Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Welcome to Finding Fresh Opportunities for Business Growth. Thank you for joining us at 11 o'clock. It's going to be a very short one, 15 minutes. I'd like to join us all for finding opportunities for new business growth. We haven't really been thinking a lot about business growth lately. Obviously, there's been things going on. So today, I'd like you to sit back, have a cup of coffee, relax, and put your mind to what could be possible for the next 15 minutes. So we'll also have an opportunity to ask some questions at the bottom of your screen. There is some tools there, some icons. And if you want to ask some questions, I'll try to respond during this live stream. Otherwise, I'll definitely get back to you afterwards. So I hope you enjoy the next 15 minutes. And let's find out about finding new opportunities for business growth. Okay. A little bit about us. We have a strategy group where innovation and customer strategists and really what sets us apart is that we operate in the corporate innovation world. We're very commercial and pragmatic. We also have this entrepreneurial experience, which is in the startup world, where we bring entrepreneurial thinking to our engagements. And then finally, we're deep, rigorous thinkers. And this is joined by our academic background and also our creative problem solving. So we bring these three lenses together to solve problems. This is just a quick snapshot of the types of organizations that we've been involved in across corporate and government, as well as in the not-for-profit sector. And then just a little bit about our capability. We work in innovation strategy, end-to-end innovation strategy. So that's front-end innovation and back-end commercialization and everywhere through that process, as well as customer strategy. So we look at customer insights, customer value propositions, customer journeys to frame up an organization's customer strategy. The other area, two areas, is business model. And we reimagine your model. And sometimes that's also known as transformation, which can be done across a total organization or just in terms of the digital strategy. And then finally, employee experience, which is increased engagement. And we map moments that matter for your employees all the way from the front end before they start, even up to the exit interviews. That's a little bit about us. So now on to what we'd like to cover today. I'd really like you to try and imagine 2021 as your best year ever. And sometimes we look backwards and look at the more laggard measures than looking forward. And these backward measures are a little bit in terms of your interest rates. Yes, they will remain low. Employment will slowly recover. The economy will reopen. And training and upskilling, well, that's expected to soar as we've pivoted our skills during COVID. Where I'd like you to focus your efforts at the moment is how we're going to increase our impact. And I'm not really going to take you through the more obvious forward-looking indicators today. It's not really what you're expecting. So I'm going to be looking at eight different things. And it's a little bit more than meaningful value propositions. And we also need to consider other things that maybe you haven't considered in the past, which is your capability, your culture and your performance. So I'd like to start off with this picture. This made headline news a few years ago. And it's a skeleton that was found in Verona. It's 5,000 years old. And it was coined the Romeo and Juliet skeletons. And it was because these skeletons were found in a human embrace, a lover's embrace. And it was quite amusing because it was near Verona where Romeo and Juliet was first positioned. And it became quite famous. But if you look a little bit closely, maybe it isn't a lover's embrace. Maybe 5,000 years ago, this young teenage couple were walking in the mountains. A storm came along. They became very, very cold. And they huddled together to stay warm. And they died. So really, your eyes see what they want to see. And you hear what you want to hear. And I'd like to take you out of that framework today and put you across another way of thinking if you, you know, a fresh perspective, a different way of thinking of things. And at the strategy group, you've probably seen this before. We say this a lot. What got us here won't get us there. So if you keep thinking in the same way, if you keep approaching things in the same methods, you are going to be doing the same things. So we need to see things differently. We need to look at our fresh lenses and fresh eyes. And that's what I'd like to set you up for today is eight factors to set you up for success for business growth. First one, can you guess? That's right. It's being customer-centric. So at the strategy group, we do a lot of work regarding being customer-centric. We have a lot of engagements where we talk to customers, consumers. We empathize with them. We have deep engagements with them to really understand what are their needs, their wants, their desires, their challenges. And this actually sets us up for very, very valuable value propositions for your business, your products and services. It's also about how regularly we are tapping into our customers. Pre-COVID, they probably needed something different to what they need today. So really, are you at the forefront of what your customers are needing? And do you ask them for feedback about your products and services as well? Do you test ideas with them before you roll them out? So customer-centricity is number one importance. And we live and breathe by that every day. The second one, which is another important one, which has been amplified during COVID is technology. So technology through, you know, adopting new technologies to advance your organization or your performance or to deliver against stakeholder needs is very, very important. And during COVID, you've either been doing two things. You've either been fortifying your business. You've been a very face-to-face business and all of a sudden, boom, it's changed and you need to fortify your business. Or you have been optimizing your technology as well. You've already embraced technology and now you're streamlining it. So technology fosters collaboration. It makes you more engaging, particularly through social media. And it also empowers the business unit. However, with technology, you need to be constantly upgrading. The third one, maybe something