Gamification of business: using games for recruitment

Looking for some evidence for the "gamification of business" trend, I came upon this interesting example (thanks to Gerd Leonhard).

(From Springwise.com )

The gamification trend has been going strong in recent months, but until just recently we hadn’t seen it applied to recruiting. Sure enough, though, none other than hospitality giant Marriott International is now using a Facebook game to try to fill some 50,000 open jobs by the end of this year.

At My Marriott Hotel on Facebook, gamers begin by managing a virtual hotel restaurant kitchen, including buying equipment and ingredients on a budget, hiring and training employees, and serving guests. Much like in the wildly popular Farmville game, players earn points for happy customers but lose points for poor service; they’re also rewarded when their operation turns a profit. The game can be played in English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Mandarin, and after playing in the restaurant portion of the game, users can then move on to other areas of hotel operations. The video below demonstrates the game in action:



David Rodriguez, Marriott International’s executive vice president of global human resources, explains: “As Marriott expands in growth markets outside the U.S., and as we seek to attract more Millennials – those between the ages 18 and 27 – to our workforce, we must find new ways to interest them in hospitality careers. This game allows us to showcase the world of opportunities and the growth potential attainable in hospitality careers, especially in cultures where the service industry might be less established or prestigious.”

What 'Shared Value' is about, an interview with Mark Kramer

Following my previous blog post, where a couple of corporate people discussed shared value and social innovation, I realized I had not yet provided a definition of shared value. So for those in need of one, better let the person that promoted the concept (together with Michael Porter) the word. In 10 minutes, you'll know what Creating Shared Value (CSR) is about:

Social innovation and shared value: some value behind the hype?

Some interesting perspectives on Value Creation and social innovation in these interviews with  executives from  Western Union, Dow Chemical, Cisco, Medtronic, and Pacific Gas and Electric Company. The three ways of creating shared value, as explained by Mark Kramer, look particularly appealing:

1. redefining products and markets (perhaps the real innovative motor);
2. redefining productivity in the value chain (this is basically the way you build and manage your business ecosystem);
3. enabling and strengthening local business clusters (this one surprised me at first, but come to think of it it makes perfect sense since it's ensuring that local communities have a sustainable benefit from your actions).

Giving the Shared Value trends (hype) some counterweight, a recent article from The Economist criticizes Michael Porter's claim that Shared Value is the next big competitive differentiators. Well worth the read to demistify the potential hype, and to avoid costly mistakes with Shared Value programs.

What would a virtual company look like? #1: the crowdsourced company

In recent months I’ve been intrigued by the concept of a ‘virtual company’. How would this look like? The concept sounds –and probably is, by definition- relatively abstract to me, although in many ways I am experiencing some of the consequences of this trend within my current working environment.

Anyhow, as always I can only sort my thoughts out if I make a mental picture of them, so I started figuring out what a ‘virtual company’ would actually look like. What I found was that this ‘virtualization’ might take many forms. The ultimate picture is probably a mix of all these. But let’s do this step by step.

A first step would be a company that crowdsources a maximum of internal activities. Everybody is acquainted with outsourcing production and support functions. Nothing new here. But what happens if the ‘anonymous mass’ becomes an extension of your company’s activities?

Let’s take a typical small and medium sized company of 25 people. A typical division of activities would look like the picture on the left, where the size of each division indicates the number of people in it.

The same company might leverage part of its sales activities to the crowd –a bit like with the affiliate program of Amazon, for instance. The Marketing, PR and R&D functions would be merged and lead by a specialist in crowdsourcing and (for the PR function) social media. IT could be done on the Cloud, at least for the software part. And finally, much of the pure administrative activities could be handed over to a micro-tasking agency.

Our new structure looks much lighter now, certainly in terms of overhead cost. Additionally, we reduced the risk of a brain drain considerably (with 25 people in the organization, it becomes dramatic if key skills come to leave the company). On the negative side, the new virtualized company probably adds complexity and makes the structure –and the responsibilities tied to each task- a bit less transparent.

