Innovation vs Bureaucracy, Big Business are being Disrupted!

The collateral change of innovative tech advancements over the past 20 years have completely disrupted the bureaucracy model of big business establishments.

Big Business Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy and carefully weighted decision making regularly walk ‘hand in hand’ for Big Business. This is simply because maintaining control of big business (under regular operating conditions) relies on working within strict ‘change management’ protocols.

Every ‘change management’ decision must be diligently controlled and have a planned and documented outcome. Maintaining a holistic “whole of business” viewpoint requires ‘control’, and, ‘control’ is paramount for proper implementation of change.

The parameters of creating change within a bureaucracy are usually slow, tedious, elementary, measurable, achievable and must be completed with a holistic viewpoint.

Business is conducted by measuring the suggested business change against the ‘whole of business’ cause and affects. For normal business, this responsibility is regularly appointed to a steering team from upper management; but for major decisions of change, these are directly made by board and shareholder decisions.

“Change is a collaborative action conducted in consultation, reaching the ‘best fit’ solution for the problem”

Because of the sheer size the business operations, the parameters of creating any change within a bureaucracy are usually slow, tedious, elementary, measurable, achievable, collaborative, consultative and must be completed with a holistic viewpoint (whole of business).

Big Business is about:

• Maintaining confidence with its Stakeholders and upholding the Brand reputation,
• Being a safe choice for investment, employment, customers and suppliers etc.,
• Diligently managing strict control of its activities (financial, economically viable  and productive; c/w quality, safety, environment, industrial relations etc.)
• Showing consistent growth while controlling risks and optimising opportunities within the parameters that stakeholders consider are ‘best’,
• Ensuring statutory obligations are adhered to, and
• Giving the business a long term sustainable outlook.

These points are all expected, for if they were overlooked, the business is certain for disaster…..

The downfall of ensuing the approach of a bureaucracy is inheriting the general nature of control in large bureaucracy organisations (big business). The ‘change management’ process is regularly drawn out, less timely and ‘painful’ to those that want change to be seamless, easy and quick.

“However slow the change may be, for a bureaucracy, the wheels of change move slowly…..but they do move”

Disruptive Change for Big Business

With an exponential level of innovative growth over the past 30 years, the bureaucratic “way things are done” has been disputed.

Big business are being disrupted because:

“Innovation cannot wait for a slow decision to be made, innovation waits for the first person to create the change and all others are left having to catch up”

It is because innovation is being tested each and every hour of every day that the largest growing market for business on earth are startup (including part-time), micro and small business (0-20 employees). Those business have the ability to be nimble, lean, make quick decisions and maintain a “whole of business” approach.

That means, that the business approach of these aspiring businesses covers the diligent ‘whole of business’ approach that its bureaucratic competitors have, but they have the ability to build an agile, well tuned, time efficient “best for business” ethos which suites the turbulent nature of todays business market.

Investment…. Fight or Flight

As the exponential growth of innovation, technology and the integration of those business increases; the time will come (in the immediate future) where investment decisions are pushed away from the regular market trends of ‘stable’ long term business (the big business heavy weights) to wards a lean and nimble business that we haven’t even heard of…. yet!

Soon, as innovative advancements progress, those advancement will affect how investments are made and targeted.

“The promise for viability as an investor will be measured against ‘up-side’ potential compared to ‘down-side’ disruptive risk”

How investment decisions affect maintaining bureaucracy will ultimately either ‘disrupt and damage’, or, ‘support and sustain’ the market position of those long standing market positions of big business.

Witnessing Change and Future Opportunities for Big Business

My experience in business has led me through the transition of Idea, Start-up, SME and Large Business. I have driven a business through lean and strictly controlled financial and economic sustainability and then through large and bulky decision making processes.

It makes absolute sense to me that disruptive innovation trends will outweigh large ‘blue chip’ investments simply because of the ability for technology and innovation to dominate market share at the base level. It is creative, it is adaptive, it is nimble, it is simple and it can turn around change to constantly maintain market share.

The Golden Opportunity

The ability of start-ups and SME’s to embrace change, be nimble, make quick decisions while adhering to “whole of business” methodology is the basis that has created their greatest opportunity.

The golden opportunity for big business is this:

• Become market enable to embrace innovative change
• Openly engage new business (SU/SME) techniques, ideas and technology
• Dominate new market (entry of innovation) investment
• Take a ‘start-up’ approach, uncover disruptive opportunities (in-house) and innovate towards focal issues, implement user based disruptive innovation
• Coordinate collaborative workforce engagement, workforce engagement that has spontaneous advantages that deliver immediate “whole of business” results
• Seek the understanding of ‘disruptive bureaucracy’ related issues (those ideas that currently are hurting the business because it cannot keep up with market or industry change), implement slender changes and dismount the need for ‘big business bureaucratic baggage’.

 

Written by Geoff Pike, Entrepreneur, Speaker & Business Mentor

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoff-pike-australia

Also, if you would like to read future posts then please click ‘Follow’ at the top of this article and feel free to connect via Facebook or visit the ‘Equipped to Discover’ Webpage, Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin page.

ABOUT GEOFF

Geoff founded a sole trader plumbing business in a remotely located and vastly underpopulated location in outback Australia. Starting business with only enough money to pay 4 weeks wages, Geoff persisted by growing the business into a multi-disciplined trade services company. Over a period of 12 years, the company Geoff established grew to employ a workforce of over 300 personnel covering an area almost half the size of Europe, receiving international award recognition with an annual revenue of over $30mil. Geoff knows what it takes to overcome adversity.