Asset Management is the effective management of all physical and logical assets of an organisation throughout the Life Cycle of an Asset. The Life Cycle of Assets includes strategic planning through investment management, acquisition, construction, commissioning, operation and maintenance up to decommissioning or replacement thereof.   By applying Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) principles across all areas of the organisation, there is an opportunity to improve utilisation and business performance of assets whilst at the same time providing more leverage to capital and other asset-related operating costs. It will also achieve an improvement of the average Asset Life-Span.  As a result, this approach will improve the organisation’s overall return on assets (ROA).

Extensive Enterprise Asset Administration

Asset management is about providing visibility and traceability to assets and the information associated with assets. Visibility and traceability enables the efficient management of the physical assets and information of these assets, which in turn support service levels both internally between business units as well as externally to customers.

Effective Enterprise Asset Management requires a standardised approach to the management of assets across all areas of the organisation.  This necessitates the adoption of a common framework which will be used as the basis for implementation in all parts of the organisation.  There are a number of frameworks but they all have one thing in common – they are all reference frameworks and require elaboration to produce an operational framework.  This customisation must ensure that geographical, legal and cultural differences are catered for whilst maintaining the integrity of the framework.

Typically a framework would contain the following components:

• Process Model
• Functional Model
• Information Model

The above components are all underpinned by a governance model.

Additional requirements can include:

• Reference Material
• Implementation Guidelines
• Training Material
• Internal Marketing Material

A number of standards exist that provide assistance with the EAM journey such as eTOM and IIM.  As mentioned these provide a good basis for the development of an EAM framework but are not the finished product.  A sound strategy combined with solid architecture (business, process and technical) supported by an appropriate governance framework and communicated through an effective change management process will increase the return on effort on what is by no means an insignificant undertaking.

People

SystemicLogic Asset “Advocates” ensure that all elements and phases of asset lifecycles are comprehensively provided for with appropriate compliance administered thereby improving business performance across the board. Our Asset “Advocates” stand by their methods and procedures and provide dynamic assistance in the task of achieving true Asset Management.

Areas of Implementation

We have assisted global enterprises in modelling the processes required to realise the full benefits of Enterprise Asset Management. True Asset Management does not only encompass physical stock, it includes other elements such as people, software, goodwill, property and copyright among others in which SystemicLogic has vast experience.

IP Packs

The EAM Intellectual Property Pack (one of the IP Packs SystemicLogic offers) will improve the organisation’s overall ROA. It includes frameworks, reference material, guidelines, etc that can be used to begin the Enterprise Asset Management journey and which, when combined with the expertise of the Asset “Advocates” can elevate the management of assets to a higher level.

SystemicLogic has been running the annual innovation study since 2007 and the 2010 study is almost complete. Whilst finalising this year’s feedback we have included a retrospective of the previous years’ studies and looking back over time at the trends reveals some interesting findings.

Back in 2007 the world was a very different place – years of strong growth meant that a very positive sentiment was pervasive throughout the economy. Accordingly, “Products” was the number one reason for rating a bank as innovative and looking a bit deeper would probably reveal investment and loan products to be in demand. However, with the onset of the Great Recession in 2008 “Products” as a reason dropped down temporarily to third place and became less important as people consolidated their accounts in the new environment. “Products” bounced back into second place in 2009 and 2010, probably due to a combination of new products designed to help people through the challenging times and a renewed sense of optimism as people started to believe that the worst was behind them.

With the challenging climate of 2008 the marketing message became more important as people clearly wanted to know how their bank was going to help them. “Marketing” rose to the top spot as banks’ began to communicate with their customers around what they were doing to help. During this period it was important to be seen to be telling everyone what you were doing and the marketing message was far more prominent than the actual products. However, “Marketing” as a reason dropped down into third place in 2009 and 2010 as the tangible outcomes that had been spoken about materialised and people became less concerned with what you said you would be doing and more concerned with what you were actually were doing.

“Good Service” featured highly in 2007, as people demanded the best service in managing their wealth, loan and investment accounts. But “Good Service” dropped from third place in 2007 to fourth place in 2008 as service became less important in the challenging environment. In 2009 and 2010 “Good Service” continued to fall in importance, as people were more concerned with having a bank account than with how it was actually serviced!

