Addressing the Achilles heel of electric vehicles

Interesting article in Forbes recently that focused on the crucial problem of batteries. The high price and negative aspects of current batteries have so far been a barrier to wider adoption of elective vehicles (EV).

News that Tesla is investing heavily to find alternatives to the use of cobalt in their next generation batteries could be the biggest advancement by Tesla since its launch in 2003.

If Tesla could reduce the cost of batteries (currently accounting for roughly 30% of the vehicle production cost to 10%) then the gap between EV’s and their incumbent fossil-fuel based competitors closes dramatically.

Finding an alternative to cobalt has environmental benefits too. The existing mining of this key component prevents EV’s from being quite as clean as many advocates would like to think. What’s more these new batteries have the potential to be more efficient. More miles per charge make these even more appealing - at both the practical and ecological levels.

A cheaper, cleaner and more efficient battery technology may not attract the same headlines as many of Elon Musk’s projects, but this has the potential to be a real and accessible game changer for transportation.

Click here to read the original article

Moving ahead in an uncharted world

Remember what your day to day life was like and what your business objectives were but a short time ago? In what seems to be both a blink of an eye and an era ago, our world has been fundamentally altered. And that change is not over yet.

We are in the midst of a global pandemic from a virus that didn’t exist a few months ago while protesting the racial inequalities millions have experienced for generations. Our personal and business lives have been upended by something both new and old to a degree few could have predicted when we cheered in the New Year.

At the start of lockdown there was an abundance of concern, doubt and anxiety about the uncertainties of it all. Other emotions such as frustration, fear and anger developed as the reality of the pandemic impacts became clear and social and racial divides were exposed.

However, from a business perspective the reactive, alarmed and fixated state of mind we instinctively leap to when confronted with dramatic change is not the state of mind that will help you develop the constructive means to overcome that change in the long term. With the initial “shockdown” subsiding in many parts of the world, now is the time to actively shift toward a mindset of revival and growth.

This is obviously easier said than done, but in a world where a simple step of keeping two metres apart can make a significant difference, those businesses that are prepared to take comparable small steps will be the ones most likely to remain healthy.

At BetterNormal, the three impactful steps we recommend are: Regroup, Reframe and Reboot.

Regroup

Before getting back to business in earnest once more make sure you and your team are prepared mentally and emotionally to do so successfully. While the pressure may be to generate revenue again, remember that it’s not possible or meaningful without people, so start there. And remember you are a person too!

Acknowledge and share the change and the upheaval you have collectively experienced over the past couple of months and identify those actions, tools and approaches that have actually improved the way you work.

Consider your partners and customers too. This pandemic is global and is ongoing. Everybody you rely on to make your business successful will have been impacted in some way. Don’t assume they are all ready and waiting to make your business a success again the way they once did. Reconnect with them and find out how they are and what their needs, concerns and ambitions are now.

Reframe

Next, take a moment to clarify why you have a business in the first place. In short, be clear what your personal and your business purpose is.

 Before COVID-19 forced us to slow down, many of us were so busy being busy that we may have drifted away from what the business had originally set out to do. Most organisations had become engrossed in hitting annual targets, and numbers became the sole measure of success. Vision and Purpose statements were communicated, but few were truly and honestly used as the means against which progress was tracked.

Obviously, business finances need to be considered, but now is a perfect time to reflect on your purpose and to note how you frame what accomplishment and happiness looks and feels like. Aim for that, not a fabricated profit number that only really makes a very small percentage of business stakeholders happy. What’s more, in doing so, you will likely have a better chance in hitting that number too.

With a clear purpose defined, reframe your personal and business objectives, the actions that will help you achieve them and the metrics you will use to deliver your true purpose.

Reboot

It takes commitment and courage to overcome disruption but defining what is important to you, building on your strengths and honestly recognising your challenges will dramatically increase your chances of success. However, thinking and planning will not get you there without action.

This of course is probably the hardest step to take. Start small if needs be, but start. Set bite-sized milestones and move towards them, tracking progress at short and regular intervals and adjusting accordingly. Basically, adopt an agile approach to growth.

The change may be great, taking you in a completely new direction or small, with only minor adaptations to how you used to operate. Either way, the key is to acknowledge you are venturing into unfamiliar territory. Missteps will be made, detours are likely and temporarily getting lost is to be expected. While it may not be easy, it is vital to remember that sticking to your old path is far riskier than attempting to forge a new one.

If you would like to learn more about how we can help you leverage and manage change in a positive way, please get in touch. 

Lessons from past recessions

“In turbulent times, it’s tough for companies to know where to place their bets for both the immediate term and the long run.”

I recently came across this Harvard Business Review article from March 2010. While it may be a decade old, it still holds some interesting insights into the attributes and approaches of those businesses that weathered previous recessions successfully.

