Ingredients for a new recipe to satisfy SME’s & Professions

29% of SME bosses admit to keeping inadequate checks on their company finances due to competing pressures on their time but the picture is likely to be worse than this, with detailed balance sheets and profit and loss forecasts only being reviewed every 18 weeks, on average.  In addition, managers are failing to perform basic due diligence on customers and suppliers; 65% don’t credit check new customers, whilst 76% don’t check existing customers requesting to extend their credit terms.  30% have no formal contract at all with their business customers.

via SME’s Ignore Business Basics At Their Peril | SME Business News.

This is an alarming but not entirely surprising piece. We all know that SME leaders, by definition, are a determined (often proud) bunch whose core skills have led them to pursue their own path. Great. BUT, what this article highlights is that SME’s need help and not the type that is more about the satisfying the demands of greedy [leveraged] growth models, much-loved by Financial institutions or intermediaries infected by a similar “disease”! These organisations do not have enough money to buy what they crave most…TRUST. For the price they would have to pay is TRANSPARENCY and that is a price that they simply cannot afford.

Complexity: Interdependence lessons from nature (& Ghandi)

It is always reassuring to discover that you are not the only one blogging frantically in an effort to convey the message that complexity isn’t new or only found within modern technology. Nothing could be further from the truth! It is a subject that, for so long, has been overlooked – or, at least, fallen between too many stools.

Perhaps because of the very nature of the issue, complexity has become a subject much beloved by the Academic community. Whilst the subject matter is absolutely fascinating, for obvious reasons, my focus has been very much upon practical business applications.

Ontonix Srl, under the leadership of Dr Jacek Marczyk have broken new ground in this area so it is really exciting times for us and our clients. Identifying and managing complexity within business systems for a wide variety of purposes is already bringing major benefits.

Critical elements of fundamental “systems thinking” are INTERDEPENDENCE and SUSTAINABILITY. As important to a dynamic business system as it is in nature and has been throughout the history of our civilization. There is a significant resource of complexity-related reading within the Box.net widget on the main page and in the About Complexity page.

But if you want more, particularly with an emphasis upon sustainability and complexity in nature, I can commend Dave Pollard’s blog How to save the world. It contains more information than you could shake a stick at!

Thanks to Dave for allowing me to share these graphics with you.

“Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being. Without interrelation with society he cannot realize his oneness with the universe or suppress his egotism. His social interdependence enables him to test his faith and to prove himself on the touchstone of reality. If man were so placed or could so place himself as to be absolutely above all dependence on his fellow beings he would become so proud and arrogant as to be a veritable burden and nuisance to the world…”

If you aren’t already familiar with these wise words I should first point out that they were not written about the current financial crisis but were “coined” some time ago by Ghandi.

Think on!!!

Why (and how) the U.S. Has Launched a New Financial World War

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Any, reasonably well informed and right-minded person must have been wondering just what the hell has been going on with the money being pumped into the financial system and continuing to “disappear”!?

The article, from which this extract is taken can be found here. It MAY answer some pretty obvious questions…and pose plenty of new ones!

Finance is the new form of warfare – without the expense of a military overhead and an occupation against unwilling hosts. It is a competition in credit creation to buy foreign resources, real estate, public and privatized infrastructure, bonds and corporate stock ownership. Who needs an army when you can obtain the usual objective (monetary wealth and asset appropriation) simply by financial means? All that is required is for central banks to accept dollar credit of depreciating international value in payment for local assets.

Victory promises to go to whatever economy’s banking system can create the most credit, using an army of computer keyboards to appropriate the world’s resources. The key is to persuade foreign central banks to accept this electronic credit.

 

The Author: Michael Hudson is a former Wall Street economist. A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire(new ed., Pluto Press, 2002) and Trade, Development and Foreign Debt: A History of Theories of Polarization v. Convergence in the World Economy. He can be reached via his website, mh@michael-hudson.com

BREAKING THE CYCLE: “i2o” the complexity change code

Originally published June 2010 but worthy of reprise!

