Timing

Timing- The Bedrock of Anticipatory

Management

 Intro

o Corporate success will be contingent on the ability to synchronize

actions to the dynamics of an ever-shifting marketplace

o The formula for business success has not changed over the years

 Companies have always needed to offer the right products and

services at the right time in the right place at the right price

 Timing can make a real difference

o Wayne Gretzky

 The key is to anticipate

o Luck has been defined as what happens when preparation meets

opportunity

o While Grezky’s success may be attributed to his keen sense of timing,

a closer look reveals that timing is really the result of four distinct

capabilities

 ASAP

 Anticipation

 Speed

 Agility

 Perceptiveness

 Anticipation: Giving the Firm a Head Start

o If you can’t have 20/20 foresight into what the future holds…

want20/20 foresight into what the future may hold

o Anticipatory management includes asking WHAT IF

o Take a mental journey into the future by exploring various

possibilities

o By running scenarios executives may be able to identify emerging

factors and forces

 Lessening the chance of being blindsided

o By seeing possible situations and events earlier, management has

additional lead time to position the firm to capitalize on opportunities

and prevent problems

o Scenarios have offensive and defensive dimensions

 Offensive scenarios

 They may indicate emerging market/product/service

opportunities

 Defensive scenarios

 May reduce the likelihood that management will be

blindsided by events that could be detrimental to firm

o Scenarios may not be able to offer certainty as to what may happen

 But they do encourage executives to explore possible futures

 The Quick Environmental Scanning Technique…

QUEST

o It’s a systematic way to identify future events that

could affect their firms

o Scenarios play an integral role of the “3 I’s” of anticipatory

management

 Inquires

 Into what the future may hold

 Once management identifies certain possibilities, it can

direct its attention to estimating the probabilities that

such events may occur and analyze the likelihood of

certain combinations of events

 Insights

 May be gained from the inquiries

 Insights into what the future may hold can cause

management to see the world differently

o Thereby serving as catalysts for new initiatives

 Newfound insights will likely produce more innovative

strategies for firms that embrace strategic thinking

 Initiatives

 That are incorporated in the firm’s plans and strategies to

position itself

 They may help capitalize on emerging opportunities or

prevent potential problems

 Anticipatory management gives executives the

opportunity to operate proactively

o Firms that incorporate anticipatory management will be victims of

change

o Anticipatory management is one of the qualities that separates

successful executives from mid-level managers

 Most managers spend their time trying to solve problems

 In a sense most of that time is spent coming up with

answers to pressing questions

 The more successful managers spend more of their time

preventing problems

 Aim to identify questions that will be asked in the future,

which gives them time to come up with better answers

 The best executives to anticipate what the future may hold

 Come up with answers before anyone else even knows

the questions

o Develop products and services before people even

realize they want them

o “If you ask customers what they want, they’ll tell you what they need

now…

 Companies need to anticipate what customers will want and

have the products and services ready when they recognize those

needs and desires”

 These companies are the ones that are first to the market

o Create a temporary legal monopoly

 Speed: a decisive advantage in the race to win customers

o Basic info

 We live in a time in which people are infatuated with speed

 Real time

 The shortest possible lapse between idea and action

o Between initiation and result

 When change is the problem, speed is the solution

 The marketplace has always been characterized as survival of

the fittest

 In a world of ever-accelerating change, the marketplace

may now be characterized as survival of the swiftest

 In today’s economy, organizations compete in 4 races against

the clock

 The races

o 1. Developing innovations in technology, products,

or processes

 Has spawned the “close to the customer”

movement as well as the formation of

alliances between leading producers and

leading users

o 2. Getting innovation off the drawing board and

into the hands of consumers

 Is benefiting from various technological

breakthroughs

 Prototype development and rapid

manufacturing are noteworthy

o The ability to develop a

prototype and test it for

consumer response has always

been a crucial step in the

introduction of new products

o 3. Increasing the efficiency or quality of the

innovation or developing new applications

o 4. Using what has been learned in the previous

steps to move to another innovation

 The 1st and 2nd are receiving considerable attention today

from firms that want to operate from a vanguard position

 The desire to accelerate the introduction of new products has

accentuated the need for reducing cycle time in the

manufacturing process

 Flexible manufacturing allows companies to modify production

processes between diverse products

 Can respond rapidly and efficiently to customer needs

 The time it take to introduce a new product has been cut

dramatically through the use of concurrent design and

manufacturing

 Technological innovations are now challenging the

proverbial “speed barrier”

