1. Transformative
Organisations : Random
thoughts..
Dr S G Deshmukh
Director
ABV-Indian Institute of Information
Technology & Management , Gwalior
9 March 2018

2. Acknowledgement..
 This is based on an interactive session
with high level performance team of a
leading IT company attempting to have
20X improvements.

3. Talking points..
 Current scenario..
 VUCA environment
 Transformative organisations
 Agility
 Design thinking
 Change management

4. “Must read” book
 Ismail, Michael S. Malone and Yuri van Geest
,Exponential Organizations: Why New
Organizations Are Ten Times Better, Faster,
Cheaper Than Yours (and What to Do About It).
 https://www.amazon.com/Exponential-Organizations-
organizations-better-
cheaper/dp/1626814236/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_enco
ding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

5. Change &
Rate of
Change
Breakthrough
Innovation
Digital Disruptions
Globalisation
Technology
(AI/ML/Robotics/Clo
ud/Social/Nano etc.)
Context : Today’s business
landscape

6. Some events..
 2016—Brexit,
 Developments in – USA, N Korea, China?
 Threats from terrorists and cybercriminals,
climate change
 Aadhar?
 Demonetization
 GST ?

7. Observation..
 Business is not running as usual.
 Leaders must deal with growing uncertainty,
complexity, and ambiguity in their decision-
making environments.
 We have little idea what to expect in terms of
health care policy, financial transactions, Tax
policy, national security, and global trade—all
of vital importance to us, our employees, and
our stakeholders.

8. Sustaining in today’s VUCA world
is challenging
Emerging
Markets
Innovation
Customer
Retention
Restructuring
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/VUCA-volatility-uncertainty-complexity-
and-ambiguity
VUCA is an acronym used by the American Military to describe
extreme conditions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Volatility
Uncertainty
Complexity
Ambiguity

9. VUCA..1..
Volatility
liable to change rapidly and
unpredictably, especially for the
worse
 Subject to frequent, rapid
and significant change
 Turbulence everywhere
 Economical, Political,
global,
 Fuel scenario
Uncertainty
not able to be relied on; not
known or definite
 Component of that situation,
in which events and
outcomes are unpredictable
 Due to competition
 Due to fluctuating customer
demands
 Due to sudden introduction of
new technology

10. VUCA ..2..
Complexity
consisting of many different and
connected parts
 A multiplicity of issues and
factors, some of which may
be intricately
interconnected.
 Technology
 Economical, Political, global,
 Fuel scenario
Ambiguity
open to more than one
interpretation; not having one
obvious meaning.
 Manifested in a lack
of clarity and the
difficulty of
understanding exactly
what the situation is.
 Abundance
 Too much of
information
 Too many choices?

11. Response to VUCA world
 To compete in VUCA environment, today’s leading
organizations are responding by being agile, nimble,
constantly embracing change and aligning their
people to critical business strategies
 Transformation is inevitable. Huge or massive
transformation is an imperative.
 ExOs with a variety of attributes
Typical Pillars on which response should be based :
• Process
• Technology
• Analytical support

12. Remark..
 Average half life of business competency has
dropped from 30 years in 1984 to to 5 years in
2014 !
 Salim Ismail (co-author of Exponential Organisations)
 Can you relate this with your organization?

13. Exponential Technologies ..
Examples
 3D Printing $40,000 (2007) to $100 (2014) 400x in 7 years
 Industrial Robots $500,000 (2008) to $22,000 (2013) 23x in 5
years
 Drones $100,000 (2007) to $700 (2013) 142x in 6 years
 Solar Energy $30 per KWh (1984) to $0.16 per KWh (2014)
200x in 30 years
 Nanotech (Graphene) Projected: 80% price drop in
production costs between 2014-2020
 Biotech (DNA sequencing) $10,000,000 (2007) to $1,000
(2014) 10,00x between 2007-2014

14. Remarks..1..
 Our organizational structures have evolved
mainly to manage scarcity of people, money
and other resources.
 Accessing or sharing works better in an
abundant, information-based hyper-connected
world.
 While the information-based world is now
moving exponentially, our organizational
structures (and thinking also) are still very
linear

