Weekly Business Insights from Top Ten Business Magazines – Week 249

Extractive summaries of and key takeaways from the articles curated from TOP TEN BUSINESS MAGAZINES to promote informed business decision-making | Week 249 | June 17-23, 2022

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Shaping Section : Ideas and forces shaping economies and industries

The tricky restructuring of global supply chains

The Economist | June 16, 2022

After the go-go 1990s and 2000s the pace of economic integration stalled in the 2010s, as firms grappled with the aftershocks of a financial crisis, a populist revolt against open borders and President Donald Trump’s trade war. The flow of goods and capital stagnated. Many bosses postponed big decisions on investing abroad: just-in-time gave way to wait-and-see. Now the waiting is over, as the pandemic and war in Ukraine have triggered a once-in-a-generation reimagining of global capitalism in boardrooms and governments. 

After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the lodestar of globalisation was efficiency. Companies located production where costs were lowest, while investors deployed capital where returns were highest. Governments aspired to treat firms equally, regardless of their nationality, and to strike trade deals with democracies and autocracies alike. Over two decades this gave rise to dazzlingly sophisticated value chains that account for half of all trade.  But hyper-efficient globalisation also had problems. Volatile capital flows destabilised financial markets. Many blue-collar workers in rich countries lost out. Recently, two other worries have loomed large. First, some lean supply chains are not as good value as they appear: mostly they keep costs low, but when they break, the bill can be crippling.  The second problem is that the single-minded pursuit of cost advantage has led to a dependency on autocracies that abuse human rights and use trade as a means of coercion. 

One indication that companies are shifting from efficiency to resilience is the vast build-up in precautionary inventories: for the biggest 3,000 firms globally these have risen from 6% to 9% of world GDP since 2016. Many firms are adopting dual sourcing and longer-term contracts. The pattern of multinational investment has been inverted: 69% is from local subsidiaries reinvesting locally, rather than parent firms sending capital across borders.

The industries under most pressure are already reinventing their business models, encouraged by governments that from Europe to India are keen on “strategic autonomy”.  The danger is that a reasonable pursuit of security will morph into rampant protectionism, jobs schemes and hundreds of billions of dollars of industrial subsidies. 

That is why restraint is crucial. Governments and firms must remember that resilience comes from diversification, not concentration at home. A new balance between efficiency and security is a reasonable goal.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. After the go-go 1990s and 2000s the pace of economic integration stalled in the 2010s, as firms grappled with the aftershocks of a financial crisis, a populist revolt against open borders and President Donald Trump’s trade war. The flow of goods and capital stagnated.
2. Now the waiting is over, as the pandemic and war in Ukraine have triggered a once-in-a-generation reimagining of global capitalism in boardrooms and governments.
3. The new kind of globalisation is about security, not efficiency: it prioritises doing business with people you can rely on, in countries your government is friendly with. It could descend into protectionism, big government and worsening inflation. Alternatively, if firms and politicians show restraint, it could change the world economy for the better, keeping the benefits of openness while improving resilience. 

Full Article

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Topics:  Global Economy, Global Trade, Globalization, Protectionism

Growth opportunities for digital health in KSA and UAE

By Mahdi AlBasri et al., | McKinsey & Company | June 16, 2022

Throughout the Middle East, consumers are enthusiastically adopting digital services. Smartphone penetration rates in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are among the world’s highest, at an estimated 93 percent, with citizens using the devices to access digitized public services.  In this context, KSA and UAE seem well-positioned to reap benefits from digital-healthcare technologies. In 2022, McKinsey surveyed 1,400 consumers in KSA and UAE to better understand their sentiments toward and experiences with digital-health services. The survey revealed high levels of interest and awareness in such technologies. Based on our findings, we believe that KSA and UAE could use digital-health solutions to benefit patients and improve outcomes in areas including chronic-disease management, diagnostics, and preventative care. Indeed, with proper management, the combined digital-health market in KSA and UAE could reach $4 billion by 2026.   Six major themes emerged from McKinsey’s consumer sentiment study are:

1. Most consumers have never used digital health applications.
2. Awareness of established digital-health solutions like e-pharmacy and teleconsultations is high. 
3. User retention is high for existing solutions. 
4. Consumers primarily value the convenience and time savings provided by digital-health solutions. 
5. Most nonusers are interested in trying wellness applications and online pharmacies. 
6. Retention is high among the existing users.