Everything has its pro’s and con’s, though I suspect the new structure would prove to be more profitable at the end…

The challenges of China's urbanization

The Chinese urban population will soon account for more than the total citizens of the United States. Hence its importance, as a testing ground for some of the solutions linked to megacities, but also as an important factor in China's future growth, its societal challenges and -hence- its future altogether. A very smart summary from The Economist:

The future of government: open and participative

The recent report of the World Economic Forum The Future of Government offers some compelling thoughts and ideas about how governments could transform themselves to offer more services, more efficiently:

"Governments of the future will need to adapt and continuously evolve to create value. They need to stay relevant by being responsive to rapidly changing conditions and citizens’ expectations, and build capacity to operate effectively in complex, interdependent networks of organizations and systems across the public, private and non-profit sectors to co-produce public value. As recommended in this report, what is needed today is flatter, agile, streamlined and tech-enabled (FAST) government."

...the report develops plenty of thoughts (and examples) on how to address this challenge, by using social media in public services,  for instance, or developing and communicating KPI's. To me personally, the most compelling discussion is about the drive towards 'open government':

"The report also explores the powerful but, in some cases, controversial concepts of open government and open data, giving examples of how governments are using the power of the Internet and the Web, including social media, to transform governance, empower citizens and rebuild the social contract between political leaders and citizens."

...as well as some directions on where the 'market state' could evolve to -this is truly a big opportunity for companies from virtually all industries:

"A range of public-private partnerships and other multisectoral arrangements have opened possibilities for value creation and greater efficiency. In this context, the report highlights the potential of social enterprise, an important way to leverage the innovative potential of entrepreneurship for social and economic development – particularly in settings where neither the government nor the market is likely to produce value using traditional means."

One  chart I'm sure to use in my presentations, in order to show that participative -open- government is not about blogging or answering complaints, it's about collaboration... (Come to think of it, it is somewhat strange that crowdsourcing is mentioned nowhere as an efficiency enhancer)

 

To access the full report: The Future of Government

'Gamification' as key driver of eCommerce?

Interesting perspectives on the key trends in e-Retail, but I think most can be applied on Retail in general. 'Gamification' in particular is a term I increasingly come across, not only in Retail. If you know of compelling examples of how gamification is used in business, I'd be glad to hear from them...

(From BigThink)

What's the Big Idea?
The online retail revolution has produced spectacular success stories like Groupon and Gilt Groupe. Adam Bryant of The New York Times interviews Susan Lyne, CEO of Gilt Groupe, about where the industry is heading in the future.  In this Big Think interview, Lyne identifies three key trends, as follows:

Curation
According to Lyne, consumers can be paralyzed by having too many choices. Companies like Gilt focus on "filtering out the noise" and paring down the choices

The convergence of editorial and commerce
The print world has always been able to inspire people and give them ideas, but according to Lyne "they could never allow you to make that last piece of it happen which was the commerce part." Companies like Gilt have changed that in a major way, where "content in the commerce flow can actually help people to make a decision," she says.

Game Dynamics
The game of shopping is fun to play if customers can be moved from one level to the next in the shopping experience. In other words, Lyne says, "What good gamers do is to design a flow that takes you from Point A to Point B and then from Point B to Point C."

Social Enterprise... what's in a name?

This can get confusing I'm afraid... In recent blogs I've been discussing the trend towards social entrepreneurship and, as an extension, the drive for incumbent companies to increase their social (societal) relevance.

Going through my RSS feeds this morning, however, the term 'social enterprise' came up with a completely different meaning, one that in itself forms an interesting trend however.

In this Forbes interview with IBM's general manager for Collaboration technologies, the term 'Social Business' refers to the use of 'social networking'- type of collaboration within the company, as a performance enhancer tool. Fair enough, and it comes relatively close to what CRM solution provider Salesforce.com understands under 'social enterprise', be it with a twist of consumerisation of IT...

...this will get confusing in the future. However, the 'social business' such as used by IBM and Salesforce.com is definitely a business trend worth following...

'Social business innovation': how to mix social good with business value

I recently had a chat with strategy execution expert Jeroen Flander about the ‘shared value’ trend. I wasn’t aware of this labeling yet, but the concept comes close to what is commonly called ‘corporate citizenship’, or ‘ethical businesses’.

Anyhow, the discussion gave me the idea to try to map the various reasons companies might have to take shared value seriously. Surely, some are driven by the demand of society, while others do so from free will. Secondly, some do so even if it doesn’t affect their core business, while others do so just because it affects their core business.

