Salute the past while looking to the future

In the new global environment that we currently experience, old styles of organization and management no longer work. We have to find alternatives. But how is this to be achieved? As a society, we are inclined to the idea of finding ways to permanently fix and control things around us.{{more}} Getting organised has meant finding that structure or solution for situations that are going to last. In more stable times, this process has worked; but in times of rapid change, organisations that continue to function in this way have tended to run into trouble, because of a reluctance or inability to adjust to the new challenges being faced. That’s why fresh ways of thinking about contemporary problems are so necessary. The challenge now is to imagine, that is to infuse the process of organising with a spirit of imagination that takes us beyond bureaucratic boxes. We need to find alternative ways of organising, using new images and ideas. Imagination is a key managerial skill, providing a way of helping people understand and develop their creative potential and of finding innovative solutions to difficult problems. It also provides a manner of empowering people to trust themselves and to find new roles in a world characterised by constant change.

In the new industrial order of this first decade of the 21st Century, things have been changing rapidly. It is often the case of the insurgent versus the incumbent. Not so long ago, Nike learnt the painful lesson about the attention span of 14-year-olds. They were no longer badgering their parents to lay out large sums of money for a pair of Air Jordans. To them Michael Jordan was just an old guy leading a second rate basketball team. Their sneakers of choice had moved to another brand. We should no longer be captives of history, whatever we can imagine, we should seek to accomplish. To fully realise the promise of our new age, each of us must become a dreamer as well as a doer. The business persons must be constantly aware that somewhere out there is a competitor, may be yet unknown, who will seek to make your strategy obsolete. You would need to be alert in order to out innovate the innovators. It was Bill Gates who said years ago that Microsoft is always just two years away from failure. Gates always understood the competitive reality of this new age. He knows that it is not only product life cycles that are shrinking, strategy life cycles are getting shorter too. Any business concept, no matter how brilliant, could rapidly lose its economic efficiency.

The difference between a leader and a laggard is no longer measured in decades, but in years and sometimes months. Today’s company must be capable of reinventing its strategy continuously, year after year.

In reality, the world is increasingly being divided into two kinds of organisations; those that can get no further than continuous improvement and those who have made the jump to radical innovation. We may ask ourselves, why was Internet Banking inevitable? It is simply because the estimated cost of an Internet Banking transaction was less than 10 percent of the cost of a branch-bank, teller assisted transaction. Whenever you look at such a cost structure of a product or service, it is easy to see why the slow movers could be left yards behind in the efficiency race.

In 1968, three years after independence, Singapore announced that within ten years the country wanted to be the Financial Centre of South East Asia. At that time the financial world opened first in Zurich, followed by banks in Frankfurt then London. Before London closed, New York was already open to receive transactions. Traffic finally moved from New York to San Francisco. When that city closed there was a gap until Zurich opened next morning. This was the gap that Singapore eventually filled to create for the first time, round-the-world service in money and banking. Singapore of course had to convince the world that it had the capability of supervising the banking system. The history of that country’s financial centre is the story of how to build up credibility and to develop a cadre of persons with the knowledge and skill to regulate and supervise banks, securities houses and other financial institutions, so that the risk of systemic failure is minimised. Singapore succeeded and demonstrated its firm grip on these matters when it denied a licence to Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) when other mature jurisdictions welcomed that institution with open arms, only to be embarrassed following its subsequent failure.

St Vincent and the Grenadines may not have such noble aspirations of becoming the financial centre for the Eastern Caribbean; why not? Because as a society we tell ourselves we lack the imagination, ambition and drive to succeed. But I want to challenge you that there are other opportunities which lie within our grasp and for which we should be taking advantage. We are now part of the Open Campus of the University of the West Indies. This could be regarded as the OECS Campus with the potential for territorial areas of specialisation. Have we yet imagined what should be SVG’s areas of specialisation and work towards making them a reality and become centres of excellence? St Kitts and Nevis because of the location of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank and affiliate institutions may be seen as the logical centre for the study of Finance, Money and Banking. Similarly, Grenada may develop as the specialists in Medicine. Some food for thought.