Paralysis by Fear or How to Profit From the Crisis Dr. Jan Mrazek President, Adastra Group
Jun 20, 2015
Paralysis by Fearor
How to Profit From the Crisis
Dr. Jan Mrazek
President, Adastra Group
Slide 22
Paralysis by Fear: History
� People are often paralyzed by the fear of things
outside their normal experience.
� 1519: Hernán Cortés lands in Mexico. Surprised
and frightened by horsemen and cannon,
Montezuma, the emperor of Tenochtitlan, the
greatest city-state of the time, sent gifts and
refused to face the intruder until it was too late.
� 1910: Halley’s Comet makes one of its regular
visits to the Earth. After news reports of deadly
gases from the comet’s tail, there is widespread
panic: suicides, farmers and miners refusing to
work, people buying “comet pills” to counter any
effects of the comet…
� 2009: reacting to reports of an economic
recession…
Slide 33
The New Economic Disorder
� For many sectors, the news is alarming:
home foreclosures, bank failures,
unemployment, automotive industry
meltdown, etc.
� Terms such as “downturn,” “recession,”
“depression” fill the daily news media.
� Will the economy recover? When?
Slide 44
How Executives Are Responding
� Fear makes things worse
� The fear of economic disaster has exacerbated the economic downturn
� Reduced budgets, concentrated decision-making
� Tighter internal budgets concentrate decision-making power into a few hands
� Key positions eliminated or temporarily stripped of their decision-making power
� Communication vacuum undermines productivity
� For example, decisions on layoffs and restructuring are made by a limited circle,
and are released only at the last minute
� Organizations are PARALYZED BY FEAR
� Prone to making costly mistakes, they show signs of being unable to capitalize on
opportunities inherent to a shifting economic situation.
Slide 55
New Economic Opportunities
� Services cost less
� Wider availability of skilled service
professionals
� Consider new engagement models with
vendors:� offshoring
� outsourcing
� cost sharing
� Forward-thinking, creative executives can
make a difference� capture market share
� make important changes to business
processes and structures.
� EXAMPLE: Wal-Mart’s continued success
through their competitive advantage, in part
due to robust Business Intelligence systems.
Slide 66
Meeting the Challenge
� How to sell a solution internally and get budget
approval in the face of cuts:
� Reform the approval process
� Traditional approval processes do not work well, even in
good times.
� Develop responsive projects
� Include end users in decisions
� New alliances internally
� Right-thinking leaders
� New vendor alliances
� Expertise and resources to develop solutions that will prove
value in the short term, and keep producing value into the
long term.
� Cost effective alternative to costly internal teams
� Fear must be met with creativity, grit and determination.
Slide 77
Leadership Through Crisis
� Leaders are made by meeting challenges,
not by managing them.
� Bold and timely action is rewarded by:
� higher market share
� higher value for new investments
� increased individual visibility
� Return on investments made during the
crisis will be much higher than on
investments made later.
� Many opportunities in
Business Intelligence
� Benefits:
� Sufficient, timely, and
quality data
� Quality analysis
proactive BI
� Organizations harnessing
better BI will emerge the
winners.
Slide 88
Thank you…
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