Talent Development Archives - Pagina 11 di 22

10/04/2017

MANAGING KNOW-HOW AS AN ASSET FOR BUSINESS GROWTH.

New technologies, people’s visions and the integration of socio-cultural aspects are key drivers to international business growth not necessarily linked to large size companies. Today Small and Midsize Enterprises represent a powerful force of change in global business development from many perspectives.

Riccardo Paterni (moderator), Pierpaolo Vannucci (Vannucci & Associati), Stefano Bortoletto (Club Tecnologia e Passione), Nicola Scimeca (Ycom)

This has surfaced during the workshop “Business growth through leveraging on new technologies and know-how” held today as part of the University of Pisa International MBA. The master has reached the 8th edition and it features 34 participants representing twenty different nationalities with a very high level of multifaceted diversity. Industry 4.0 concepts and practices; innovation focus developed through organizational networks; know-how developed in a production field leveraged upon also in other ones; international business development from socio-cultural perspectives; these are the topics outlined in the workshop by the four presenting organizations.

Marco Dell’Osso, Strategic Marketing Manager in Futura, (manufacturer of converting machinery for the tissue paper industry) has outlined concepts and practices of Industry 4.0 by pointing out the features of the latest projects the company is developing and utilizing and that it will develop in the future.

Stefano Bortoletto, coordinator of the ‘Club Tecnologia e Passione‘ has illustrated the characteristics and purposes of this club of companies belonging to several fields and driven by common goals of innovation focus going also beyond technology into socio-cultural fields.

Nicola Scimeca and Mario Saccone, founders of Ycom have outlined how a company specialised in developing prototypes and services within the highest echelon of global Motorsport, has potential and capabilities (because of the unique technological and cultural characteristics of the field) to develop rapid and efficient innovation to the benefit also of other industrial sectors.

Pierpaolo Vannucci, founder of firm Vannucci e Associati (part of an international network of Chartered Accountants and business development, MGI) has illustrated the development of a project bridging Italian technologically driven socio-cultural know-how in a progressive country as Morocco.

Overall the workshop, moderated by Riccardo Paterni co-founder of Synergy Pathways, has stimulated active interaction with the international audience and the many cultural, academic and professional perspectives present have stimulated analysis and debates. As part of the workshop process the companies have also strengthen their relationship of cooperation with the MBA network and the students have been offered opportunities to actively know about the companies the companies unique projects already.

Photos from the event at this link

14/03/201715/10/2022

Ideas environments: the fuel to entrepreneurship

They used to be called business ecosystems: clusters of cooperation and healthy competition within a certain geographical area. Today we talk about #ideasenvironments because everything has become much more subject to dynamic changes and disruptions.

Such environments are essential to any enterprise to survive and thrive; for this reason every business should actively participate in developing such physical and conceptual areas.

At this link an interesting perspectives on the topic.

21/08/2016

The Entrepreneurial Society and the Financial Capitalism one

Today, arguably more than ever, there is a lot of focus on novel ideas to feed start-up fast growth aims. All of this stimulates a stronger focus on effective entrepreneurship development. Increasingly, within our fast changing complex society, an entrepreneurial mindset, even an Entrepreneurial Society, is considered essential for people owning their company or working in one.

This article from the Harvard Business Review Blog states, arguably, on why there are still actual fundamental mismatches within the current societal and regulatory framework of rules and norms vs what is concretely needed for actual progress driven by widespread entrepreneurship.

Multiple ventures entrepreneur Richard Branson and one of its maxims

In my opinion an Entrepreneurial Society, if we define it as a society in which any individual can take initiative to develop ideas in business for his/her own and a great social good, needs to be conceptually separated from the one relevant the the Financial Capitalism Society in which the idea is essentially developed ‘to make money out of money’ and basically unavoidably this has little to do with stimulating a concrete and innovative entrepreneurial spirit that nowadays is needed more than ever to improve many aspects of social and economic life by now widespread in similar fashions across the world.

Up-for-debate.

27/04/2016

The University of Pisa E-Team Squadra Corse & the International MBA

Within the Entrepreneurship module of the University of Pisa International MBA we have hosted the E-Team Squadra Corse presenting their path to development and growth of the project.