o Have made rapid prototyping a reality

 Directly from computer aided design to the

manufacture of actual products

o Rapid prototyping combined with rapid

manufacturing technology

o Proceed with Caution: Unbridle speed can spell disaster

 Words of caution and clarification

 Speed may appear to be a virtue; but raw unbridled speed

can derail a firm

o Handle the throttle with finesse

o Speed associated with new product introduction,

rapid growth , and massive corporate change can

lead to disaster

 Executives should try to extend the firm’s headlights to see

things earlier

 If this can’t be done, they need to enhance the firm’s

agility

 Speed is like a fast computer processer

 Without the right software, no matter how fast it is, it

can’t do anything productive

o The software provides focus and agility

 Agility: Turning on a Dime

o Basic

 In times of rapid change, agility is essential for corporate

success

 Dancing with elephants proverb

 Firms that lack agility are destine to fall prey to the here

today gone tomorrow syndrome

 There are 3 types of people in the world

 Those who make things happen, those who watch things

happen, and those who wonder what happened

 Agility should not be viewed as a survival skill

 It should be seen as a means for thriving in the years

ahead

 Companies that see changes coming and can move quickly will

not only be able to prevent problems that could cause their

demise

 They will be able to capitalize on the opportunities that

come with those changes

 Agility is a multidimensional competency

 Applies to numerous dimensions of a firm’s operations

 Corporate success is contingent on the company’s ability to

clear each hurdle in the lease amount of time

 Firms that can identify a need, design and develop a

product, and produce, offer, and service that product in

the least amount of time will win customers

o Firms that outsource key dimensions of the value

chain should choose their allies carefully

 The ability to sense and seize opportunities

will be contingent on the extent that

suppliers and companies in the distribution

network are just as agile

 A firm can only be as fast as the

slowest link in its overall value

change

o Agility Requires the ability to focus on what really matters

 Just as it is clear that no firm can be all things to all peopoe, it is

clear that no firm can pay attention to everything going on

around it and within it

 For a firm to be agile, it must be able to focus on what really

matters

 Companies with a clear sense of mission and a clearly

articulated are far less apt to be distracted or seduced by short-

lived opportunities

 Focus not only enables management to direct its attention to the

truly important issues, it also enhances the ability to respond

quickly when variances occur

 Focus can be enhance with several things

o Managing-by-objectives (MBO)

 Forces a firm to indentify what it is striving

to accomplish

o Time-activity networks (PERT,CPM)

 Help identify the most critical path(s)

o Sensitivity analysis (pareto 80/20)

 Helps identify the few actions that will make

the greatest difference

 These techniques help identify in advance the factors that

need to be monitored closely

 Real-time info tech enables people at all levels of the firm to

monitor even the smallest variances, permitting management to

focus its attention on exceptional variances

 The sooner a variance is recognized, the quicker the firm

can respond

 Having crucial info on a real-time basis permits real-time

adjustments

o Sensing “windows of opportunities”

 Companies that are able to see the world changing will have a

head start over those that deal only in the here and now

 A premium on foresight and the ability to quickly modify a

firm’s capabilities and corresponding market offerings

 “windows of opportunity” may be opening and closing more

rapidly as well

 Entrepreneurship is usually associated with identifying an

emerging opportunity

 Sustain growth for established enterprises is contingent

on a firm’s ability to capitalize on additional market

opportunities

 The need to identify the opportunities, however, tends to

overshadow the importance of a keen sense of timing

o Lead time: four types of firms

 When it comes to agility, there can be laggard firms, reactive

firms, proactive firms, and vanguard firms

 Agility can be offensive or defensive in nature

 It is on the offensive when the firm sees a change early

enough to respond positively to it

 it is on the defensive when the firm is blindsided and

management has to scramble just to survive

 the extent that the firm has lead time and the ability to adjust

constructively to the situation is what separates the four types

of firms

 lead time determines whether the firm will be an agile

leader in the marketplace or a laggard that is destined to

leave a precarious existence until it goes under

 The types

 laggard firms

o often miss or ignore the first signs that the

marketplace is changing or that their performance

is deteriorating

o instead of acknowledging the new reality, they

frequently rationalize or deny it

o it usually takes a major crisis for management to

see the need for change

 often too little, too late

 reactive firms

o sense the change in the market or the firm’s

deteriorating situation earlier than a laggard firm

o may be able to save the day and keep the firm

afloat

 but this comes at a high price

 constant state of “red alert”