This leads to following intriguing segmentation:

• Bottom left (Must do’s) sums the activities companies increasingly are required to do, either through regulations or through pressure from public opinion and stakeholders.
• Bottom right (Nice to do’s) is a crowded area, where many companies (if not all) do philanthropic work mostly for the sake of their brand’s reputation.
• The top right (threat area) shows some examples of companies that didn’t pay sufficient attention to shared values. Clearly it’s in the best interest of all businesses to keep clear of that area.
• But the most interesting spot to be in is the top right one (Opportunity area). Of course, you’d have the social entrepreneurs in there, whose business model is based on ‘doing good’. But there are a couple of ‘classic’ companies who succeed in applying their core competencies to increase their social relevance, and using this social relevance to increase business success.

This will increasingly become the hot spot for companies to be in., where true social value is created while increasing business success. Since innovation is a buzzword nowadays, we could perhaps call this ‘social business innovation’?

5 megatrends according to CSIRO

I think I mentioned this report before, though it's the first time I've been through it with more attention. The document 'Our future world -an analysis of global trends, shocks and scenarios' from the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial research Organization) offers some interesting read, mainly for its supporting trends.

Just a pity they only selected 5 megatrends (out of 100, according to them), the same exercise would have been useful covering less obvious, or even uncertain trends. Well, that's basically what I try to achieve with this blog ;-)

Also to keep in mind, when the CSIRO presented this at a conference last year, a consultant from Bridge8 argued that each of these 5 trends might in itself create 'anti-trend'. Grossly, the argument-counter argument went as follow:

Click here for the complete CSIRO report, or watch the introductary video beneath.

Another good example of the social entrepreneurship trend

One for the record, since I was investigating some evidence of the trend towards social entrepreneurship. The one beneath sounds like a good best practice to keep in mind:

(text copied from Youtube:) "The Social Entrepreneur is a documentary featuring Rob Smith, the CEO of Earthwise Ventures. Rob and his team at Earthwise are embarking on a revolutionary project that could transform the economies of the African countries surrounding Lake Victoria and serve as a template for future entrepreneurial investment around the world. The film is still in production and the release date has yet to be determined."

Will consumerization of IT become mainstream?

Much has been said about the 'consumerization of IT'. Many say it is an unavoidable fact, but the people I speak to -both from the IT world as well as corporate leaders- seem to say this is not likely to ever happen. For those of you unaware of the 'consumerization of IT' trend, it's basically about being allowed to use personal devices for professional means.

The video beneath provides a good -and fun- introduction:



I guess it's part of corporate culture whether or not it will happen. But the real question is whether (young) people will really want to use personal devices at work. From the multiple surveys I've been through, it would appear that this would be the case for hardware (smartphone, iPad, ...), but not so much with software, especially social networks (except for LinkedIn, obviously).Many perceive Facebook as being something personal that shouldn't interfere with work.

One strong indication that this trend is happening whether or not the corporate IT department is in favor of it -or supporting it- is shown  in a survey from IDC, commissioned by Unisys (Unisys consumerization of IT benchmark study).

It's an interesting study altogether, but what stroke me most is this chart, that shows the perception gap between what IT perceives as being used in the corporate environment, and what the workforce really uses.There are some major disconnects in the utilization of computer and phones, but more strikingly this chart shows that in almost all these technologies the use of personal devises outpace what the IT department thinks is happening.

One could easily conclude that this trend is unstoppable?

The impact of megatrends on the Western Retail sector

 I'm currently digging deeper into the consequences of megatrends on different sectors. As I stated earlier, a trend might mean something completely different dependent on the industry you serve. Ultimately it's even going to be dependent on your company's specific context, your culture, your mission, your vision. But in the meantime there are common conclusions to be drawn by industry.

Here's an example for the (Western) Retail sector (I do think that the Retail sector in the emerging countries would give a different view; I would've put more emphasis on the emergence of megacities, for instance):

The impact of megatrends on the western retail sector

View more presentations from Frederic De Meyer.

Internet traffic set to quadruple by 2015

Interesting infographic from Mashable hereunder, based on a forecast from Cisco. The main message is that internet traffic is posed to grow exponentially, to reach 1 zettabyte per year by 2015. If you don't know what a zettabyte is, it is explained in the chart hereunder (a one followed by 21 zeros).