The survey responses reveal potential growth opportunities in the Middle East for companies to provide digital services across the seven submarkets to improve people’s health and wellbeing.  These sub-markets are: fitness apps, telehealth services, e-pharmacy solutions, health-management tools for women, condition-management apps for mental health, health insurance, and Diagnostics and related services.   KSA and UAE can accelerate the development of digital-healthcare services by focusing on product and value propositions, refining go-to-market approaches, developing new business models, and investing in promising technologies. Overall, the goal should be to improve patient outcomes by developing digital-health capabilities that match consumer needs and preferences. Four areas representing major digital-health opportunities for KSA and UAE are: B2B partnership go-to-market strategies, Bundled subscriptions and behavioral financing, Gamification and seamless integration, and Expansion into digital therapeutics.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. Throughout the Middle East, consumers are enthusiastically adopting digital services. In this context, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the United Arab Emirate (UAE) seem well-positioned to reap benefits from digital-healthcare technologies. 
2. Six major themes emerged from McKinsey’s consumer sentiment study are:  most consumers have never used digital health applications, awareness of established digital-health solutions like e-pharmacy and teleconsultations is high, user retention is high for existing solutions, consumers primarily value the convenience and time savings provided by digital-health solutions, most nonusers are interested in trying wellness applications and online pharmacies, and retention is high among the existing users.
3. It is believed that KSA and UAE could use digital-health solutions to benefit patients and improve outcomes in areas including chronic-disease management, diagnostics, and preventative care. The combined digital-health market could reach $4 billion by 2026.

Full Article

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Topics:  Health Care, Technology, Middle East

China wants all social media comments to be pre-reviewed before publishing

By Zeyi Yang | MIT Technology Review | June 18, 2022

China is fine-tuning its censorship machine, this time proposing changes in how to regulate the billions of online comments posted in the country every day.  On June 17, the internet regulator Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) published a draft update on the responsibilities of platforms and content creators in managing online comments. 

The provisions cover many types of comments, including anything from forum posts, replies, messages left on public message boards, and “bullet chats” (an innovative way that video platforms in China use to display real-time comments on top of a video). All formats, including texts, symbols, GIFs, pictures, audio, and videos, fall under this regulation. 

There’s a need for a stand-alone regulation on comments because the vast number makes them difficult to censor as rigorously as other content, like articles or videos, says Eric Liu, a former censor for Weibo who’s now researching Chinese censorship at China Digital Times.   “One thing everyone in the censorship industry knows is that nobody pays attention to the replies and bullet chats. They are moderated carelessly, with minimum effort,” Liu says. But recently, there have been several awkward cases where comments under government Weibo accounts went rogue, pointing out government lies or rejecting the official narrative. That could be what has prompted the regulator’s proposed update.

Chinese social platforms are currently on the front lines of censorship work, often actively removing posts before the government and other users can even see them. But the vagueness of the latest revisions makes people worry that the government may ignore practical challenges.

The regulator is now seeking public comments on the proposed revisions until July 1, 2022, and they may not take effect for many months. Right now, discussions about how strictly they will be enforced are only speculative. But it’s clear that China is identifying the Great Firewall’s loopholes and updating its regulations to address them. If this revision becomes law, creators will also become part of the censorship machine, responsible for identifying “illegal or negative” content and reporting it.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. China is fine-tuning its censorship machine, this time proposing changes in how to regulate the billions of online comments posted in the country every day.
2. The provisions cover many types of comments, including anything from forum posts, replies, messages left on public message boards, and “bullet chats” (an innovative way that video platforms in China use to display real-time comments on top of a video). All formats, including texts, symbols, GIFs, pictures, audio, and videos, fall under this regulation. 
3. Chinese social platforms are currently on the front lines of censorship work, often actively removing posts before the government and other users can even see them. But the vagueness of the latest revisions makes people worry that the government may ignore practical challenges.

Full Article

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Topics:  China, Digital Media, Censorship

Strategy & Business Model Section

How to Move from Strategy to Execution

By Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and Darko Lovric | Harvard Business Review | June 20, 2022

While it is difficult to separate faulty strategy from faulty execution, most companies are not great at the latter.  When you dig into the potential barriers to implementation, there is a general lack of understanding of the various factors at play, resulting in the inevitable managerial justifications — “poor leadership,” “inadequate talent,” “lack of process excellence,” or the still popular “culture eats strategy for breakfast.”  Three key steps to building the right execution system are:

