the green thinking hat, you are free to express any idea that comes to mind. Even ideas that may sound crazy can have a kernel of feasibility that can put you on the right path to solving your problem. 

The Blue Thinking Hat

This hat provides a management role and will help you analyse the situation. When wearing the blue hat, your job is to manage the thinking of the other hats to ensure that the team stays focused and works more efficiently toward a workable solution. The role makes sure the other hats are being used correctly. 

Specifically, the blue hat seeks to:

• Efficiently and effectively improve the thinking process.

• Ask the right questions that help you direct and focus your thinking.

• Maintain and manage agendas, rules, goals, and tasks.

• Organise ideas and proposals, and draw up action plans.

Questions that will help you in the blue hat role may include:

• What is the problem?

• How do we define the problem?

• What is our goal and desired outcome?

• What will we achieve by solving the problem?

• What is the best method for going forward?

It's something new. You might have heard about it but haven't applied it in your workplace. It's a challenge for the year ahead to use this to better engage with your team and get different perspectives for effective brainstorming.

If you are interested in a powerpoint template that can use used to educate your team on the 6 hats please sign up here.

If you’re looking for some help to navigate workshops using DeBono’s Six Thinking Hats, then reach out to the Whiteark team.

How we use the hats with our clients

We’re a team of doers led by Jo Hands and James Ciuffetelli. We don’t believe in unnecessary layers; and between us we have over 50 years of collective experience, expertise and global connections. Delicately weaving these together, we engage with you directly, with a single-minded focus on the task at hand. Collaborating at a senior level to propel organisations forward, we intricately map out and execute your next move, ensuring you’re prepared, protected and prosperous.

We’re nimble; we will assemble the best team for your problem, guaranteeing you have the skillset and people you need - no more, no less. Using data (de Bono’s White Hat) we load up your arsenal with the information needed to define and craft your next move; your strategy. Then together we’ll use this knowledge to carve out a unique set of priorities and objectives, bringing the entire team into the fold so they’re aligned towards the same targets and goal.

Competitive advantage is now shifting to the Supply Chain

Article written by Matthew Webber

We are living in very uncertain times, driven by the various disruptions that are playing out in front of our very eyes. The level of disruption is often overwhelming, and the certainty, safety and security of our supply chains are under threat. It will be those organisations that can bring a level of consistency and reliability in their supply chains that will most certainly be well positioned for competitive advantage.

“Insights from Matthew Webber | Matthew Webber is a specialist in strategy, program delivery and training, focused on driving business performance by developing commercial, operational and innovation capability. With over twenty years international experience, Matthew has worked across the globe with organisations undergoing immense change and comprehensive transformations. Inspired to create a world championed by kindness, where equitable opportunity is available for all - Matthew shares his vision through best-selling books and his sought-after keynotes. ”

Disruption has also created a level of complexity in our Supply Chains that is confusing our decision making, impacting our opportunity to service or even to manage costs in an orderly and sensible manner. The complexities often have impacts that reach far greater than the organisation itself, and often are impacting communities and environments that are not in close proximity at all. Organisations that develop Supply Chains that can address this complexity, and make it on surface seem simple, are placing themselves in a strong competitive position.

We are moving from a world of industrialisation to digitisation. The impacts of this is in itself uncertain and complex – but it will most certainly have an impact on the way we work, the way we manufacture, the labour we use, the skills we acquire, and most certainly the geographies we operate in.

How organisations design and execute their supply chains will be the fundamental source of competitive advantage going forward. Supply Chains that are value and demand driven will certainly place themselves at an advantage over slow and reactive supply chains.

Let’s look at some strategic levers you can consider as you lead your organisations supply chain transformation strategy for competitive advantage.

Make data and digital your friend

Big data, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (including tagging, sensors and geolocation technologies) and blockchain are all means by which organisations are transforming their supply chains. Of course, on their own, these means are worth little, the value comes in the way that the information can be captured, disseminated, visualised, shared and acted upon.

What needs to be appreciated is the amount of information that flows across the entire Supply Chain and the awareness of how the ability to access this data in a meaningful way can add to the value proposition.

The manual collation of data and information is an inefficient way of doing business which exacerbates risks in the supply chain by delaying information flow and visibility.