The anomaly was “Proactive” in 2009 when “Good Service” dropped out of the running and banks were now seen as innovative if they were proactive in helping their customers. The finger pointing and blaming was over and during this time it was important for banks to be seen as proactive in their solutions, options and internal operations.

The real standout through these turbulent times has been “Technology”. In 2007 “Technology” was the fourth most important reason for rating a bank as innovative. “Products”, “Marketing” and “Good Service” overshadowed it, as people seemed less concerned with interacting with and managing their money. However, when the tough times arrived people became more concerned with what was going on with their financial affairs and the ability to conveniently access and interact with their accounts became important. This trend continued in 2009 and 2010 as people adopted a new behaviour and began to login, view and access their accounts with more and more frequency. This observation has led us to describe the behaviour as “habitual banking”. This is a new phenomenon, where people know that nothing has changed in their accounts yet still access them relentlessly just to see that their money is still there!

SMS Fri, 30 Jul, 2010 13h12

Log 22697: SEVERITY 1. Sever NW1A gone down. DR not implemented. Diagnosis of disk and space commencing. Update in 20 minutes.

SMS Fri, 30 Jul, 2010 13h42

Log 22697.Hard disk failure found on NW1A. Disk to be replaced. Data restore to time of failure to commence. ETC 1.5 hours.

SMS Fri, 30 Jul, 2010 14h30

Hard drive replaced on NW1A. System rebooted. System Memory insufficienct. More memory to be added. Data restore to commence.  ETC 1 hour 15 min.

SMS Fri, 30 Jul, 2010 16h22

Server NW1A recovered and operational. All systems go. Log closed.

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SMS Sat, 31 Jul, 2010 10h14

Log 23706: Severity 1. Sever NW1A gone down. DR not implemented. Diagnosis of disk and space commencing. Update in 20 minutes…….

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More and more we find that Business folk want to be involved and want to be kept abreast of technical incidents that impact on their business. Some Business owners now find themselves on incident distribution lists. This must be commended and is good practice within mature organisations.

Technology practioners need to be aware of this involvement and need to revise how to communicate to include this new audiance. The above is an extract from a typical outage notification communication log. To Technology practioners, these notifications are extremely useful and insightful. To a Business stakeholder, unfortunately, this communication is less then useful. It does not answer important questions such as: Which applications does this server host? Which geographical region does it serve? Which product or service does it impact? Answers to these questions help to determine what action/s a Business stakeholder should take to ensure Business Continuity.

We as Technology Practioners, need to revisit our communication given our audiance. We need to change our language in order  to enable Business to develop a Business Solution during times of outage.

Some pertinent questions are being raised in light of a more open and transparent approach to innovation:

1. Our culture and organisation does not function like this, so how will this work?

2. Our industry does not work like this, where can it be applied?

3. As an innovation leader I have no control over the more federally designed business units, how open can we be?

There is undeniable evidence that we are moving towards a more open world at a consistent pace. We do, as humans, have a problem in telling the future though. Our mental pictures of what is possible are always different to those views of what actually happen. The result is that when we look back things don’t look so well crafted and planned. Look at “Back to the future” – Marty McFly arrived in the future (a few days ago) after hitting 88mph in a DeLorean in 1985. What were you thinking about innovation in 1985? Remember the hovering skateboard?

There are some signs of change, especially those that are socially driven, that normally go unnoticed. This one isn’t; we live in a world where humans demand rights, want to be treated well and feel they have the right to the benefit of their actions. Having just experienced the soccer world cup in South Africa, I once again feel that a movement like “against racism” is driving society to believe (rightfully so) that inequality is wrong and that individuals should be valued.

A colleague just returned from China (Guangzhou an economic powerhouse). He found that after interviewing some prominent business leaders the result was quite clear. “So, why do you want to do open innovation again?” Let’s leave it at that for now…

Many companies are adopting socially progressive HR policies that aren’t inadvertently biased against women. These changes come at a price and despite the BBEEE business advantages, research in Europe and the US suggests that companies with several senior-level women tend to perform better financially. Work at the business schools of Columbia University and the University of Maryland concluded that “at least indicative evidence that greater female representation in senior-management positions leads to – and is not merely a result of – better firm quality and performance.”

Understanding the 2 key drivers that supports successful female leaders is a key to improving gender diversity in any organisation.