What stroke me most, however, is the projection saying how many devices we'll have in average per person: 5.8 in the US, 4.4 in Europe. Surely by then we will get tired of carrying multiple devices around? Or a brilliant designer at Apple would have created one single device that serves as a laptop, a smartphone, an e-reader and an iPod all at once?

Perhaps of more serious concern is the eWaste generated by all these devices... perhaps the electronic and technology sector can get serious about integrating bamboo components in their devices, even if it's only for their packaging (both ecological and economical advantages here):



...and here's the infogrpahic by Mashable:

New trend in outsourcing: microtasking

Is it crowdsourcing? In a way, yes… except that in this model the outsourcing of tasks is not done to an anonymous crowd per se.

Is it social entrepreneurship? In the eyes of Samasource, yes, definitely. The aim is to help out poorer classes get some kind of paid job.

Fact is, with the emergence of microtasking, outsourcing takes quite a different proportion. This definitely makes sense for companies: why bother paying relatively high waged locals to do relatively low-skilled tasks, while one could outsource this to a multitude of eager people in emerging countries? Surely it’s more efficient to do so, and on top companies can profile themselves as doing something good for society.

I have quite some difficulties imagining which specific tasks this would be, but according to the CEO of Samasource beneath, there should be plenty. No doubt this might become big:

Europe's future: from Lisbon to Vladivostok?

How will regional free-trade regions evolve in the future?

It’s probably fair to say that global organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) or the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have failed to turn the world into a unified, coherent block of like-minded parties. There are various reasons for that, the major one being that these organizations can hardly be suspected of ensuring the best interest of all of their members (read Joseph Stiglitz or Naomi Klein to know more about this).

Regardless of the question whether such a unified world would be a good thing or not, the conclusion is that -until it does- partnerships between countries will become increasingly important, and hence will be subject to some transformation in the future.

The current state of these regional alliances looks like this:

Except for the scattered Africa, most of the trading blocs follow the logic of the geographic continents. Judging from this map, two moves would likely occur somewhere in the next ten years.

For one, China is currently part of no group at all. It doesn’t have to, for now. It has easy access to most of the worldwide markets, and its internal market is big and booming enough to keep it safe of any need for further integration with any other region. But, for the sake of argument, say that the US and European markets would become tougher with Chinese exports. Not such an unrealistic scenario. Where would China turn to? It ‘owns’ Africa already, the US and Europe would be closed, so they’d have to turn to India, Russia or South-East Asia. In either scenario, it might be a blow for Western export markets.

A second oddity is the European Union. It’s the biggest single consumption market in the world for now. But it’s hardly a noteworthy political power at a global scale –even if the European countries would have a single foreign policy, which isn’t the case now despite of its lip service, it would still have to cope with its limited geographic reach. An extension to the East (difficult and strange, but not unfeasible) would make sense.

The video beneath gives some proof of point. Made by the World Economic Forum, it was meant as an introduction to a conference between Europe and Central Asia. But, between the lines, on sees an effort to show that both regions have many stakes in common:

Chinese businesses' strategy when acquiring Western companies

In one chapter of the book about megatrends in corporate strategy I’m soon to publish I dig deeper into the consequences of the increasing number of takeovers of Western firms by Chinese investors.

Strikingly, evidence so far (Volvo, Teck Resource, Addax amongst others) suggests that the Chinese owners pretty much leave the situation unchanged. In the case of Volvo, they left the management team untouched (except for the CEO) and only want to have a say in the global strategy and expansion of Volvo’s brand.

This is refreshing, especially when compared to how the Japanese used to treat acquired companies back in the ‘80s. Somehow this is also embedded in the Chinese culture, in which 2 sometimes opposite systems can perfectly well exist in parallel (for more on the subject I’d suggest to take 15 minutes to listen to professor Martin Jacques at a TED conference).

This looks like a clear strategy of Chinese companies that invest in Western companies. But it is also exemplified by the localization policy of Chinese multinationals. Telecom equipment company Huawei is a case in point. They just appointed a purely local Board of Directors in their Australian operations.

It’s quite interesting to hear one of these Directors discuss the lack of transparency of Chinese companies as well as the ties between Chinese business leaders and politicians. According to him, Huawei is opening their books for audits (though it doesn’t have to), and Chinese business leaders have to stay clear of political influence if they want to be successful globally:

(a sign that things don't change that quickly after all? the Youtube video embed function was disabled by request... clicking the pic beneath will bring you directly to the Youtube location)

I wonder of this is a strategy that will be sustained, but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t. I’ll follow this one closely nevertheless.