University of Pisa. The E-Team Squadra Corse and the International MBA

They are adopting a marked entrepreneurial approach to the development of the entire project. The project is by now featuring an organisational chart composed by more than 60 roles and this is quite unique in itself within the International Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) program. The roles involve students belonging to technical, economics, organisational, marketing and communication fields . Their focus, competence and enthusiasm are contagious. INNOVATION is featured within many technical aspects as well as the organisational ones. Racing weekends are scheduled in July in Italy and August in Hungary. Stay tuned…

14/04/2016

Business and diversity… what do we have to still ponder about?…

A recent article on one of the major management magazines struck my attention “How to make a better business case for diversity. Diversity is good for business, but our supportive arguments need to better reflect the complexities of the benefits”

United we stand divided we don't — United we stand divided we don’t

In my opinion we continue ‘to ponder and debate’ over a business case for diversity because we are rooted into the false certainties of our own business realities. If we just embrace complexity and uncertainty (embrace them in order to progress and grow as individuals and – next step – in our business ventures) we realise that diversity is simply an opportunity of competitive advantage to speed-up the entire process. First of all we need to become aware of what diversity really means in its many forms; and this requires a tough skill: listening & observing with empathy…

28/03/2016

New Global Business Models Enabled by Digital Technologies and Fresh Mindset. Introduction to an upcoming debate.

Digital technologies are multiplying the pace of change and the so called progress. Increasingly we talk about market disruptions, business models that have produced margins and sustainability for years now they keep getting replaced by new ones at a faster and faster pace. A key role that technology has within these dynamics is to boost the speed of the entire process influencing directly the way business models (from producer to user) are set. Interestingly within all of this people’s original ideas and visions still represent the essential sparks and foundations of it all: this is why arguably much before technology open visionary mindsets are relevant to progressive changes. We will debate about these topics from several perspectives during a debate held as part to the 2016 edition (the 7th one) of the University of Pisa International MBA.

This is an interesting article just published (March 2016) on McKinsey Quarterly “The essentials of digital strategy” , it points out in a clear way several new possibilities and opportunities shaped up by all of this.

The companies involved in the debate will introduce projects that are underway and that are leveraging upon both fresh mindsets with a global projection and the latest digital technologies enabling it all.

08/03/2016

Flexible working, now the real work for organisations begins

A recent relevant research by the Work Foundation predicted that by 2017 more than half of the employers in the UK will adopt flexible working practices by 2017 .

Richard Branson’s Virgin Group has been an advocate of this practice for years. He has recently pointed-out the research within his blog , underlining also that in some major companies people have shown that they would be happy to give trade part of their salary with more flexible hours (see for example a study within Samsung cited by Branson) .

In many ways Virgin Group cannot be considered a key reference to the trend because of its uniquely rooted culture: since the very beginning it has always featured a flair for aggressive business development and a zest for letting people express their personalities and interests “work hard, play hard” is no-doubt one of the Group’s mantra.

In 2013 some direct statements by Branson made headlines on many newspapers across the globe “Give the people the freedom of where to work” . Now it seems like this is set to become mainstream also within more traditional organisational cultures; the reason for that is that increasingly companies need to focus on actual effective and efficient results and those often do not have many rational links to the routine of ‘showing-up on the job’.

While this concept begins to make headways (if not for an actual focus on work – life balance, because of a pragmatic one on business development) the issue here is about the need for a suitable mindset and training to develop this novel way to work (even if, to many of us, entrepreneurs and professionals alike, this has not been novel at all for decades…) .

In fact, flexible working requires two essential factors: a) people need to become aware of their skills to work with little task supervision yet meet stringent quantitative and qualitative targets (awareness need to focused continuos improvement action); b) companies need to have clear ideas of what needs to be assigned to whom depending on the people level of know-how, talent and what is actually needed to reach a well identified target.

To me both issues can be quite troubling at least at the beginning of this trend. In particular it’s the organisational ‘homework’ that mostly concerns me: today how many organisations (large or small) are not only willing but also ready to organise work concrete targets that individuals (because of their talents and actual know-how) can handle swiftly and effectively working by themselves or in groups? Let’s talk about it…

24/02/2016

The FUN part of entrepreneurship…

Richard Branson, with his story and strong visionary projection towards the future, can be easily perceived as one-off sort of person and entrepreneur. Many of his projects have been and are so outlandish that truly seem an ongoing PR stunt as the ones so many times he was involved directly into. The project Virgin Galactic is one of them, with the actual SpaceShip Two recently present within a big Celebration even ‘Virgin Style’ (see article “Celebrating Unity” ).

Virgin Galactic Spaship Two — Virgin Galactic SpaceShip Two

Yet, we need to realize that among successes and failures (that he openly admits and almost refreshingly seeks) there is one constant factor: truly empowering people (within his companies and outside of them) to aspire, inspire and give the very best while having FUN in the process. Fun is driven by a sense of unity, challenge, meaning and daring; characteristics that represent the essence of the Virgin Galactic project. The same kind of FUN can be built in any entrepreneurial project (relatively small or big) in any organisation. Its benefits will be manyfold as Virgin Group keeps on demonstrating. Are we up to dare enough for the challenge?