1) Work-life balance is a myth – it’s all about energy and time management. At least 60 percent of senior executives work more than 50 hours a week. Additionally, many women come home from work only to clock into the “second shift” to manage their households. Successful female leaders are able to prioritise based on the activities that energises them, both at work and at home. Contributing to something bigger than themselves generates a deeper sense or meaning that helps women take new paths and accept the personal risks implicit in the goals. Woman often just “follow their heart and do the thing they love to do” and companies need to ensure that women’s signature strengths are built into their everyday activities in order to produce more meaningful and energy-efficient work. To this end, organisations could better support female leadership development through increased use of technology and innovation for:

a) The implementation of flexible performance and time management strategies and

b) Creative organisational wellness programmes.

2) Working hard is not enough – this is a people game. Likeability, strategic thinking, networking, being a team player are but a few of the other factors that go into crafting a successful career. Women often keep their noses to the grindstone in a way that is actually detrimental to getting what they want most. It is a known fact that women are twice more likely to become depressed than men; leading women to feel helpless and get stuck in a downward spiral. Research suggests that the central organising feature of a woman’s development and sense of self is her connection to others. Women with strong networks, trusted colleagues, good mentors / coaches tend to restore both their energy and their self-confidence much faster. This results in them enjoying more promotions, higher pay and greater career satisfaction. Organisations should actively explore and promote:

a) Increased collaboration and

b) Social networking between women and their emotional support structures (colleagues, mentors and coaches) as a strategy to increase gender diversity.

None of these programmes and strategies comes without cost, whether the time needed to implement change or real monetary expenditures. Yet companies reap tangible benefits, such as retaining and promoting more women, through implementing gender diversity strategies and embracing suitable technologies. Additional benefits which include, a larger talent pool and stronger financial performance – also suggest that making gender diversity a significant goal is well worth the investment.

Our Open Innovation Orientation Model was developed together with a number of services and industrial organisations. These include banks, insurance organisations, manufacturers, distributors and professional services firms. I do like this definition of open innovation: “open innovation is very much about bridging internal and external resources to make innovation happen” (Reference: Stefan Lindegaard). We have found that companies develop a “style” of operation over time that favours one approach over another namely:

1. Organisational Orientation (inside-out) – using the capabilities and key strengths of the business to figure out what to make next and sell to customers (or “clients” as for professional firms).
2. Customer Orientation (outside-in) – using customers to shape what needs to be focused on next and then shaping some key delivery capability to achieve the stated intent.

Organisational orientation is when a business relies on its analytical capabilities to drive new innovation campaigns. Furthermore it focuses on obtaining information from customers through deliberate actions and crafted surveys and research activities.

Customer orientation is determined based on the primary actions of “listening to customers” and then to include the customer as a co-producer of value creation. The act of listening has limited value as we can not really learn a lot from absorbing information from our customers only. We need to immerse ourselves in co-produced activity where the inventor lives with the recipient; understanding the way in which the invention will be used and value derived. The act of immersion will prepare you to drive innovation that focuses on “surprise”. As humans we want to be surprised with great products and services, we don’t want to be asked all the time.

The Open Innovation Orientation Model is used to shape your involvement in a portfolio of activities to drive innovation activity. All actions are driven towards creating an innovation ecology where an organisation can benefit from both the ability to engage the customer meaningfully and the ability to externalise some of the key capabilities to co-produce innovative outcomes.

“Apple never holds focus groups. It doesn’t ask people what they want; it tells them what they’re going to want next.” wrote Stephen Fry in Time Magazine. If Apple can re-invent itself from the inside-out, what does it mean for Open Innovation? What does “open” really mean?

Consumers continue to cite cost savings as a key driver for adopting open source software, particularly given the current economy – but what else is driving open source? 451 Group conducted a market analysis survey focused on innovation in enterprise IT and a number of findings and implications are revealed. Economic conditions and the need to save money are driving increased interest in open source software, at least among those that have already adopted open source to some extent. Lowering cost is still the top reason organisations choose open source software, but flexibility is now cited as the biggest post-adoption benefit.

