Demand Driven Organizations

Marcos Fava Neves

16 Dez 2010 14:10

Publicado no China Daily, 16/12/2010 - Ultimo artigo do ano!

This is a special story dedicated to my China Daily readers. My article number 30 and the last of the year trying to contribute with this community of readers bringing my thoughts in planning, management, strategy, companies' behavior, marketing and food business. I think we had a nice 2010, mostly in the emerging economies as the case of China and Brazil that could grow and include new consumers and citizens.

Nowadays consumers live in an era of choices. And I want to tell the story of companies and organizations that are winning the choices of consumers and having nice results. It is based in my observations of what they share, what is their behavior, how they act. Let’s move to the 10 points of "demand driven organizations".

1 - They listen and pay attention. This is a great characteristic, since to pay attention is difficult and it is incredible how we deal everyday with companies that are closed to information.

2 - They don't fear to be evaluated. In several organizations we see that there is an avoidance to establish formal and informal evaluations procedures, because people will be pressured.

3 - Dedicate a formal time to think. Time to think nowadays is rare since it costs. We have to pursue financial, sales targets and all this massive communication disturbs, since when you are thinking, a new email arrives or a mobile phone rings, disturbing. Technology made us much more accessible to people, but the other side is the continue interruption in thinking processes.

4 - They analyze and exercise macro environmental changes. They are keen to see what is happening in the scenarios: political and legal, economics, socio-cultural and technological. These demand driven organizations analyze how these trends and movements affect them.

5 - Do mental simulations of possible future changes and their impacts, anticipating movements and reactions. It is the "and if?" question. They exercise these questions of possible future changes and what is the impact.

6 - High stakeholders touch. Establishing closer linkage and connection to stakeholders (consumers, clients, suppliers, distributors, Government, shareholders, banks...) via several strategies as open lines of communication, own stores, consumer labs, front line people empowerment and digital platforms.

7 - Demand driven organizations share a sense that they are owned by the consumer - The value of the organization is the value given by the consumer, having a clear understanding of which are costumer problems and if the organization can solve them. This requires a mindset change in employees.

8 - They don't fear to change. We face in several companies an accommodation process. People don’t move from their indifference, they think nothing is possible, nothing works. This behavior must be changed with stimulus or if it doesn't work, by... "If people don't change, let's change people"

9 - Entrepreneurial and innovation behavior - I explored this in the last article, called "building an innovative concept". We see that demand driven companies always bring new concepts and solutions for societies.

10 - They also share discipline to make things happen. They take notes and take actions.

I like to use a simple framework based in three words. It is the "Fact-Impact-Act" model. Basically thinking, let's list what are the facts (we don't control the facts, it is what happens every day and we see the news) and what are the impacts of these facts, since every fact has an impact that can be either positive or negative for an organization. Finally, what are our acts, or what will we do based on these facts and impacts. How to move forward? An organization that is demand driven is more prepared than others to face this model, even anticipating it.

We have here a working list for people managing organizations. These points could be transformed in questions and shared with your management team and employees giving ideas for your organization about how to improve in each of these 10 points of our "Demand Driven Organizations" concept.

I wish all China Daily readers a nice Christmas and a 2011 full of health and work, because the rest is consequence. We will be together again in January. For the readers that will stop a bit for vacations, nice traveling and rest, since we must have our batteries loaded for a promising 2011.

The author is professor of strategic planning and food chains at the School of Economics and Business, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil (www.favaneves.org) and international speaker.