Resilience for business
A central question that the management of companies should ask themselves is how companies can remain stable, survive and grow even in turbulent times?
Largely unknown in this context is the central role played by the orchestrated interaction of large IT systems.
Right from the start. When I was still a student, a very one-dimensional view prevailed. The focus of companies was essentially on increasing shareholder value.
When turbulence hit the markets, the tool of choice was to reduce costs.
In the 1990s, the mindset of top management was also still shaped by the then slow pace of technological development. Ad hoc reactions to technological leaps were not yet necessary in the 1990s!
All management theory could focus on a company's claim to control.
What does control claim mean?
The control claim summarizes the company's efforts to be controlled via the implementation of a narrow grid of financial key performance indicators (KPIs). Return of capital employed (ROCE) is very popular here as one of the key condensed KPIs.
I think in the future the focus on the control claim is no longer up to date!
Times have changed!
Technological leaps (especially what is currently happening in AI) and society's expectations of a company (e.g. sustainability) require an adjustment of the perspective and thought models!
I think that in the future, the development requirement for companies must come into focus!
What is meant by development claim?
My friend Christian Wotzka once summarized the development claim in a short concise sentence:
"A product is simply the physical manifestation of a company's performance."
The development claim subsumes the willingness and ability of a company to continuously develop itself and thus to maintain and further develop its performance.
I am convinced that focusing on development needs is central in times of technological leaps. Its realization generates resilience.
But where should the development claim be put into practice and which further developments are essential for companies today?
At this point, two development dimensions should be mentioned.
👉 The ability to control the supply chain at short notice in order to be able to produce according to customer specifications and to stabilize supply chains through strategic inventories.
👉 the ability to expand the product portfolio with high frequency through innovations.
To achieve this, precise control of the interaction between PLM, ERP and MES is necessary. We are not finished when the implementation projects of the systems have been successfully completed. Then the real work begins.
This is one of the keys to agility and resilience!
At Steinbeis - Reshape Information Management (STZ-RIM), we work with our customers to develop the dimensions of resilience and derive actionable concepts from them.