o strains resources cuz it’s costly to fight a fire

 proactive

o the major difference btw reactive and proactive

 perceptiveness

o look for “leading” indicators to identify changes

within and outside their firms

o have lead time so can respond to changes

positively

 vanguard

o operate with a longer time horizon

o sense changes early

o may still have to respond to changes in the

marketplace, but their ability to initiate the changes

themselves separates them from the pack

o perceptiveness allows them to spend more time

preparing for a different tomorrow

o their agility is directed toward creating and

capitalizing on opportunities and preventing

problems rather than solving them and putting out

fires

o triage management: no room for “paralysis by analysis”

 decisiveness plays an integral role in developing corporate

agility

 decisiveness is paramount where the ability to:

 size up the situation

 determine what is truly critical and urgent

 take swift action can make the difference between life an

death

 in an every changing marketplace, there is little room for

tentativeness and bureaucracy

 corporate triage situations are occurring with growing

frequency

 decisiveness enhances a company’s ability to seize the moment

 it is crucial in getting a product delivered in time when

the expected carrier fails to come through

 corporate agility flourishes in enviros where there is a sense of

urgency and where people are able to keep their heads under

fire

 Perceptiveness: the ability to time corporate initiatives

o Basic

 Numerous ventures fail

 Not because they lack good ideas, but because their

executives do not have a good sense of timeing

 5 types of offensive timing initiatives

 When to start the venture

 When to introduce a new product

 When to introduce a new process

 When to enter a new territory

 When to initiate major expansions

 4 types of defensive initiates – entail reducing or phasing out

certain corporate activities

 When to drop a product

 When to exit existing markets

 When to consolidate ops

 When to sell part or all of the venture

 Firms with perceptive timing are able to sense the window

being formed, position themselves to serve the market when the

opp opens, capitalize on the opp, then exit before the window

closes on them

 Entrepreneurs of “first-to-market” firms are also at risk

 Although they are perceptive and can recognize what the

market wants initially, many lack the resources and/or

managerial wherewithal to support their firm’s rapid

growh

 Firms that are too late are at risk

 Staying too late is risky

 They need for perceptiveness may never have been greater

 More and more firms are adopting a responsive rather

than a proactive type of strategy

o Positioning the firm for a different future

 “futuring” in strategy development

 Futuring is far less rigid than traditional long-range

planning techniques

 It recognizes the turbulence and discontinuity of the

marketplace and of change itself

o Instead of developing formal detailed planes,

futuring focuses on identifying the position the

firm desires to occupy in the years ahead

 McKenna believes the best firms learn to gauge what they

should do next by the smallest shift in the wind

 “the best way to predict the future is to invent it:

 The notion of being a leading firm is based on the idea of

having a vision for what could be, being out in the front

of the pack, introducing breakthrough change, and being

the first to reap the benefits from breaking away from the

status quo

 A valuable dimension to futuring

 There isn’t just one future

 There can be multiple futures

o A firm should determine which it wants

 Then develop a strategy that gives it the

“high ground”

 Futuring ties anticipation, speed, agility, and perceptiveness

together

 The insights, in turn, serve as the foundation for the

development of innovative approaches for dealing with

them

 Contingency plans increase a firms agility

 They need to be developed when

o The probability of being derailed is too high

o The consequences of being derailed are too high

o (or) Both conditions exist

 Execs need to recognize that their plans are based on

assumptions about future market conditions

 They must know that no plan is flawless

 Summary

o Two things should be clear about corporate timing

 The accelerating rate of change will increase the need for ASAP

competencies in the years ahead

 The ability to sense the need for change, learn what needs

to be done differently, develop innovative approaches for

providing value to the marketplace, and have the

resources available to initiate the changes

 There will be times when anticipation and speed will provide

the opp to capitalize actively on emerging opps

 In other situations, particularly times of discontinuous change,

the firm may need to improvise

 In these instances, its perceptiveness and agility will

enable it to respond quickly

o Every effort should be made to create an environment in which the

firm can operate from an offensive stance

 “you wither make dust or you eat dust”