Deloitte SA Blog

Innovation. It’s a word that appears in just about every annual report of consumer products companies. Although everyone talks about it, very few companies think innovatively about the concept, especially when it comes to new product development. Instead, many consumer-facing organizations remain focused on risk-averse activities aimed at slow-but-steady growth.

To be successful, companies will need to engage consumers in dialogue and leverage their insights to create nationally recognized brands that are worthy of their price. Consumer-Centric Innovation (CCI) can often be the path to this outcome as it can help create products that capture the customer’s imagination, provide entertaining brand experiences, or offer solutions to previously unmet needs.

In a new report, “Consumer-Centric Innovation: Tapping Into Consumer Insights to Drive Growth,” Deloitte’s  Pat Conroy and Art Ash discuss six key action steps that companies should consider to help make their innovation efforts more consumer centric. These components provide companies with a new way of thinking about innovation that often can yield favorable long-term results. In a time when consumers are increasingly bypassing companies and creating their own products or solutions and sharing them with others, the power and potential of consumer-centric innovation is too important to ignore.

Want to read more? Download the full article . . . . How to tap into consumer insights to drive business growth

If you prefer a more detailed discussion, contact Professor Rodger George (Director at Deloitte Consulting Southern Africa) at rogeorge@deloitte.co.za

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Is your organisation’s strategy yielding results?

Most organisations are currently seeking growth, be it growing into new premises and new markets (particularly across Africa) or growing in terms of adopting new methods of working, that requires a mind-shift in how their workforces operate in an increasingly connected and digital world.

With regulatory, technological, consumer behaviour and workforce changes afoot, organisations are increasingly finding that getting to the ‘heart of the change’ is of paramount importance to drive sustainable strategy realisation. Strategic projects are the engines of growth, while people are the engine of projects, says Vanessa Vermeulen, Executive Lead at Deloitte Consulting.

Deloitte has experienced that most projects fail due to people problems more than technical problems. People within large, complex organisational structures are often exposed to organisational processes and policies that are counterproductive, which in turn makes them change apprehensive. Programme Management Offices (PMOs) are often perceived as adding administrative costs and bureaucracy without a clear correlation to business benefits. Furthermore, the ability to achieve strategic alignment and integrate results from strategic imperatives has proven to be very challenging.

Results Management Offices (RMOs) strip away the inessentials, minimise the hierarchical approach to projects and embraces communities of practice (COPs) to develop pragmatic methods that are consistent, measurable and effective. The RMO provides a foundation to deliver integrated and strategy-aligned programmes and projects, through improved strategic and tactical decision-making, as well as greater transparency to business benefits and decisions. The project managers remain responsible for execution; however, the RMO will actively support results-driven execution by embedding strategy into operations and budgets, managing the critical path and outcomes, ensuring organisational readiness and measuring shareholder return.

If you would like to discuss the Results Management Office in more detail, contact Vanessa Vermeulen at vvermeulen@deloitte.co.za. If you want to learn more, download the Results Management Office infographic and the “Moving from Process to Outcome Management” article. 

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This article was prepared by the Deloitte Strategy and Innovation team at Deloitte Consulting South Africa. If you have specific questions, you may contact Mike Vincent at mivincent@deloitte.co.za, Kirsten Benfield at kbenfield@deloitte.co.za or Julia Johnson at juljohnson@deloitte.co.za

Adjacent Growth Plays – An unexploited gold mine or a distraction from core business?

Making your current business grow is one strategy. Growing beyond your current business is another. Which one offers greater benefits and how important is the difference?

Deciding to grow a business is the beginning, not the end, of a complex strategic planning process. One of the most important decisions is where to look for growth: in familiar areas that offer quick returns, or in products, services or markets that represent a departure and may take time to cultivate. The answer can determine not only what your business does next, but what it becomes. Should you seek growth opportunities close to the core, or further afield?

This article describes the Deloitte point of view on growth through adjacent plays and how leadership teams can systematically drive this growth through to create the “Business of Tomorrow” for achieving sustainable shareholder value growth.

It is common cause that all shareholders expect that management teams will diligently apply their minds to growing the business in which they are invested. Increased operational efficiencies, while important, will typically only deliver incremental improvements in margins. What are the other potential sources of growth that could deliver ambitious growth targets and meet the insatiable appetite of shareholders?

Read the full article . . . . Adjacent Growth Plays – An unexploited gold mine or a distraction from core business

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by Gys Hyman and Thys Bruwer of Deloitte Consulting

The scale and breadth of the challenge facing IT today is truly breathtaking. Firms have been battered by the global economic conditions, stringent cost control is a fact of life for most organisations for the foreseeable future and IT organisations are having to adapt to this leaner world. At the same time, companies and organisations are looking to IT to support and enable the business growth agenda. How IT meets these potentially conflicting priorities will help determine the winners and the losers, and IT effectiveness will be a key contributor to the overall performance of IT. This study examines how various organisations are set to meet these challenges. We have examined what differentiates top performing IT organisations from their peers and what key capabilities underpin their performance. We have identified the specific, key challenges that are changing the IT industry and flagged the capabilities that IT needs to develop in order to succeed going forward. We have also examined the priorities of the various respondents to understand where the focus of IT will be over the coming period and what the key priorities and challenges will be.

Download the full report . . . . IT strategy and effectiveness – In pursuit of IT excellence

Contact Gys Hyman at +27 83 303 5623 or ghyman@deloitte.co.za

Contact Thys Bruwer at +27 83 441 2457 or tbruwer@deloitte.co.za

 Visit the Deloitte Consulting Technology website

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