I’m a bit uncomfortable with the destruction part of the Schumpeter term “creative destruction”. Many economic thinkers believe it is a required process and that progress cannot be made without destroying what existed before. It’s an idea that found a ready marketplace of minds amid 20th century experiences of world wars, flattened cities, culled generations and terrible times. Today, some would actively bring it on more frequently – seeing periodic destruction as good for economic progress; the same thinkers believe in unfettered “greed is good”. I’d prefer to see societies evolve to find a more thoughtful, agreed and gradual disassembly and rebuilding process, than random destruction. But for now it seems, that makes me a naive dreamer.
Last week I visited Ireland and if you want to see an example of creative destruction at work this is it. A banking crisis, a construction industry crisis, massive government debts, EU bailout assistance with harsh austerity conditions attached, deep recession, unemployment and (as my taxi driver sadly confirmed) the cream of its talented youth emigrating. And yet I saw evidence of real progress in discussions I had.
We organised a Gartner breakfast briefing for CEOs and COOs – at which I went through some of Gartner’s findings from our most recent international CEO survey and perspectives on the emergence of digital business strategy. Through that day and the next I then met with a number of CIOs to discuss what they were working on. I came away impressed that, with the worst behind them – Ireland’s business leaders are now working to build a stronger, digitally enabled economy.
I met a strategy leader who is considering how to advance the operating model of his hi-tech firm as new opportunities like data science and the internet of things emerge. I met a CIO who is working to significantly strengthen his company’s multi-channel capability. I met one company that recently appointed a “chief data officer” and another that is likely to do so in the near future. And in all the conversations I saw a new level of engagement and commitment towards information and technology related innovation inside businesses.
In a subsequent interaction, the CEO of Allied Irish Bank gave us a quote that really nails the change of emphasis and the leadership direction taking hold among some business thinkers in Dublin. In leading change within his bank David J. Duffy says:
“We must position ourselves in the future on the retail side as a payments and cash management technology utility and we must think of ourselves as a technology franchise that is delivering a banking service rather than the other way around.”
This is radical thought indeed. The centrality of technology based capability in non-tech firms is starting to be recognized in a way we have never heard or seen before.
Perhaps it takes a crisis to remake a strategy.