Transform Or Be Disrupted And Die
Anders Liu-Lindberg
Leading advisor to senior Finance and FP&A leaders on creating impact through business partnering | Interim | VP Finance | Business Finance
In today’s fast paced world things are changing more and more rapidly. The lifespan of a corporation is shorter and shorter as start-ups are created with the sole aim of being sold to venture capitalists or industrial players and entrepreneurs can become millionaires in what seems like a split second. This is, in fact, the corporate reality today so what does that mean for your company?
First of all it means that your company has got to keep up with all these changes and be in a constant state of transformation. The lifetime of strategies becomes shorter and shorter and battles for profits are fought from quarter to quarter. If you think you know where your industry or even just your own company will be in 5 years then you are either delusional or have some special psychic gifts. A study by Innosight show that the average tenure in S&P 500 has gone from 61 years in 1956 over 25 years in 1980 and only 18 years in 2011. I recently wrote about the high likelihood of shipping being disrupted in “There Is Too Much Capital In Shipping”, but there is no reason to believe this shouldn’t be the case for any other industry. So most like the average tenure in S&P500 will continue to drop.
Second it means you probably shouldn’t expect your employees to stick around for too long. The average tenure in a company is dropping with the Millennials full-fledged entry into the job market as they have adopted the business-of-one mind-set. You can always argue what came first: the companies breaking of the social contract in the wake of the crisis or simply that Millennials are more self-centered and don’t want to pledge their allegiance to one company and work there for life. At the end of the day, this is the reality today hence companies need to build their talent and retention programs around it.
Last but not least no one can do this alone. Your company must collaborate with other companies and accept that your employees might not stay long, but if they like working in your company chances are they will come back at a later stage enriched with new experiences that will be benefit your company. By creating a strong network of companies and followers your company will ensure a constant flow of inspiration on how to keep pace with the ever-changing business world.
If you don’t get this or say this is not for you then let me make it very clear. Start transforming your company and industry now or be disrupted and die!
Let me know what you think about transformation and disruption and be sure to like and share the content!
Anders Liu-Lindberg is the Regional Finance Business Partner for Maersk Line North Europe and is working with transformation of Finance and business on a daily basis. Anders has participated in several transformation processes amongst others helping Maersk Drilling to go Beyond Budgeting and transformed a finance team from Bean-counters to Business Partners. He would love the chance to collaborate with you on your own transformation processes to help you stay out of disruption
I am Senior Finance Executive with 9+ years leadership experience with multi-million $ export and manufacturing .
7 年Change and transformation is inevitable; and it is true for survival , not for growth. Those who have been through a 'Change ' process in their organization would be able to relate to the fact that challenging the status quo and people is easy; real challenge follows in providing the Leadership in execution and delivery on promises for growth, efficiency, success ....
Director, Training & Consultancy at Findlay (B) Sdn Bhd
9 年Very well put. My view is that businesses broke the "social contract", but probably had no choice. Since then, an increasing trend has been for employees to take a more "selfish" approach to their career. The millennials are merely the latest manifestation of this. Companies cannot expect loyalty when they offer none in return, so this concept is as dead as the proverbial Dodo. Instead, the "alumni network" will come more into play where, as you suggest, employees will leave but rejoin later with more experience. The issue is, how you treat those employees whilst you have them. With many more alternatives available,
Health Insurance- Independent Contractor
9 年Interesting observation!!
So many managers (and I include technical managers in this group) are content to milk their knowledge of status quo technologies and unable to step out of the box of their comfort zone in order to embrace newer ways of doing things. What they don't realize is that while they are remaining comfortable, they create a risky situation that opens them up to being displaced, disrupted and obsoleted.
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9 年SOO< True