Organisations are innovating to be able to operate with decisive speed, ensure that they are meeting and exceeding standards and providing customers, partners and other important stakeholders on demand information that meets compliance standards or reinforces messages on promises made.

With the amount of data and information being used, shared, and published – security is also becoming of paramount importance. Not only is there an expectation that the information is trustworthy, and able to be relied up so there needs to be integrity in the information (which can be potentially met with block chain technology), organisations also need to guard themselves from misuse of the information, ensuring that the information is used in the right context for the right permissible purposes. They also need to guard against cyber-attacks.

There are a number of ways that you can start making data and digital your friend;

1. Build an information strategy that provides for the on demand access to information and insights across the entire Supply Chain - create opportunities to share and collaborate on data and information sources to aid the operational planning and execution, network configuration and control of the Supply Chain;

2. Develop data capturing methods, activities and devices to be able to capture useful data, automating the collation and production of key insights and reporting;

3. Identify the areas of key risk and opportunities in your Supply Chain – ethical, operational, commercial and develop predictive modelling to leverage insight capability and to sense supply chain disruptions ; and

4. Establish safeguards to ensure the security of data and information.

Start Automating

There are many reasons why Supply Chains are transforming towards Automated and Robotics solutions. Access to reliable labour sources are becoming a challenge particularly for countries where there is an aging population, competing demand on labour, the lack of skill generation (or potentially the reverse where labour resources are upskilling to less labour orientated vocations), there is safety reasons, and cost imperatives that are also driving the push towards automation. On top of this is the exponential growth in ecommerce and the need for fast, reliable, consistent and accurate operational performance.

It would be difficult to envisage operations that are completely automated. By definition to automate something, you need to be able to provide the instruction on what the activity is that needs to be completed, how to complete the activity, when to complete the activity and so on. This requires human intervention and input at some level. Toyota have a principle of ‘autonomation’ which is basically automation with some human touch. This would involve approximately 80 to 90 % automation of process with the allowance of human engagement for improvement to the system.

 Whilst there may be significant impacts to employees, and potentially economies relying in the use of manual labour to provide these services that can now be automated – the counter argument of improvements in productivity, reduction in safety issues, job creation in the innovation and delivery of automated solution, and the reinvestment of capital into more meaningful (and often more impactful) ways.

There are a number of ways that value can be created through Automation;

1. Building an automation strategy that provides for reduction in manual tasks that may create safety, reliability, accuracy, efficiency and service bottlenecks;

2. Redeploy resource into value adding activity which has customer focus;

3. Partner with automation design experts; and

4. If you want to be successful at automation, you must place people at the centre of automation – that may seem counter intuitive, however it is people that make automation successful, not robots

Design your Supply Chain with adaptability in mind

A one size fits all strategy for a modern Supply Chain will simply not work. Customers are becoming increasingly demanding upon what their requirements are, and how they want their expectations fulfilled.  

This resonates on so many fronts for the supply chain strategy. How products are made, where you source from (and from who you source from), what geographies you operate from, how you manufacture and how you manage logistics, the depth of your relationships and the integrations of your systems will all have a significant bearing on how you can customise your offer to your customer, and how you diversify your supply chain accordingly to meet this requirement.

Supply chains need to be configured around the channels, clusters and customer experience expectations. Essentially customers need a supply chain menu, where micro segments are offered to meet the customer experience requirements of the customer and the efficiency requirements of the organisation.  This could mean many things to many organisations – but as a start you could be thinking about different supply chains based on product characteristics, channel (such as physical or online) or even the velocity and predictability of the demand.

Technology in manufacturing and production needs to be leveraged to be able to deal with complex, unique and customised designs. Additive manufacturing (commonly referred to as 3D printing)  and rapid prototyping techniques are enabling a “fail fast” mentality, more complex design, smaller parts and less waste.  This will have significant bearing on size, scope and location of manufacturing facilities and where and how products are sourced, milled and configured.

With the vast amount of data available, and the ability to link this data, and collaborate with this data – the opportunity to build more demand driven supply chains is realistic. Whilst the concept of demand driven supply chains is not new, it has in many circumstances been unachievable because it has relied on historical data sets. With embedded sensor activity, remote engagement and instruction, predictive analytic models and the ability to scrape social media data and collect data from open sources the ability to predict demand, recognise patterns and anticipate changes is greater than ever before providing for the ability to customise solutions.

