Moving with the times

We are living in extraordinary times, which demand equally extraordinary thinking, commensurate expert planning and delivery expertise. But behind every cloud there's a silver lining. Change can be invigorating and will almost certainly help you leap-frog the competition, and both get and remain ahead - provided you get it right first time and are able to manage that change!

Technology can undoubtedly help. In his 1997 best-selling book, 'The Innovator's Dilemma,' Clayton Christensen separates new technology into two categories: sustaining and disruptive. Sustaining technology relies on incremental improvements to an already established technology. Disruptive technology lacks refinement, often has performance problems because it is new, appeals to a limited audience, and may not yet have a proven practical application.

In his book, Christensen points out that large corporations are designed to work with sustaining technologies. They excel at knowing their market, staying close to their clients, and having a mechanism in place to develop existing technology. Conversely, they struggle at first to capitalise effectively on the potential efficiencies, cost-savings, or new marketing opportunities created by low-margin disruptive technologies. Eventually, however, they understand the technologies, embrace them, and benefit from them.

It is the potential offered by these Web 2.0 based technologies - wikis, blogs and Instant Messaging - which were at the heart of the first roundtable of 2009 hosted by our Enigma professional networking forum, which goes from strength to strength.

Over the last year Enigma has brought together more than 50 senior business executives and influential industry figures who have direct experience of the challenge of implementing large-scale business change. The recent roundtable 'Collaborate to Innovate' generated a thought-provoking and lively discussion at the Conran restaurant, Quaglino's, in London. A summary of the evening's conversation and news of future events are contained within this edition.

In our Autumn enewsletter, we talked about our industry sector focus and welcomed Roland Cook on board as a project manager in our Telecoms business. Now I'd like to welcome Sharlene Jobson, who has joined DAV to lead our strategy and business activities in Business Support Services. Sharlene's role will be to ensure that we continue to build upon the excellent work done for clients in this key sector over the past few years. You can read more about Sharlene's career to date and her role at DAV in this enewsletter.

I hope you enjoy reading this edition. Already we've seen that 2009 is going to be a challenging year. But with that challenge comes opportunity and it is through working with organisations that can help your business change and adapt to the new business landscape, that this opportunity can be maximised.

I am confident that DAV Management will continue to deliver this added value to our clients - and help best position you for the upturn when it comes.

Charlie Mayes, Managing Director