I took last week off, but today I want to wrap up the final chapter in IBM’s The Enterprise of the Future (a steady Saturday feature since July 12; be sure and download your free copy)
Chapter Five is called Genuine, Not Just Generous and refers to “an emerging generation of socially minded customers, workers, partners, activists and investors” who are demanding—through their wallets and their feet—a new commitment and level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) from companies.
It’s not an accident that three of the nine drivers that continually moved higher over the last three surveys are all part of CSR—socioeconomic …read more

Continuing the focus on disruptive innovation as discussed in chapter four  from IBM’s The Enterprise of the Future (a steady Saturday feature since July 12; be sure and download your free copy) begs the question as to what is being disrupted? What are companies really doing to drive financial performance?
The most common approach is “revenue model innovations, nine out of ten are reconfiguring the product, service and value mix. Half are working on new pricing structures.”
Changes include offering more services; moving to recurring charges (as opposed to one-time payments); bundling or unbundling depending on products and industry.
The major change in …read more

From IBM’s The Enterprise of the Future (a steady Saturday feature since July 12; be sure and download your free copy).
The second of the five critical traits is innovative beyond customer imagination, which translates to giving customers what they truly want before they ask and even before they think of it.
It’s not about selling them what they don’t need; it’s about anticipating needs and innovating even when the results disrupt your current product line.
But to whom are you actually selling?
“In rapidly developing economies worldwide, the middle class is growing (sadly, that isn’t true in the US) and becoming progressively more …read more