Staying ahead
My understanding of the TomorrowToday value proposition to our clients is that we actively and purposefully monitor the shifts that take place in society that will have an impact on the way business is run. In doing so, we then advise and educate clients on how best to confront and deal with these changes to generate competitive value propositions of their own.
We have seen of late that changes in economies and the values associated with those economies turnover at a yearly rate like none of the predecessors. So, for the last 5 years of so we have been spreading the “message” of the oncoming connection economy, that we cannot continue to work the way we have, that the way we relate to people in organisations has to change profoundly. This is a message true of any economical shift of years gone by. But our message is drilled down further in terms of how companies need to connect better with employees, customers and suppliers.
As a “lightie” in the network I have a conern. I’ve begun to see how the message we’re spreading is having a greater “uptake”. This has not been predominanlty in the changes seen in our clients operations, but more in the value propositions of competitor HR and People Development consultancies. Today I picked up a free HR editorial. By and large, with some different language, they are touting our message.
So, my question: how do we adequately know we are “seeing” what is to come?
Is our value proposition dependent on the uniqueness of our message, that we see shifts that others don’t? Or is it our “nirvana” that our message becomes widespread enough so that HR consultancies that rely on “good personnel management techniques” begin to say the same things as us? Have we become complacent in the relevance of our proposition? If and when do we start to look out for shifts that are “yet yet” to come?
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Aiden,
These are great questions – the type of questions needed to keep us on our toes.
My gut answer is that one of the key understandings we have at the moment is the concept of the Connection Economy. Whilst many of our competitors are saying some of what we are saying (i.e. they’re seeing the same symptoms, and offering similar cures), I am not convinced that many of them are doing so from a solid conceptual base. What we are developing as an offering does share some commonality with other consultancies out there. In fact, we’re learning from them at some levels – most of them have prepackaged programmes that are easy for clients to buy.
We’ve traditionally been very difficult for clients to buy. We shy away from generic offerings, we don’t package our frameworks in easily digestible units and we tend to focus on conceptual understanding rather than 1-2-3 “follow these steps” type interventions.
In 2006, our focus is on trying to get the best of both worlds. We’re as committed as ever to “seeing the patterns in the data” (especially in future trends), but also want to make this easy for our clients to buy. This means packaging it in clever ways – ways that don’t compromise the message.
That’s what makes doing this a group really exciting. It frees some of our team up to spend time “looking out the window”, reading, tracking the trends, looking for the patterns.
The reality is that as the company grows, we need to invest in this level of capability as well as the ability to deliver the content to our clients.
Its a tricky balancing act. But I am convinced that our global team of gurus is capable of doing it.
Yup, great question Aiden, ranked with the likes of: “What if we’re wrong?�
Though we do have people in the group continuously looking out the window, my concern about only focussing on the “yet yet to come� is that it puts us “way ahead of our time� – a great accolade in years to come, as the business world looks back and reflects on this company that predicted these happenings long before they happened … but didn’t buy into them because they were too … ahead of their time.
As Graeme rightly said, ours is a balancing act between predictive theory and practical application – it would be a real gas to run ahead with the predictive stuff, but it’s the practical stuff that companies pay for.
I don’t want TT.biz to be a fond memory, but a company that stays just within sights, always north of the cutting edge of change.
Both!
We’re not the only one’s seeing things, and we are the only one’s seeing things. Our message doesn’t dominate, but certainly we’d like our voice to be a powerful addition to what is emerging.
I’d like to think that what we’re saying has some safety at times, but mostly on the edge playing in a space that’s not easy to play in. Certainly I don’t want to get to the end and discover I didn’t push it as far as it could’ve been pushed.
Will we become irrelevant? Yes. Will we remain on the cutting edge? You’re darn right.
The magic sits in the tension we create, between the extremes. When the TomorrowGroup has not tension from the extremes it tries to hold, then it’ll be time to close shop. Not before then.