Business continuity with new management solutions: Why is “do nothing” still the approach used?

This post tries to understand the mismatch between firms, new management solution, and business environments reality.

My view regarding business continuity is that we first need to establish a baseline for how companies can continue to conduct business in a new, changing environment.

Unfortunately, I perceive some factors that create an unsafe situation of “doing nothing”. And, being a curious person, I decided to investigate directly. There are two sides for investigate: experts who can support firms and the firms themselves.

Experts attempt to persuade the target audience that (real) risks exist for competitive positioning without “doing nothing “or, that (real) opportunities exist and try to let them acknowledge these new management solutions However, It looks like that something is not working well.

Are decision-makers helped in evaluating what, how and when they can think about things with a medium-/long-term approach, considering today’s situation?

The question triggered an investigation across practice and research about "what do experts, gurus, thought leaders, and consultants say about firms and the “do nothing”"?

For firms, I recently had the opportunity to discuss the following question with many decision makers: “what’s next for firms to create new competitive advantages in a continuously changing world”?

While this anonymous investigation continues, I want to anticipate two points that have clearly emerged so far

Lack of Knowledge transfer to improve AWARENESS (Related to thought leaders, experts, consultancy)

If the terms, buzzwords, and contents used are unclear and confusing, there will be no real agility, business transformation, or implementation of robotic process automation. Creating awareness in firms do not require hypes and fashions that may have characterised communications across the digital world on these topics.

An example of this is Agile: it is considered a buzzword, but at the same time it is a concept that does not refer exclusively to software development but a separate way to think about strategy, organisation, management.

As a decision-maker, I understand entirely why decision-makers might feel uncomfortable not fully knowing what, when and how to do it due to the lack of clear understanding created by communications. In addition, I am aware that short-term concerns and business strategies may not leave room for looking at medium-term solutions to competitive advantages using additional or new lenses that are difficult to wear.

Culture Issues (related to firms and decision-makers)

Cultural issues have been discussed both in practice and in research for a long time. in different contexts, industries, etcetera.

We tried to determine if there is awareness of this serious roadblock to agility, transformations, and RPA with firms.

I take advantage to say thank you to all those decision makers who offered the opportunity to share 30 minutes of their time (and an anticipated thanks to those who will accept to do the same in the near future 😊.

What emerged is that this overlooked element of culture relates to the following four point

Ø Level of hierarchy? The more levels we have, the less likely is the success of having a different organisation

Ø Attitude to control? The “fear” to lose ... control with different but adequate organisations. However flexible organisations allow control but differently (you can like it or not).

Ø Iterations and experimentations? Low propensity to work on short projects while experimenting and then scaling up gradually. But this is a characteristic of the flexible organisation models.

Ø People-centric? focusing only on processes and technology, also due to the previous factors, it reduces the role of People as mere executors with low consideration in more active roles. Thus, it is expected that a level of resistance to manage is high.

(Sorry if I couldn’t find substitutions for some buzzwords, but at least there is a brief explanation - hope it is helpful 😊).

Doesn’t this trigger any reflection?

I can’t and won’t anticipate other points because I want to verify more feedback but these two points, which interest two different parties, are worth highlighting.

Stay tuned.