1. Achieving Strategic Clarity.  The first challenge is to have the strategy that both can and should be executed. What counts as good strategy in a certain environment is hard to determine and is dependent on a vast number of factors, including both the industry and the competitive landscape. A strategy that can be executed well will match your aspirations and your capabilities. Therefore, two key questions to ask are: Is your strategy set at the right level of ambition?  Two major errors related to strategy ambition: inaccurate optimism and irrational pessimism.  Both needs to be avoided.  The second question is do you know what capabilities are essential for your strategy?  For this clearly identify the essential organizational capabilities that the new strategy will require — one needs to build capabilities that others can’t easily emulate. Need to know if these capabilities are something you can be expected to build.
2. Achieving Organizational Clarity.  Once you select the right level of ambition and understand the key capabilities required to achieve it, you can orient your organization towards the key challenges for executing it. An operating model can provide you with a high-level model of how pursuit of your strategy will be delegated to the executive team. Three questions are helpful in building your operating model:  Have you specified which unit owns which part of your strategy? Have you built the right interactions between these key units?  Have you assigned the right talent to the right roles?
3. Building A Management System.  Once the strategy and operating model are set, they have to be implemented in countless day to day decisions. For that, one needs a management system. In this process, the key custodians of the execution become the managers — hierarchy being one key tool for an execution of complex strategy across a large number of individuals.  How have you empowered your staff?  How have you built self-corrective feedback into your system?

3 key takeaways from the article

1. While it is difficult to separate faulty strategy from faulty execution, most companies are not great at the latter.  
2. When you dig into the potential barriers to implementation, there is a general lack of understanding of the various factors at play, resulting in the inevitable managerial justifications — “poor leadership,” “inadequate talent,” “lack of process excellence,” or the still popular “culture eats strategy for breakfast.”  
3. Three key steps to building the right execution system are: achieving strategic clarity.  i.e., to have the strategy that both can and should be executed.  Achieving organizational clarity i.e., understand the key capabilities required to achieve and finally building a management system.

Full Article

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Topics:  Strategy, Implementation, Organizational Structure

Leading & Managing Section

What It Takes To Be Wise: 5 Ways To Greater Wisdom

By Tracy Brower | Forbes Magazine | Jun 19, 2022

In a world fraught with challenge, polarization and controversy, wise reasoning is a critical skill.  The good news is you can expand your wisdom, and contrary to popular belief, wisdom isn’t reserved for only the elderly. It is a trait you can learn and cultivate.  Science and philosophy have embraced five elements of wisdom, and developing these will make you wise (or wiser), no matter what your age.

1. Recognize Your Limits.  Recognize the limits of your own knowledge and remind yourself you don’t have all the answers. By definition, your viewpoint is limited by your own experience and vantage points. What may seem like obvious truth to you, may be very different for others. You’ve heard the concepts before, but the ability to put intellectual humility into practice is the true measure of wisdom.  Wisdom is also found in a willingness to admit mistakes and change your point of view when you have new information. 
2. Be Aware of Varied Contexts.  Another way to grow your wisdom is to consider multiple contexts and how they evolve and change over time. Making decisions by considering the current situation, temperature and conditions is good. But broadening your view is better. Consider how your decision will be perceived in other situations, and how it will impact people over time.  
3. Acknowledge Others’ Points of View.  Wisdom requires intentionality—seeking to understand others and valuing opinions which are different. It is the demonstration of wisdom which takes in multiple points of view in order to find the best course of action.
4. Distance Yourself.  When people thought of themselves in the third person, they tended to make wiser choices. The third person helped them think more objectively and remove a sense of personalization which clouded judgement.  The take-away message is this: When you’re considering a challenging choice, get some perspective and think of yourself in a less emotional, more distanced way. 
5. Trust Your Gut.  When people tuned into their heart rates more closely, they tended to make better decisions. Check in on your own reactions to a situation and trust your gut. Assess things rationally and then apply a dose of intuition and emotion. When you’re tuned into to your own reactions, the awareness can provide insights about your values and passions—paving the way for wiser decisions.

2 key takeaways from the article

1. In a world fraught with challenge, polarization and controversy, wise reasoning is a critical skill.  The good news is you can expand your wisdom, and contrary to popular belief, wisdom isn’t reserved for only the elderly. It is a trait you can learn and cultivate.  
2. Science and philosophy have embraced five elements of wisdom, and developing these will make you wise (or wiser), no matter what your age.  These are:  Recognize the limits of your own knowledge and remind yourself you don’t have all the answers.  While making decisions consider multiple contexts and how they evolve and change over time.  Seek to understand others and value opinions which are different.  Get some perspective and think of yourself in a less emotional, more distanced way.  And trust your gut.