11/12/2015

Talent: the daring factor

Recently the international pop artist Mika (www.mikasounds.com) expressed his talent in an markedly unusual way at the Teatro Sociale of Como (Italy) within a full house of 600 people, name of the show: “Sinfonia pop”. A one hour show in which the Lebanese born British by adoption, globetrotter, multilingual pop star, dared to do something he had been wanting to express for a long time: put his pop talent and his winning pop repertoire to challenge by expressing it live thorough the tunes and a full symphonic orchestra.

As he stated, this was a show in which he was not at all the protagonist, he was simply a member of the team guided by the orchestra Maestro. Through the elegant free flowing entertaining show, Mika sheer talent got exponentially expressed and all of this was evidently fuelled by the fun he was having in performing.

Mika dared to take his talent in a territory he has always fond of yet quite far from his roots and the roots of its globally successful production. His real talent has not been the performance in itself rather the daring of to compromise it all within an uncharted territory he had wanted to explore to chase a dream.

Daring to put everything at risk, everything you have conquered and won, daring to try something new counting upon your experience and strengths; throw it all into something quite risky hardly tried before.

How many of us are willing to challenge our talent, our strengths within uncharted, unfamiliar, potentially dangerous territories? Our talent can strengthen and blossom from this or it can boom.

Reality is that talent not challenged within uncharted territories, as done by Mika, might not be (should not be, cannot be) called talent at all.

(this article is also featured in Linkedin)

25/08/2015

Formula-e live from Donington. Ever stronger focus on performance, efficiency and entertainment followed from Mahindra and Mahindra Racing perspective.

I am currently following (from the comfortable media center above the pit lane compared to the breeze that has been blowing outdoors since early morning) the last day of Formula-e preseason testing in Donington while working on interviews and research relevant to the book FAST TRACK INNOVATION #fasttrackbook .

Going well beyond unique technological challenges

Formula-e, since its very inception, has been driven by focus on sustainability, efficiency and innovation from several points of view that go even beyond the all fundamental technological one. The series has become an example of a new way (better say refreshed, back to original roots) to bring new energy to the relationship among fans and a global Motorsport championship.

As a global Motorsport series it is no doubt more reacheble then many other series and it makes easier for fans to interact with world popular drivers (even former F1 world champions as Jacques Villeneuve) among other competitive drivers that perceive racing here as a way to revamp their image or to develop their career. The process is helped by the fact that the series is becoming ever more competitive from a technical and sporting point of view and at the same time is rapidly multiplying its media global following. Besides watching that starting grid grandstand and quite full in a breeze morning is quite revealing.

Performance, efficiency, entertainment

This championship is driven by a marked continuously renewed focus on factors that need to be integrated dynamically while the bar of relevant standards is being pushed higher and higher: efficiency, performance, entertainment.

This is all very attractive for the automotive and Motorsport community alike for several reasons, all of them having to do with the concept of sustainability through innovative synergic integrations of: visions, resources, cross pollination among various technological fields, talents (even race driving is very much redefined here) and know-how relevant to engineering as well as to anything that pertains to communication and media.

Automotive and Motorsport innovation interplay: Mahindra’s case

Mahindra from a corporate point of view is integrating forces with Mahindra Racing on these kind of dynamics with a technological interplay between automotive (Mahindra Reva is one of the very first electric car global projects that now is set in an evolutionary path related to higher performance) and track racing focusing more and more in rising the standards of being dependable, efficient (the Reva project has inspired much of the early and last season work on this) and reaching higher performance within the power cap set by the rules of the series.

On top of this there is the overall key focus on media and communication that Mahindra is generating in relation to projects that at the corporate level aim to define and implement an all new way of looking, creating and experiencing mobility (sustainability, efficiency and practicality are some key stepping stones on this); Mahindra Racing integrates powerfully all of this with a particular focus on developing an higher level of active involvement from fans that at present are for the great majority simply viewers. This goes also to the very roots of an extremely needed and deserved process of Indian Motorsport proper and more widespread development.

All of this will be further developed within the book integrating experiences of automotive and Motorsport projects and activities on a global scale that belong to history, present and future of automotive and Motorsport innovation interplay.

Interviewing Chetan Maini (Reva founder and R&D Head) in Bangalore last January (he is also an active board member and technology reference to Mahindra Racing), Dilbagh Gill (CEO & Team Principal Mahindra Racing) and B.Karthik (VP Corporate Brand Management Mahindra) here in Donington has been a quite unique and inspirational experience that will have a marked influence on the book.

No doubt India should be very proud of the multifaceted and far reaching developments that Mahindra has in place within its visionary path.

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