There are a number of ways that this value can be created through designing an adaptable Supply Chain;

1. Building a diversification strategy supply chain strategy that provides for the ability to respond, build, distribute and satisfy customisation needs;

2. Establish a multi geared, multi clustered supply chain that is linked to the customer experience anticipated;

3. Establish data collection capability from multiple sources that can be collected, curated and  managed; and

4. Realign manufacturing and production footprint, methods and location to create the ability to customise based on customer preference and volatility in demand requirements

Together is better than alone so collaborate

The benefits of collaboration have long been recorded in the world of global supply chains. Collaboration provides the opportunity to share the weight of common problems, develop more insightful solutions, leverage the various perspectives and intellect from across the supply chain, to share the investment and resource allocation and of course to build value and share in the spoils in very fair and reasonable manner.  

Collaboration is a hot topic for the current environments, and for reasons no more important than the fact collaboration is the core ingredient to innovation and developing solutions to fast, complex and spread problems that have infiltrated the supply chain. For many of the new and emerging technologies to function they need a higher degree of collaborative effort.

Like the Apple iPhone requires the collaboration with app builders to make the iPhone an attractive value proposition (without the apps they are just another phone), supply chains require the collaboration of key elements to make a fast, agile and responsive supply chain work. It is near on impossible to run every aspect of the supply chain on your own, the sheer scale makes this unachievable. You need systems, service providers, suppliers, finance and so much more to connect the supply chain and bring value to life in the global supply chain. 

Cost driven, transactional style relationships with partners and providers is a significantly outdated and inappropriate course for a supply chain strategy dealing with disruption and realignment. You need meaningful relationships, insights, technologies and operational capabilities to actually be able to create value. Toxic relationships, and ones with no trust, are not only exhausting, distracting, expensive and unreliable – they are a threat to your brand and ability to drive social impact and to do the right thing.

Digital and data capabilities will of course make the collaboration effort easier, and more powerful with the aggregation of information that on its own is nothing special but combined becomes a source of insight and considerable strategic advantage. The magic happens when there is alignment with supplier performance and consumer behaviour. 

There are a number of ways that this value can be created through collaboration;

1. Building a collaboration strategy that provides for the ability to innovate and create shared insight and value;

2. Consolidate your partner base to provide the opportunity for deep relationships that enable collaboration practices to evolve and thrive;

3. Develop data, insight and best practice sharing capability – including the opportunity for teams from both organisations to work in each others environments; and

4. Identify and prioritise problems that can be solved collaboratively

Don’t forget your values

There is no doubt that there is a greater emphasis of all organisation to provide a greater focus on ethical and sustainability issues. There are also greater opportunities for organisations to create competitive advantage specifically through what they value and how they go about doing business.

There are very pragmatic reasons why organisations focus on values and socially focussed initiatives. For a start putting aside competitive advantages that can be created through value alignment, organisations focus on these areas to mitigate reputational damage risks and also focus on these areas for regulatory compliance reasons.

Being Values driven and socially focussed is not an afterthought, it must be an application of intent and desire.

What it requires is an exerted effort, strong focus, consistency in behaviour and messaging and a very authentic will – otherwise it will be seen as a dressed up marketing ploy. Long consistent repetition of positive actions and behaviours are the order of the day.

There are a number of ways that this Value can be created through values;

1. Building a values and social impact strategy that provides the source and foundation to create value, and competitive advantage;

2. Create a business case that considers a holistic value concept view of value and moves beyond short-term financial effects;

3. Leadership support, communication and behaviour that is consistent with the values and social impact; and

4. A long term view of consistent, repetitive reinforcement of the values and commitment to social impact that earns the trust of the supply chain and customer community

One thing is for sure, our Supply Chains will look very different in terms of the way the operate, and how they are positioned.

The organisations that can transition effectively stand to gain significant advantage over the long term – in fact it is almost certainly becoming a race, and a race that we have no choice but to join.

The race of business will be won and lost by how organisations organise their Factory to Customer Supply chain and adapt to the new environments that are upon us and can satisfy the growing demands of the modern customer and the experience that they expect. 

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LOOKING TO rethink your Supply Chain? REACH OUT.