15. Remarks.. 2..
 We’ve learned how to scale technology
(mainly cloud computing since 2006-7)
 Now it’s time to scale the organization:
strategy, structure, processes, culture,
dashboards, people and systems (Is 7-S
irrelevant today ?) –Soft systems?
 Software is eating the world, in all sectors In the
future every company will become a software
company
 Mark Andreessen - founder of Netscape, renowned
Venture Capitalist

16. Remarks ..3..
 Linear thinking Vs Aspirational thinking
Think of big ideas !!
Think of massive improvements!!
Think of huge gains !!
https://sportscotland.org.uk/documents/coaching%20futures/aspirational%20thinking%20
doug%20macdonald.pdf

17. ExO
 An Exponential Organization (ExO) is one
whose impact (or output) is disproportionally
large — at least 10x larger — compared to
its peers because of the use of new
organizational techniques that leverage
exponential technologies.
 Examples: Uber, Tesla, Airbnb
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNQSM4ipZog
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV0oKVOIGG4

18. Attribute.. Community , Sharing &
Crowd
 Attracting and leveraging community or the
general public to scale. The crowd can be
leveraged by harnessing creativity, innovation,
validation and even funding.
 GitHub - GitHub is an open source developer
community with 6.5 million members and 14.2 million
repositories. Its members rate and review the code
of others and collaborate on further improving it.
 Historically, Sanchi stup leveraged crowd funding !

19. Attribute.. Leveraged Assets..
 Rather than trying to own assets, ExOs
access, rent or share assets to stay nimble –
outsourcing even critical assets. Leveraged
assets are comprised of Cloud computing,
Hackerspaces and assets from
customers(sometimes competitors also) as
input for business.
 Uber

20. Attribute.. Experimentation..
 Lean /agile methodology and other techniques
inside different organizational departments to
constantly experiment with new ideas and
processes, culturally enabling risk-taking and
failure. Processes are constantly being
updated with fast feedback loops.
 Tata Motors-Nano?
 General Electric - GE implemented the FastWorks program inside their
organization to stimulate innovation and experimentation. Currently 40,000
employees have joined the program, resulting in 300 pilot projects.
 Apple?

21. Attribute.. Social Technology
 Leverage collaborative tools, such as file
sharing, activity streams, wikis,virtual reality
and emotional sensing to manage real time,
zero latency conversations. When
implemented it creates transparency and
connectedness and lowers an organization’s
information latency.
 Atos estimated that their 80,000 employees spend 5-20 hours
a week on e-mails while only 15% was considered useful. To
reduce the e-mail load, the company started to use the internal
network blueKiwi (20% reduction)

22. Attribute.. Algorithms/Data
analytics ..
 As the world turns into data and information,
ExOs are leveraging Algorithms, including
Machine Learning and Deep Learning to get
new insights about their customers , suppliers
and products
UPS - 55,000 trucks in UPS’s American fleet make 16 million
deliveries daily. ORION Project- By applying IT and algorithms,
UPS efficiently reroutes the trucks, saving 85 million miles a
year, resulting in cost savings of $2.55 billion.

23. Key challenges ..
 Creating ability for Exponential and
Aspirational Thinking : agility
 Design Thinking
 Collaboration
 Cultural factors

24. Transformations with agility
 Agility is essential for transformative
organizations (ExOs)
 Flexibility is the key axiom.

25. Agility
Agility is the ability and willingness to learn
from experience, and subsequently apply that
learning to perform successfully under new or
first-time conditions.

26. F1: Mental agility
At individual level
People are very curious.
They get to the root causes.
Have a broad perspective.
Find parallels and contrasts.
Question and challenge
conventional wisdom.
Status-quo to drastic improvement
Find amicable and all-embracing
solutions to problems.
F2: People agility
At collective level
People Understand and
appreciate each others.
Are skilled communicators.
They enjoy helping others.
Are comfortable with diversity
(diversity due to : culture, language,
professional background, gender
etc.)
Handle conflict constructively.
Use others effectively

27. F3: Change agility
Enjoy experimenting and
tinkering with things.
Often introduce new
perspectives/views.
Strive for improvement.
Can take the heat and
pressure of change.
Understand impact of change
and how to manage it
F4: Results agility
Build high-performing teams.
Are very flexible and adaptable.
Perform well in first-time
situations.
Driven and excited by
challenge.
Accomplish things against the
odds
An eye on dashboards
No benchmarks..

