How to Assess Blockchain Value for Your Organization

Curious whether blockchain technology is a good fit for your organization? Drew Miller has created a briefing that will:

  1. Show how BC technology can be used to safely share information and help integrate business partners
  2. Understand how to evaluate feasibility, net benefit, ROI of blockchain applications for your organization
  3. Explain use of multi-criteria decision analysis for blockchain assessment and decision-making

Read the full briefing here.

5 Reasons why Business Wargaming Should be Part of Your Strategic Decision-making

Have you ever wanted to simulate what might happen if your business made a strategic move such as introducing a new product, entering a new market or acquiring a competitor?  Business wargaming is a no-risk and insightful way to test what might happen if you did.

Wargaming has been utilized in the military for decades and is a proven technique for considering strategic initiatives and the likely reactions of rivals.  “Applying the same techniques to the business ‘battlefield’ is an extremely effective way for companies to simulate the results of strategic moves over an extended time horizon”, says Dr. Drew Miller, former DoD and business strategist and business wargaming veteran.

So, why should you consider making business wargaming a part of your company’s strategic decision making?  Here are 5 reasons:

  1. Unexpected results – in many cases, the results one would have expected prior to the wargame are not those that materialize (or don’t turn out to be the most valuable). “One of our clients ended up launching an entirely new, very profitable business as a result of the wargaming exercise.  They had no plans to do so going in to the exercise”, says Miller.
  2. Proven effectiveness – on the battlefield and in the boardroom, wargaming produces proven results, such as uncovering strategic insights, anticipating competitive responses and improving strategic thinking.
  3. Immediate and future benefits – companies that have gone through wargames report that they benefit both from immediate strategic ideas and “future experience” that they can utilize later to more quickly recognize threats and opportunities as they arise.
  4. Time efficiency – wargaming enables a company to test in a matter of days strategic initiatives and hypotheses that will play-out over many years.
  5. Leadership development – those involved in the exercise operate under “real world” conditions and executives can observe how they handle the various scenarios and situations that arise.

“A key advantage of business wargaming is that it can be scoped as broadly or narrowly as you wish”, notes Dr. Byron Winn.  “You can simply test a single new product or feature introduction or a series of strategic moves and countermoves over a decade”.  Whatever the scope you choose, business wargaming can be a valuable element in determining your company’s business strategy.

John Murphy is a Principal with eos consulting, a management consulting firm that provides business wargaming within its strategy consulting practice.

Metals Additive Manufacturing: Great Promise in Mitigating Shortages but Some Risks Remain

Dr. Miller co-wrote an article for Defense AT&L magazine about metals additive manufacturing. An exerpt: Additive manufacturing (AM) is revolutionizing the way parts are designed and manufactured, shrinking development and delivery cycle times, and yielding improved performance at a lower cost per part.  Shapes previously not possible and that have tailored properties and material compositions, can be produced on demand for specific military devices and platforms. But while AM can help deal with Diminishing Manufacturing Sources and Material Shortages (DMSMS) problems, many experts interviewed for a recent report on research and development (R&D) advances impacting DMSMS warned that “AM is highly overrated.”

Read the full article here:

Blockchain’s underappreciated, greatest application is Integration: IT Systems and Business Partner Integration

While most know about blockchain as the foundation of cryptocurrencies, even blockchain enthusiasts seem to be overlooking perhaps the most important capability of blockchain: an ideal systems integrator. Blockchain (BC) can be used to connect together siloed databases across multiple organizations and business processes, exploiting the IOT and Smart Contract billing and administrative cost reduction advantages while protecting confidentiality. Just as important is Blockchain’s security and reliability which make it a much safer and more feasible means to connect a wide variety and large number of business partners together. BC as a secure distributed ledger is a key feature we all know of, but it is the specific capability of BC technology to allow integration and limited/trusted/secure sharing of data across not just multiple IT systems and companies but even competing parties and government regulators that really yields significant advantage for business applications. The power of BC as an integrator is rarely mentioned, but probably the most valuable application of this technology.

Read full article …

Strategy and The Fat Smoker

Harvard Business School professor David Maister wrote Strategy and The Fat Smoker, one of the best books on strategic planning, arguing that “Much of what individuals and firms do in the name of strategic planning is a complete waste of time and about as effective as making New Year’s resolutions.” Maister argues that the biggest failure of strategic plans is that associates in the company don’t take them seriously, don’t undertake the work and changes necessary to implement them.  “The fat smoker problem is that—left to our own devices—few of us find the determination and discipline to do the things that will get us to the goals we have set for ourselves.”

Maister insists that the primary goal of strategic planning must be “superior resolve to accomplish something.”  Having run the strategic planning process at ConAgra Inc, and helped dozens of companies do strategic planning, I heartily agree.  So how do you get more buy in and resolve to implement a strategic plan?

A great way to get resolve and commitment to strategic and new product development plans is business strategy wargames.  The most cited advantage from wargaming is uncovering strategic insights, new ideas for opportunities to pursue, and mistakes to avoid, that participants often had no idea of prior to the wargame.  But the biggest advantage may be building resolve to implement the plans that emerge from the strategy wargame.  Wargames empower managers in your organization with different views and concerns about your plans to offer new ideas in a forum where challenges to current thinking is welcome. Unlike a planning meetings, wargames are also fun.  People get into it with an intensity unimaginable in traditional planning sessions.  Business strategy wargames are a great teambuilding exercise, but most important—the ideal way to develop plans that your team is psyched to pursue.

Wargames also are a solution to another problem with strategic plans that Maister addressed:  “Perhaps the single biggest difficulty in getting an organization’s members to stick to the diet is convincing them that top management really wants them to.”  People know that most strategic plans are filed on the shelve once approved and forgotten.  This was not the result after an intense wargame at ConAgra:  at the end of the business wargame, CEO Phil Fletcher announced immediate actions we would take to implement several of the must-do ideas that emerged from the wargame.  In the CEO’s letter in the next annual report, a major portion of the letter was devoted to the wargame results.  Several major corporate initiatives were implemented based on wargame findings. The resolve the management team felt from the invigorating wargame process, developing ideas in an intense wargame cauldron they participated in, and the CEO’s clear commitment to implementing the plans that emerged, ensured they succeeded.

Maister is right.  “The necessary outcome of strategic planning is not analytical insight but resolve.”  Wargames are the best way to explore the possible impact of changing industry conditions, and test business development and strategic plans under realistic conditions—but their major value may be generating the excitement, buy in, and determination to truly implement the recommendations that emerge.

A business wargame is a strategic exercise simulating several years of competition. Company staff split into teams representing competing companies, then develop and simulate implementation of strategies–with competitors, customers, and the market reacting to and sometimes fighting these initiatives.  This yields far more intense, innovative, and realistic insights.  Business strategy wargames are the best way to develop, stress test, and improve new product development and strategic plan ideas, as well as experiment with different approaches to deal with coming technology, marketplace, regulatory, or other changes.

We held a business strategy wargame in January on international trade disruptions from possible Trump Administration trade wars, and produced some videos that explain and illustrate how wargames work. You can get an idea of the intensity and involvement of a wargame versus a series of traditonal planning meetings by watching this brief overview of how business wargames operate.

If you’re interested in more information please contact Dr. Drew Miller at [email protected].