inKNOWvations: March 2011

Technology Creates Ever-Changing Leadership Challenges

Rima Evans

Companies lack sufficient leadership skills – including from CPOs – to cope with new complex challenges born out of the digital age, executives have said in a study.

More than two-thirds of corporate executives fear their leadership being overwhelmed as whole industries are transformed by a trend called ‘convergence,’ according to a study by global search firm Egon Zehnder International.

This is caused by changes in customer expectations and technological innovation and is affecting a whole range of industries, the report said.

Heretical Innovation

Ann O'Dea

Andrew Winston, Harvard professor, and author of Green Recovery: Get Lean, Get Smart, and Emerge from the Downturn on Top, tells Ann O’Dea about the companies that are profiting from helping customers use less of their products.

The year is 1910, and Henry Ford's Model T is rolling off the assembly line. It soon will join some 8,000 other automobiles currently in the U.S., motoring along at a brisk pace of 10 mph along 144 miles of paved roads - and "gassing up" at the local druggist.

Fast forward 100+ years, and today's innovation is no less thought-provoking.