28. Strategy: innovation
A large MNC headquartered in the Australia
 Innovation & creativity is critical to their success.
 Innovation is also a key focus for the organization.
 Several initiatives to build up its innovation and the
eco-system .
 The innovation profile specifically leverages
the areas of Mental and Change Agility.

29. Design thinking..
 A Method of focusing innovation on people and
designing based on:
 What people need and want
 What people like or dislike
 In regards to production, packaging, marketing, retailing, support,
or all of them
 A vital skill that allows a designer to align what
people want with what can be done, and produce a
viable business strategy that creates customer value
and market opportunity

30. Virtuous Cycle of design thinking
Inspiration
IdeationImplementation

31. Inspiration
 Identify a problem
When something isn’t perfect, there is
opportunity for design thinking
Example: Relate to your own organizational
context
Inspiration from : customers, competitors, or from
some unknown source?

32. Ideation
 Prototyping
 Does not have to be complex or expensive
 `Must be physical
 Intangibles can be taped
 Visualizing helps review
 True prototypes beg for improvement
 A “finished” prototype isn’t necessarily the best prototype
 Used to identify strengths and weaknesses of an idea
and direct the next prototype in the best possible
direction
 Test, re-prototype, test, re-prototype, test, re-prototype…
 Proof of concept to prototype?

33. Implementation
 Putting prototype into practice
 Scalability?
 Sustainability?
www.forbes.com

34. Design thinking in action
 Give your own example
 Relate with the pains and gains?
 What is the role of agility in this?
 Is there any issue of “Change
Management”?

35. Mission-2020
Enhanced Agility In XYZ Supply Chain

36. Mission-2020: TREQS Model
T S
Q
E
R
Agile Supply Chain
Identify all risk
associated with GMS
Jeddah Supply Chain
and Propose Mitigation
Plan after Surgical
Evaluation of Individual
Process
Scope
January-2018 :All the Process
risk Mapping
Q1-2018- Most Probable risk
need to be addressed which
have an easier mitigation
Q2-Improving Efficiency in SCM
Time
Evaluating All Quality
Process Which Have
Impact in Supply Chain
Quality
Detail assessment all risk
associated with Supply chain
will be evaluated with respect to
quality, service and cost. Risk
has to be classified based on
complexity and time frame.
.
Risk
Impact Assessment for Contributing
Factors of Supply Chain Performance
• Identify and Understand All Process
• Do Detail Impact Assessment.
• Based on Evaluation Apply 80:20 (Paretto) Rule To Resolve The
Problems and Make More Robust Supply Chain and There By Better
Value Creation In Supply Chain Process
Effort

37. Change in Change management?
 The traditional change management
approach
 An obstacles based change management
approach
 Alternative change management
approaches
37

38. 38
The traditional change management process looks
at the world from a particular angle.
 Change is viewed as an activity
 Its discrete with its own process and rulebook k.
 It is an event, it happens at the end of a major investment or
transformation program
 It is personal and requires people to cascade their sponsorship and
ownership as a unique act
 This view relegates change management to an ancillary
activity
 It is something you do rather than a characteristic of the company.
 It is outside the responsibilities of general management and requires
special roles such as sponsorship, owner or champion.
 IT is viewed as a specialty that is housed outside of line management
and operational reporting responsibilities.

39. Change management required..
 Understand VUCA environment and
embrace the change
 Leverage and get motivated by
Aspirational thinking
 Use design thinking
 Change visualized in a “Holistic” manner

40. Holistic view .. A way of life
Warli Painting .. A tribal
art form
 A unique style
 Holistic life depicted in the
paintings.
 Coherence
 Creativity
 Collaboration
 Inside-out and outside- in
orientation
 Harmony with technology
 Harmony with people
 Harmony with nature
Source: http://www.biodiversityofindia.org/index.php?title=Warli_tribe_and_their_tribal_art

41. Another interesting “Must read”
 https://www.springer.com/g
p/book/9789811089251

42. VUCA response ?
Vision, Versatility
Understanding, Unorthodoxy
Clarity, Courage
Adaptability/Agility
https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2017/02/17/vuca-2-0-a-
strategy-for-steady-leadership-in-an-unsteady-world/#5aa0f87f13d8

43. Closing quote.
 The greatest enemy of knowledge is not
ignorance , but illusion of knowledge
Stephen Hawking

44. Thank you !
deshmukh.sg@gmail.com
https://www.slideshare.net/SanjeevDeshmukh/