What is the rationale behind BTOES 2020?
Managing the rate of Change in Industry 4.0
While the fourth industrial revolution has brought about unprecedented opportunities to drive value creation through data-led, intelligent machine-supported operational excellence; the comprehensive transformation needed to realise this potential brings with it a great deal of uncertainty, risk and complexity.
Rapid technological change has democratised innovation. While smaller, more agile companies disrupt traditional industries, large organisations with ingrained multi-layered legacy systems, processes, practices and cultures are having to reassess how to bring their clout and experience to bear in ever-changing business environments. Business as usual is simply not an option, and the ability to effectively transform and continuously improve is fundamental to survival and growth.
We are working towards:
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Increasing agility to manage constant rapid change
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Gaining enterprise wide visibility on systems, processes and culture
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Prioritising change and managing resources
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How to apply lessons from smaller, innovative, more agile companies
Holistic data-led, customer value centric approach
The modern customer is better connected, better informed and more vocal than ever before; they have far less reliance on brands to provide them with the information they need to make purchasing decisions. Seamless interactions across all touch-points is the new baseline for customer experience excellence. Whether consumer facing or not, the creation of customer value needs to be at the heart of strategic development for all businesses. The systems, processes and culture that support the development and delivery of customer value are of equal importance to success.
We are working towards:
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Understanding changing customer demand and segmentation
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How to align E2E transformation with customer value creation
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Instilling a customer focused culture in non-customer facing business units
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Minimising risk of reputational damage and harnessing the power of customer advocacy
The evolution of company culture in line with the future of work
As ever, cultural challenges remain the most significant barrier to operational excellence and transformation success. The way we work is evolving: Mundane and repetitive tasks are increasingly automated, the need to work on-site is diminishing and traditional working siloes are being deconstructed. To overcome resistance to changes in working practices, tools and environments, you need to provide transparency and clarity around change and create consistent agency and accountability at all levels of the business.
A culture of innovation is needed to harness the value that exists throughout the organisation. A culture of continuous improvement is needed to inspire and manage positive change. A culture of empathy and inclusion is needed to improve wellbeing and performance. A balance between standardization and diversity needs to be struck to get the best out of the people who embody the identity and values of your organisation.
We are working towards:
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Hiring and retaining employees with the relevant skills
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Developing effective cultural change KPIs and metrics
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Strategies for effective communication and engagement
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Understanding future of work trends
Developing the leadership needed to support sustainable change and continuous improvement
One of the things that successful transformation and excellence initiatives have in common is consistent, ongoing, involvement from senior leadership. Meaningful and lasting change can only happen if the people in your organisation are aligned behind a strategic vision. Gaining an enterprise wide view of change initiatives under strong leadership to prioritise resources is an extremely complex challenge.
Operational Excellence and Transformation leaders feel frustrated in many cases by the lack of sufficient top-down involvement and support for their initiatives, and their own efforts are often frustrated by a personal lack of strategic vision and enterprise-wide view of resources and priorities. Communication between C-level executives and change leaders needs to be improved to bridge the gap.
We are working towards:
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Techniques for getting meaningful C-level buy-in for change
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Competency gaps
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Leadership development program management
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How to develop an enterprise level strategic view as a change leader
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How to overcome project inertia and change saturation
Identifying and prioritising RPA and AI opportunities and other Industry 4.0 Technology
Data has been described as the oil of the modern age; the effective capture, analysis and application of data is the fuel that drives successful operations in all companies. There is nothing “magical” about AI or RPA. They simply provide the opportunity to capture, analyse and use that data on a larger scale, more precisely and more efficiently. The implications for efficiency, cost-reduction and personalisation are enormous.
A pressing challenge for many organisations is identifying the right opportunities and prioritising investment in RPA transformation. Operational excellence methodologies are an indispensable tool in paving the way for implementation and managing the necessary change. The scale of change, cultural impediments and technical integration challenges are added to by the intrinsic uncertainty that comes with the adoption of any rapidly developing technology.
We are working towards:
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Developing a business case and demonstrating ROI
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Risk mitigation
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Integration of new technology into existing processes and systems
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Overcoming cultural resistance to adoption of new technology
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Making the right decisions, at the right time for the right reasons
Ensuring the future of your organisation as a key element of value-creation ecosystems
Traditional, inward looking innovation organisations working on long-term product and service development cycles are no longer sufficient in their own right to meet the demands of today’s markets. Fast-paced, agile innovation needs to run in parallel with longer-term innovation and be strategically aligned. Further to this, the scope of value-creation needs to be broadened to develop new business models and diversification strategies, particularly in sectors like energy, transport and financial services where traditional business models have already been in part superseded by those more in tune with customer demand and technological advances.
It isn’t enough for corporations to be reactive to disruption; they must become an indispensable element of a value-creating ecosystem defining the future of their industries. Many companies are increasingly looking outward to meet demand through partnership, acquisition and investment in small, high-potential start-ups. For companies large and small, defining their role in a value-creating ecosystem will be key to shaping their future.
We are working towards:
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Maintaining relevance to survive and thrive
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Business model innovation and diversification strategy
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M&A integration strategy
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Incubator and accelerator investment and partnership strategy
What are the hottest new areas of focus on this year’s agenda?
Scaling Excellence and Agility
As disruptive business models, technology and organisations have matured and entered the mainstream, there is an ever growing demand to bottle the essence that made rapid success possible and apply it to operations at scale. This track will provide focus on scaling excellence and agility from a joint perspective of traditional industry giants and rapidly growing newer entrants. How do we maintain the agility that lies at the heart of rapid growth organisations as they continue to expand and scale up operations and put scalability at the heart of Operational Excellence strategy?
How Environmental Sustainability is fast becoming a leading driver of transformation
Climate change presents an existential threat to mankind, and environmental sustainability will be an increasing driver of change both through consumer demand and regulation. The winners will be organisations who embrace change and the opportunities presented by moving ahead of the curve. This is an emerging focus of great importance and will become a future segment of increasing weight year on year. We are giving leaders in this space a forum to be at the heart of developing a strategic approach to accelerating change both within their organisations and wider sectors.
Moving the needle from awareness to action in correcting gender inequality
Thanks to the tireless work of many inspirational leaders, we have reached a point where there is unprecedented awareness of inequality in the workplace. The damaging effects of the gender pay gap, under-representation of women in leadership roles, unconscious bias at all levels of business are now starting to get the attention they deserve. We will be highlighting some of the real world strategies that can be deployed to take the next steps in your organisation and providing an environment in which to innovate new initiatives, grow collaborative partnerships, formulate KPIs and develop training techniques to help move the needle from talk to action.
Addressing supply chain transparency and compliance
There is increasing regulatory and customer demands on organisations to provide supply chain transparency. Managing these risks is a growing area of focus, particularly for large organisations with global operations. Distributed ledger technology (Blockchain) has provided an opportunity for incorruptible traceability of transactions at all stages of the supply chain which is a game-changer for supply chain excellence. What do you need to do to take advantage of the opportunities available?
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