Through their year-long study of 4,700 companies, the authors found that businesses fell into four types:

• Prevention-focused companies: those looking to reduce costs and risks

• Promotion-focused companies: those who doubled-down on their existing projects

• Pragmatic companies: those who cut costs in some areas and invested heavily in others

• Progressive companies: those who invested in current efficiencies and future innovation

The figures paint a pretty stark reality of what happened to these businesses during and after the recessions in the 1980’s, 1990’s and 2000.

80% did not recover to their pre-recession level 3 years after the recession ended.

9% flourished, outperforming their competition by more than 10% in sales and profit.

“One combination has the greatest likelihood of producing post-recession winners: the one pursued by progressive enterprises.”

The article includes some compelling examples of companies that adopted different strategies to manage the recessions they faced, ranging from Sony to Microsoft and Target to Walmart. The data makes a strong case for which strategies worked best.

“Progressive companies stay closely connected to customer needs—a powerful filter through which to make investment decisions.”

Click here to read the original article

Fried eggs and bacon with your innovation?

A lot has been written and presented regarding the tools and processes required to launch and manage innovation programs. Much has also been said about the importance of an organisation’s culture in order to embrace innovation. However, there seems to be far less mention around the importance of a shared understanding of what innovation actually is and what the people within the organisation expect from it.

The trouble is that “innovation” has become a buzzword. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard the line: “companies must innovate or risk becoming obsolete”. Yet despite this, very few companies seem to truly embrace that statement and fully embed it into their company strategy. The root cause seems to be that very few people in an organisation share the same understanding of what innovation means for the business, let alone how to ensure it becomes integral to the company’s strategy and tactics.

Innovation is a bit like climate change. For many people, it’s something that will only really matter years from now, though they will acknowledge its impact today when it makes headlines. They believe someone else is taking care of matters so do little in their own daily routines to affect any change themselves. And of course, there are those who believe the whole thing is mumbo-jumbo, attributing any negative conditions to other factors. These people tend to actively reinforce and champion the very behaviours and actions that may have likely contributed to the current situation in the first place.

Like climate change, innovation is complicated. Yet, it can easily be dumbed-down and neatly packaged with terminology or jargon that becomes popular and often repeated (though at times incorrectly). The truth is that the components of climate change and innovation can be familiar yet complex in their own rights, which further adds to the misconceptions and confusion around how to best actively support these crucial themes shaping our future. 

For innovation, components such as “design”, “prototype”, “user experience”, “iteration”, “concept” or “value” all sound familiar and are common in most businesses, yet for the most part, these also have different meanings across an organisation. For example, value is not just financial. A marketing concept is very different to a design concept. Iteration doesn’t only mean a new draft. User experience exists outside of digital realms and design is also a process, not just an end result. Even the word “product” no longer means a physical object in some circles!

To illustrate this point, let me take the simple word “breakfast”. Everyone understands what it means and all can agree on when this meal typically occurs in our daily routine. However, if a hypothetical cafe owner in Calais, France, were to prepare breakfast for a customer from Dover, England, despite only being 31 miles apart, there would likely be some disagreement about what that breakfast would consist of. A Full English is definitely not the same as a fresh croissant no matter which criteria is used to rate them: ingredients involved, preparation time, calorie count, variety of tastes, texture, size of plate required or even the choice of accompanying beverage. 

The same is true for “innovation” - or any of the multiple disciplines and methods used in accomplishing it. In order to achieve and leverage innovation, it is essential to begin with a shared definition of “innovation” by all those involved in creating it, supporting it, producing it or selling it. Our definition of innovation is “innovation drives sustainable business growth by delivering new and measurably better solutions to problems that are worth solving”. One of the key aspects of this definition is the fact that solutions are delivered, not just identified. Without the wider business behind the delivery of innovation, it is likely that innovative ideas will fail to progress and never develop into profitable and marketable solutions for and by the whole company.

However, understanding requires more than simply writing and posting a definition. Much like a mission statement, the company’s innovation definition needs to be genuine and supported by everyone involved for it to be meaningful. This requires a shared understanding of what innovation is, why it’s important, what it will take to achieve, what to expect if it is successful and what happens if it is not. Once this is in place, only then does it makes sense to adopt the various processes, tools and methodologies successful businesses use to grow.

There are a number of approaches organisations can take to reach this alignment and every business will need to find the one that best suits their structure, market and vision. As such, there is no one-size fits all package, but any investment in time and effort towards defining what innovation actually means for the company will pay impressive dividends once it begins its journey of fighting obsolescence through innovation.

To help organisations find the right approach for them, we work closely with the individuals and teams to understand their current priorities, pressures, objectives and hurdles. While gaining insights into their normal working environment, we review the perceived differences between something new and something innovative at every level in order to create a company-wide creative culture audit. In our experience, assessing the conditions within which an innovation program needs to exist, let alone thrive, is essential before planning any next steps. Without this critical alignment at the start, you may find yourself frying up bacon and eggs with all the trimmings when all that was needed was a fresh pastry and an espresso.