At Simon Associates Management Consultants (SAMC), we help organizations innovate and change. And as Blue Ocean Strategists®, it is critical that we understand where the world is today and where it is trending for tomorrow. We know that the rate of change is accelerating year after year. Coupled with this is the wrinkle of COVID-19 and how we deal with this pandemic.

But for me, personally, I don’t want to talk about the big mega trends. I want to talk about my world. How I am affected by this crisis. What I see as trends from my corner. Perhaps you have adapted or adopted some of these new trends for yourself. Take a look and perhaps comment or give me something from your perspective.

As we work with clients or conduct workshops, we are finding a recurring frustration: CEOs who believe they sell "value" are losing bids over pricing issues. They are realizing that being a "value-add" solutions provider is not as valued as it used to be. And they're having to admit that if they can be easily replaced by another company's solutions at a lower price, what have they actually created? Something ephemeral? Not really of such great "value"? 

What is value anyway? And is your company's value at risk as business changes what it values? 

Last week I picked up the MIT Sloan Management Review Fall 2016 issue while waiting for dinner. I turned to the last page and read an article by Teppo Felin entitled: “When Strategy Walks Out the Door.” What was really important was the need to include employees in both strategy and execution.

Teppo Felin is a professor of strategy at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, UK. His article cites examples of employees who were disenfranchised at their place of employment and then went on to build successful companies out of rejected ideas.

Outsiders vs. Insiders

The thesis of Felin’s article is that senior management at companies often hire outsiders to develop strategies rather than turning to the insiders—the people who might really understand the company and the markets in order to develop effective strategy.

At Simon Associates Management Associates (SAMC), we fully support Mr. Felin’s position. As a matter of fact, we are often hired to help companies find new markets or develop new strategies. However, we are very careful NOT to take the lead but rather, to act as the facilitator in developing strategies. I think this is a very important differentiation, illustrating how we view our work with clients. We always tell management, “Do not outsource your eyes!”