But cost savings aren’t the only reason why enterprises are opting for an open-source approach. The decision to go with open source delivers a wide variety of benefits: Earlier access to technology – Open source products are available without barriers and provide access to source code, enabling developers in enterprises to bring in open-source solutions to meet business requirements at minimal cost. Because the software can be downloaded and used immediately and without obligation, organisations can often prototype or even build working systems in the time it normally would take to write an RFP and negotiate a proprietary license. Speed to innovation – By utilizing open source’s momentum, technology can evolve rapidly. Open source makes it easy to combine projects, enabling developers to deliver robust products and services that much faster, as it represents an express lane to sharing and spreading technological expertise that can function as a base and amplifier for further studies and development. Open source enables developers to innovate around the work of others, which shortens development cycles. Easy of deployment – Unlike proprietary (closed source) software, which often supports hundreds of rarely used features, open-source software generally provides only the essential capabilities, which makes deployment and eventually support, much easier. Most mature open-source software now comes with easy-to-use installation software, graphical management tools and online help. Freedom from platform lock-in – Open-source software is typically available on dozens of platforms, so enterprises can choose the most economical combination of hardware and software for their needs. Open source also helps ensure that all those participating in the community develop from the same base technology. Developers have ready access to source code and to critical data, giving them a high degree of flexibility and preventing lock-in to a single company or platform.

When considering the support of open source software, there are often more options than with proprietary software, although they are not always as mature as proprietary software support options. Support for proprietary software is generally provided by a single vendor and as the sole provider, the vendor sets the pricing. With open source, the opportunities for support depend, to a large extent, on the relative popularity of specific open source software. The more popular software typically has a greater range of support options available from a number of sources.

“Nostradamical.com is dead. But we predicted our own demise successfully” (as posted on their website). This organisation was a prediction market, blog and game focusing was on getting social communities to share information about the future. They were working on a prediction engine using data from the community to intelligently make predictions. Would you be able to predict your demise?

I found this particularly interesting as most of our clients would benefit from this approach when collecting complaints, recommendations, ideas, compliments, etc from their clients, staff, etc. We are entering an era where the classical MIS (Management Information System) approach is just not going to cut it. Real-time information is needed as crowds share ideas, change behaviours and shift markets. Integrating financial information from your bank, with tax information from the local authority, vehicle information from your car, mobile behaviour from your cellphone, E-mail information from your E-mail provider, social information from your Facebook and Linkedin accounts… And, once integrated, you should be able to have recommendations made as to when to phone, where to drive, and what to do next for optimal performance. Is this taking it too far?

Here is another example of something more practical…
We are embarking on a rethink of our brand, something that happens periodically. LogoTournament is a crowdsource based community where designers from all over the world can design logos for companies. It will cost you anything from about $250 to $5000 depending on the level of response required. So, why would you do this? The old way was to give your favourite agency a detailed brief, let them come up with something and then you select an item. Every time you want to change something it costs you money.

To crowdsource your design, you need to provide the same kind of brief and in some cases more detail. You set the price tag and off you go. Designers from all over the world then submit their designs in pursuit of the relatively small fee for the design. Ranking systems are used to determine the kind of designs you like and do not like. All of this happens interactively with a design community obsessed with making a name for themselves.

The first challenge is retro fitting an Enterprise Architecture to an ever changing environment, this is like the proverbial wheel change on a moving truck. Even in countries where suppliers have to have a registered architecture to be able to do business with government agencies, these so called architectures have become nothing but a very inaccurate ticket to the game. There are many methods that have been tried and some have even had marginal success. The development of a framework with a mile wide, inch deep approach or ridiculous levels of detail which is never completed and almost impossible to keep up to date are largely dependant on specific circumstances. In fact, every project that is undertaken has an impact on the Enterprise Architecture and as such, should have a section which details changes that should be made to the EA.

In a perfect world, measurement and architecture should guide projects with projects impacting architecture, thus completing the circle. The main problem with this is that most architecture initiatives are treated as projects rather than a vital process in the management of change and all the complexities that change introduces.

Banks are rated as “innovative” primarily because of their products and technology. As illustrated in the table below, Products, Technology and Marketing are clear innovation leaders. “Customer Service”, the cornerstone of every Bank’s philosophy, strategy and Annual Report, is a very distant contributor with a lowly 4% of the responses.

This is in sharp contrast to the “Hated Banks” where the outright number one reason for hating a bank is for their customer service. A rather vague “Negative Perception” follows closely, which will be difficult to change due to the connotation attached to it.

The items you would expect a bank to be hated for – Fees and Processes- are very distant contributors with 5% and 2% respectively. The message is clear – banks are loved for their products and technology and hated for their customer service.

The tough lesson that can be drawn from these initial insights is to please get your people out of the way and let me interact with you how I want, when I want and through what ever channel I prefer.