you haven't thought about is internal collaboration. So this is the capacity for individuals to grow within the organization. And what it does, it reduces power plays and it reduces silos that we operate in. I'd like you to consider, are you constantly asking for feedback? Are you setting up internal networks or events or, you know, are you getting together as a team and collaborating and, you know, pulling everyone? And also having internal collaboration allows us to engage with senior management as well. So are you getting the senior support that you need to, you know, grow your business and set it up for success? One that's related to internal collaboration is external collaboration, building diverse networks and partnerships with external suppliers. So this is really important in terms of are you getting input from the industry? Are they telling you about new trends? Are you getting some ideas from the industry or from your suppliers? Are you sharing ideas with them? Are you validating the ideas that you're wanting to take to market? So internal and external collaboration, you know, come together from different angles, but they're doing the same thing that they're bringing us together. So those first four ones being customer centric, technology, internal and external collaboration are all very important foundations. Moving forward to the last four, the first one we look at is culture, is an openness to culture. And the first thing I'd like to say about culture is, you know, when I'm running workshops about what stops ideas, we talk about the typical ones, resources, money, budgets, time. And then sometimes it comes out that we talk about attitudes and attitudes is a really big stopper in terms of a barrier of moving forward. So, you know, do you have a culture that's open? Is your culture questioning the status quo? Are you celebrating failures? I mean, you've got to look at the failures from a positive perspective as well. What did you learn? And also is innovation part of the culture? You know, is this a part of looking forward? Do you have a looking forward perspective? So culture ramps up a very, very big one here. Innovation focus, designing and sharing an innovation strategy with a vision, goals and metrics. I mean, as the strategy group, we're innovation specialists. And, you know, we possibly haven't been looking at this one in the last few months or moving forward. But innovation is a part of setting up a business up for growth. Do you have an ideas to execution process? Do you have a funnel of ideas? You know, do you know actually how to capture ideas in your organization? And, you know, do you have time to actually innovate? Do you put that aside? And is it part of your vision? And do you have an innovation strategy? They're all important considerations. The other one I'd like to talk about is velocity, is organizational velocity. This is about momentum. This is about exceptional levels of performance, about speed of delivery. So it's okay, you know, you're talking to your customers, you're having internal collaboration, you've got a bit of innovation happening, but are you getting things out the doors? Are you adhering to your plans? Are you getting these things out the door? Are you empowering? Do you have a risk-taking culture? Are you action-oriented? It's no use having, you know, a plan or a strategy for business growth if you can't get it out the door. And then the final one is rewards and recognition, which often, you know, we don't talk about. We don't talk about rewards and recognitions. We don't talk about encouraging ideas or people coming up with, you know, successes. And rewards doesn't necessarily need to be financial rewards. Recognition is just, reward can be in lots of different ways as well. So there is a difference between rewards and recognition is really what I'm trying to say here. And it puts, it allows people to understand that their work has been worthwhile. They've put all this work into talking to customers, internally collaborating, adopting technology, you know, speed to market, getting out there, but have you actually acknowledged that? So they are the eight growth vectors or foundations that I want to, you know, explore with you today. And you might be saying to yourself, well, so what Yvonne, you know, that's all great. Where's the proof? Where's the evidence? So we've been doing a business growth assessment for the last six years, where we go and we measure businesses and look at particular foundations about how successful they are in doing what they, you know, said that they were going to do. This is from a score of 100. And I've just picked out three here today, one from a commercial enterprise, one from a government department, and one from not-for-profit. And what we have found when we have, you know, produced this growth assessment for them, is that they have different areas of strengths and different areas of weaknesses. So for the commercial enterprise and for the government department, both of them were very, very strong on being customer-centric. They were their number one foundations. They were, you know, really good at being engaged with their customers. The not-for-profit, the best strength the not-for-profit had was being really aligned to technology. In terms of where they all fell down, they had completely different angles here. So the commercial enterprise wasn't very good at velocity, had great ideas, had good business growth, you know, engaged in customers, but it couldn't get it out the door. The government department, again, it was, you know, very much attuned to stakeholder needs and wants and desires, but what was holding the government department back was culture. So the attitude and questioning things, you know, was holding the government department back. And then the last one, the not-for-profit, they weren't recognizing the reward or the effort that went into, you know, growth. So hopefully this 15-minute espresso for you today, right on time, right on 15 minutes, showed you that there's eight ways you can grow customer-centricity, being a part, adopting technology, internal, external collaboration, culture, innovation focus, velocity and rewards and recognition. Thank you. If you have any questions, I'm more than happy to take your questions or take them offline. And if you would like the strategy group to conduct a growth indicator assessment, we're more than happy to. Drop me a line and I'll discuss that with you later. Thank you.