The power shift to the east... is Europe really set to decline?

Much has been said about the decline of the West -in terms of weight in the global economy this is. Undoubtedly the weight of the West will decline, provided that its economic growth is below that of the emerging markets. I think Looking at the latest projection of Price Waterhouse Coopers, the top 10 economies worldwide  would count only 2 European countries by 2050, there are 4 today.

Nevertheless, all is not bad. Looking at the Ernst&Young report on global Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), Europe still shows as the second most attractive destination for FDI, and in terms of size the European countries combined are still will above the US when in comes to attracting FDI's.No guarantee for the future, obviously, but still pretty far from a doom scenario, especially if you consider the growing importance if Chinese and Indian investments in Europe...

(From the report:)
Global conclusions:

• Though China is rated the world’s most attractive investment region with a score of 38%, Europe ranks second in 2011 — awarded a score of 35% by investors.
• In 2010, emerging markets collectively harvested more than half of global inward FDI for the first time, though their performances varied: while the value of FDI into Brazil grew 16.3% on the back of commodities and consumption, the value India’s inward investment fell 31.5%, slowed by strong competition for investment projects. China’s FDI inflows grew steadily, underpinned by stable returns on investment.
• When considering where to invest in 2010, companies view transport and logistics infrastructure (63%), telecommunications infrastructure (62%) and stability and transparency of the political, legal and regulatory environment (62%) as the most critical factors.

Major charts:

• The attractiveness of Europe as FDI destination is declining but still ranks second next to China:

• The majority of FDI inflow still originates from the US, but outside of Europe China and India start taking major positions:

• The 4 major European FDI inflow countries (UK, Germany, France and Belgium) together still account for more than US FDI inflow:

(Click here to access the full E&Y report)

Open your strategic planning event with a keynote on megatrends!

Looking for an impactful opener for your strategic planning meeting?

…or an eye-opener for a conference about the future of your industry?

How to better start your strategic meeting but with a keynote presentation that will open the minds of your audience and make them aware of all the possibilities of the near future? You would be certain to obtain better insights and ideas for the future of your company and industry!

Start your meeting with a keynote speech about megatrends !

As a passionate researcher of megatrends and a knowledgeable business strategist, Frederic De Meyer combines the expertise needed to provide valuable input at the start of your strategic planning meeting, or your industry gathering.

The keynote addresses topics like:

• Concrete examples of how companies benefit or suffer from megatrends;
• Which megatrends will affect your industry and how companies can optimally prepare for them;
• How to determine which megatrends need immediate actions from your company;
• How to build a megatrends exercise in-house in order to adapt your strategy to the challenges and opportunities ahead.

You will find a generic slidepack on the top right of this page. This presentation can obviously be adapted to your specific situation or environment, zooming in on the megatrends that are directly relevant to you. These megatrends will be treated in light and impactful ‘fact sheets’ that will be sent to you separately as well.
Start building on the successful future of your company! Start your meeting with a keynote speech on megatrends!

The amount of speeches or workshops I can deliver yearly is limited!

Giving speeches and lectures is not my only job, however. Hence, the amount of interventions I can do is limited. This amount is dependent on the locations of the meeting, but currently I only have room for 4 more international speeches in 2011. Book yours now to ensure your future success!

Click here to discuss availability and prices (please indicate your location and industry as well). I will get back to you within 2 business days.

See you soon !

Frederic De Meyer
(Click here to view my LinkedIn profile. Feel free to send me an invite if you want to keep the idea of a megatrends keynote in mind for later)

(PS: I don't deliver any speeches or workshops for direct competitors of my current employer!)

3D printing becomes mainstream, but is it useful?

It's still pretty inconceivable to me, '3D printing'. You want to print an article to read, or some pictures you took on holiday, but that's 2D. What's the need for 3D? Sounds like another gadget...

Well, not so fast... it would be handy to print spare parts for, say, a broken table leg. Just take a 3D picture, and the 3D printer would build a spare one with exact the same measures. Better than messing around for half a day trying to manufacture something similar (especially if you're born with two left hands, like me).

3D printing doesn't sound so absurd any longer and, according to the report beneath, will become a device for the masses pretty quickly: