Open-mindedness key to innovative, efficient future
Changes in technology and the marketplace are driving a growing number of midmarket executives to explore more open, transparent ways of doing business. And that’s a good thing for many reasons.
In an ever-more competitive market, it’s the companies willing to innovate and adopt new technologies that will best be able to engage with customers and employees. And that will give them an edge in building relationships and developing better products, both of which are clearly good for business.
“Whether struggling for share in mature markets or grabbing territory in growth markets, midmarket CEOs recognize that they must differentiate their organizations,” notes the latest Global CEO Study from IBM. “Midmarket CEOs see greater organizational openness ahead, but as rules are refined and collaboration explodes, they need to figure out how to avoid chaos, protect the business and deliver results. They believe their organizations will be impacted more by the pressure to be open than the need to control.”
More innovative and open companies will also find it easier to enter into, and benefit from, partnerships with other organizations that will help them grow into the future.
Taken together, those payoffs – more communication, more creativity, more collaboration – will enable midmarket companies to become more flexible and competitive in tomorrow’s complex, interconnected business environment. It will also help firms improve efficiency … something that will be increasingly important as energy and other resources become more expensive and harder to get.
For example, the residential and golf community of Desert Mountain in Arizona has found that taking a new, collaborative approach to data gathering is helping it to become more efficient in its use of reclaimed water – a critically important resource in the arid region. By partnering with IBM and UgMO, an irrigation technology company, the community is now able to monitor water use in real time, identify leaks as they happen and irrigate only when needed.
“The ability to monitor these systems in real time means that potential problems such as under- or over-watering, a burst pipe, a slow leak or a malfunctioning pump can be quickly identified and resolved – or even predicted and prevented,” says Michael Sullivan, director of IBM’s Smarter Water Program.
A different kind of collaboration – this time looking to new, previously unexplored markets – not only helped the energy-tracking technology firm Quadlogic Controls survive the US housing collapse, but is contributing to improved efficiency in developing countries like Jamaica, Mexico and Ecuador. By speeding up the rollout of a spinoff product to keep utility meters secure, the company has created new opportunities to reduce energy theft in places where that’s a serious problem.
“I always have a plan B and a plan C for just in case,” Quadlogic co-founder Doron Shafrir told the Wall Street Journal. “You never know.”
This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet.