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Topics:  Decision-making. Leadership, Personal Development

Enterpreneurship Section

Why You Want to Cultivate a Team of Professional Troublemakers at Work

By Ali Donaldson | Inc Magazine | June 15, 2022

Whenever a company experiences a moment of major public backlash, Luvvie Ajayi Jones always asks the same question: “Who was in that meeting who did not say something?”   The founder and CEO of Chicago-based content strategy company Awe Luv Media, Ajayi Jones says that whether it’s a marketing campaign that missed that mark or a failed product launch, chances are that a few people around a conference table (or on a Zoom call) thought it was a bad idea but didn’t raise their concerns with the rest of the team. Why? According to Ajayi Jones, who has lectured on company culture at Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and Nike, most corporate missteps can be traced to one thing: fear in the ranks. Employees are often afraid to have honest, difficult conversations with their colleagues or managers because their first instinct is to think: “What happens if somebody doesn’t like what I just said?”

To avoid this, Ajayi Jones recommends recruiting and cultivating a team of what she calls “professional troublemakers” who feel comfortable challenging others and disrupting company protocol. The best workplaces, she says, are those that root out prioritizing harmony over discomfort. This prevents the wasting of time and money on bad ideas that come to fruition only because no one felt empowered to object.

Chiming in during a meeting with a question or criticism can be difficult, however, especially for newer or younger workers. Instill in the team that their opinions will not be met with punishment, Ajayi Jones says. And encourage employees to think about what’s at stake if they don’t speak up by asking themselves the question: “Will my silence convict me?”  Ultimately, those disagreements can lead to breakthroughs. “The world that we live in was built by troublemakers,” Avayi Jones says.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. Whether it’s a marketing campaign that missed that mark or a failed product launch, chances are that a few people around a conference table (or on a Zoom call) thought it was a bad idea but didn’t raise their concerns with the rest of the team. 
2. Why?  Most corporate missteps can be traced to one thing: fear in the ranks. Employees are often afraid to have honest, difficult conversations with their colleagues or managers
3. Instill in the team that their opinions will not be met with punishment. And encourage employees to think about what’s at stake if they don’t speak up by asking themselves the question: “Will my silence convict me?”

Full Article

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Topics:  Decision-making, Organizational Behavior, Culture

3 Signs You’re Letting Pride Get in the Way of Being Successful

By Eli Joseph | Entrepreneur | June 9, 2022

Pride has proven to be a powerful trait used to influence people. Some tend to abuse it and others tend to keep it in check. As an entrepreneur, taking a bit of pride is not always a problem. It’s okay to have a good sense of pride. However, the excessive use of pride can be an issue. Three signs of having an overabundance of pride are:

1. Shutting other colleagues out.  Although words of affirmation can satisfy one’s ego, such words of endearment can make people a prisoner of their actions, rights and decisions. Pride can provoke an entrepreneur to shut out other executive managers and board members. This in turn can result in killing the progress of their company from the connections, ideas and various perspectives that their contemporaries have to offer.  Entrepreneurs can abuse their pride by provoking irrational behavior. They spend time and effort influencing good people to veer away from doing what is more ethical and legal for the company.
2. Refusing to apologize even when you should.  There are times when you may be due an apology and there are times when you owe someone an apology. If you are blinded by pride, you are likely to be impacted by the simple gesture of saying I’m sorry and admitting that you were wrong in certain situations.  It is not the end of the world if you feel as though someone is correct. However, it can be debilitating if you cannot apologize when you did something wrong and move on from that mistake.
3. Not rooting for your colleague’s success.  Business leaders with an oversupply of pride do not root for other people’s success within the workplace. They have a zero-sum mindset and invoke jealousy whenever their colleague is succeeding. Additionally, they are willing to let someone else fail so they can walk over them and succeed in their place to feed their pride.  Assuredly, this type of mindset never ends well because these people will fall off their high horses and end up failing miserably. The embarrassment of the overly prideful professional may be the best solution. Pride is one of the seven deadly sins that drive many managerial leaders away from pursuing their personal and business goals.

Instead, feeling shame is what keeps us connected to our actions, making us aware of when we may push things too far. When an excess of pride is left unattended, shame is summoned as divine intervention, pulling us back from the path of our own self-destruction.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. Pride has proven to be a powerful trait used to influence people. However, the excessive use of pride can be an issue. 
2. Three signs of having an overabundance of pride are:  shutting other colleagues out, refusing to apologize even when you should, and not rooting for your colleague’s success.
3. Instead, feeling shame is what keeps us connected to our actions, making us aware of when we may push things too far. When an excess of pride is left unattended, shame is summoned as divine intervention, pulling us back from the path of our own self-destruction.

Full Article

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Topics:  Entrepreneurship, Personal Development, Success