Our leadership team at Whiteark  have decades of experience in leading Supply Chain Transformations from Factory through to Customer, developing Market and Customer strategies that ensure relevance and desirability . We design the business model to deliver commercial feasibility and  to ensure that your business is ready to not only deal with disruption, but to thrive in it. From strategy to design and execution. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au or explore our supply chain transformation services here.

Article written by Matthew Webber

What hat you wear can change the game - are you ready to play?

We know that successful companies work to proactively listen to different perspectives from across their organisation. Finding ways to do this where people feel comfortable to share their views/ideas is critical; and now with the majority of corporate employees working remotely, this creates even more of a challenge when it comes to getting people to engage…

I have a technique, that I learnt, and I now use this approach with leadership teams which elicits some exceptional and interesting results.

To apply this technique and get the full benefit we need to take you on a journey. We will take you through the journey in the next few articles where you will learn:

1. About Edward de Bono’s Thinking Hats

2. To understand the concept and theory behind each Hat through Whiteark articles and bites

3. How to use the technique of the Hats with your leadership team, wider team, workshops and the power of using it to facilitate brainstorming with a group. We will give practical real life examples of how to use it

““Creative thinking is not a talent; it is a skill that can be learned. It empowers people by adding strength to their natural abilities which improves teamwork, productivity, and where appropriate, profits.” ”

— Edward de Bono

In 1985, a man named Edward de Bono wrote a book called Six Thinking Hats. A physician, author, and consultant, de Bono is a proponent of teaching thinking as a subject in schools to help people be more successful in business and in life. He developed the Six Thinking Hats method as a way to run better meetings and make better decisions more quickly.

In the Six Hats methodology, de Bono identifies six different ways of thinking, each represented by six coloured “thinking hats.” As you wear each hat, you learn how to think in different ways to brainstorm and approach problems from various angles.

The de Bono’s thinking hats are defined in the following ways.

Whiteark is aligned with the White Hat.
Let us explain more….

We’re a team of doers led by Jo Hands and James Ciuffetelli. We don’t believe in unnecessary layers; and between us we have over 50 years of collective experience, expertise and global connections. Delicately weaving these together, we engage with you directly, with a single-minded focus on the task at hand. Collaborating at a senior level to propel organisations forward, we intricately map out and execute your next move, ensuring you’re prepared, protected and prosperous.

We’re nimble; we will assemble the best team for your problem, guaranteeing you have the skillset and people you need - no more, no less. Using data (de Bono’s White Hat) we load up your arsenal with the information needed to define and craft your next move; your strategy. Then together we’ll use this knowledge to carve out a unique set of priorities and objectives, bringing the entire team into the fold so they’re aligned towards the same targets and goal.

What does International Women’s Day mean to me?

IWD 2021 — #ChooseToChallenge

“Article by Jo Hands, Whiteark Co-Founder & Director”

A challenged world is an alert world. Individually, we're all responsible for our own thoughts and actions - all day, every day. We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women's achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world.

From challenge comes change, so let's all choose to challenge.

Why I'm personally passionate about supporting women…

As a female Executive/Co-founder I'm super passionate about supporting other women in their leadership journey.  From my experiences, mistakes and successes I love to provide career and life advice / lessons to other women and support them on their journey.

It’s great to have the opportunity to give back, and here are some of the ways I choose to use my time – and influence – to lift other women up.

• Being part the SheEO activator community

• An active Business Chicks business club member

• Promoting women on our podcast The Chiefs, giving them the mic to share their own experiences, wisdom and learnings.

• Partnering our business Whiteark with Femeconomy

• Working with some amazing female leaders in senior roles across industry

• Mentoring and leading a bench and teams of >50% women with flexible working arrangements

• *In Progress* We are planning initiatives with a focus on junior business chicks to get practical experience in business at a younger age. Stay tuned…

A time for reflection…

Take a moment to ask yourself:

• Who has supported you in your leadership journey? Take the time to thank them.

• How are you giving back?

• How can you lean in to #ChooseToChallenge in FY21 - what commitment are you going to make?

• Thank women in your network that support, challenge, encourage and inspire you to challenge every day

“The most important thing one woman can do for another is expand her sense of actual possibilities.”

— Adrienne Rich

Find out more here or reach out to the team on whiteark@whiteark.com.au for a chat.