Collaboration has played as significant part in some of the most remarkable advancements in the history discoveries, inventions and science. Whether progress was born out of curiosity or concern great leaps forward in our understanding of “our world” have occurred when interdisciplinary discussion and research take place. I am relieved that the collaboration tools now at our disposal are helping to connect thinkers, leaders and like-minded individuals to consider our collective future. If we listen and contribute we may even avoid making the same mistakes…

In many respects Edge Foundation are leading the way but, thankfully, they are not alone! Like other “citizens” they are impacted when the errors or assumptions of Politicians and commerce are socialised. They recognise the INTERDEPENDENCE of ECONOMIC; ENVIRONMENTAL; SOCIAL; CULTURAL domains. They are key to our own SUSTAINABILITY.

Businesses must take a similarly holistic view…DON’T WAIT AROUND FOR GOVERNMENTS AND INSTITUTIONS TO TAKE A LEAD!!!

It is no longer about reward for SHAREHOLDERS at the expense of STAKEHOLDERS. Organisations need to embrace CHANGE.

Every business evolves in an effort to maintain its competitive advantage within a changing marketplace. But, too often, the change is short-lived [either by accident or design]: to create the “right impression”; to generate the right results; to appease the shareholders/new management/bankers/market; adopt new working practices; because others have adopted similar; “it seemed like a good idea at the time”…

What’s i2o and why is it any different?

Well it is something that I thought summed up what Quantitative Complexity analysis is all about! Getting right to the heart of the matter to build a clear – objective – picture [complexity map], literally, from INSIDE TO OUT: i20. Because Change Management is a difficult enough task to perform when people have their little empires to protect, Silos begin to close ranks and unite like they rarely do on a day-to-day basis! Even within relatively small organisations there is always someone to question the motivation for change. Hardly surprising if there is little [or no] transparency associated with the decision-making process!

TOP DOWN requires an in depth and objective management review. Ultimately, change needs the buy-in of engaged employees. Too often this approach is, understandably, associated with a “command and control” management strategy even where “persuade and influence” is preferred.

BOTTOM UP is all too often dismissed as irrelevant, ill-conceived, impractical or not financially viable, by “the management”.

The result, at least in theory, is impasse. or, at best, compromise that results in minor – often short-lived change.

Hence the benefits offered by i2o. Objective and transparent based upon a quantitative complexity analysis that can be measured, monitored and managed on an ongoing basis. Reduce the number of KPI’s. Identify strengths and weaknesses within the operational structure whilst monitoring the overall complexity of the system and its ecosystem.

RESULT: CONSISTENT, TRANSPARENT, QUANTITATIVE, DECISION-MAKING. Good for everyone, well, except for those with a hidden agenda…

Related articles

• Quantitative SWOT analysis (fitforrandomness.wordpress.com)
• Complex Systems and Ecology: Report by US National Academies/NRC & Fed. Reserve Bank of NY (davidgwilson.spaces.live.com)

Complexity: it’s complex, real, multi-layered and VERY dangerous

 

Image by J. Star via Flickr

My previous blogs referring to Joseph Tainter’s book, The Collapse of Complex Societies were, again, brought to mind by a recent article, by Prof John Kay, in the Financial Times (Barbarians at the gates of complexity).

The following is an extract from a speech Tainter delivered in 2009. Interestingly the focus of the full version, which can be found here, was Sustainability…another topic close to my heart!

…complexity costs. In any living system, increased complexity (involving differentiation in structure and increasing organization) carries a metabolic cost. In non-human species this is a straightforward matter of additional calories. Among humans the cost is calculated in such currencies as resources, effort, time, or money, or by more subtle matters such as annoyance. While humans find complexity appealing in spheres such as art, music, or architecture, we usually prefer that someone else pay the cost. We are averse to complexity when it unalterably increases the cost of daily life without a clear benefit to the individual or household. Before the development of fossil fuels, increasing the complexity and costliness of a society meant that people worked harder.