JMEC

 

Helping at the Belgium embassy where took place the Japan Market Entry (JMEC) event.

 

Good fun helping the organization and I got to tend the bar!... Actually, it is a extraordinary spot to talk to people and get to know them.

 

 

hmm, maybe I should do this more. Who's your second best friend in a bar? Exactly, the bar man :-)

Not losing the spirit!

Sometimes, it's really about doing things. There is so much energy in creativity, hope, dreams, this energy is multiplied when you channel and structure it to actually produce a new reality.

Start up event Tokyo March 2017

 https://www.facebook.com/#!/gilles.daquin.5

Predictive Analytics primers

Here are a couple of youtube videos that will give you an overview of predictive analytics (as I understand them anyway).

IBM SPSS Predictive Analytics for ISVs

Business Intelligence and Business Analytics Defined

The take away is that we are reaching a new level of business intelligence in data use. From the lowest level to the highest level, we have:

• level 1: reporting
• level 2: analysis
• level 3: monitoring
• level 4: prediction

The interest of prediction is obviously that you can grab opportunities or mitigate risk before the events even occur. You can redirect your resources towards the most efficient course of action: you have a radar that shows you what is ahead, how you can avoid the obstacles and where the easiest path is.

Are predictive analytics just a buzz word and the new fad of the moment? Not really, it's a high performance way to manage your business activities. Among other things, it's one of the best kept secret of (a few) managers and some star marketers.

The main difficulties for a wider adoption are:

• confidence & ease with mathematics Vs gut feeling/"experience"
• confusion between regulatory constraints and business activities
• "safe&known" Vs predictive indicators
• managing business through risk and opportunity is not an easy concept to understand
• and eventually, it is a well known issue for business analysts: analytics are culturally threatening

One can monitor the present, gargle on the past and explain why there was success of failure, the competitor will be laughing out loud using predictive indicators to save time and commit his resources to the opportunities and risk coming next.

Once you get it, you'll feel like a gambler in Casino knowing with confidence when to put your chips on the table and when not to. How much better can it be?

Reward

Got myself a 2010 Finance award from the company.
Worked hard to make things simple.
Thanks to all the people who recognized my work!

Predictive analytics

Performance management by Gary Cokins

Here is an excellent book that I would recommend to anyone interested in thinking one step beyond. The book is extremely dense and filled every other page with food for thought that will tie together the strategy, execution and scorecard of your business. It also introduces a couple of very interesting concepts that I could apply directly in my line of activities:

• Managing risk: benchmarking your activities for risk allows you to detect levels that are risky in comparison of the return expected but also and very importantly potential for untapped growth and opportunities where your risk levels are low in regard of what your business is usually ready to cope with. Thinking activities and metrics in terms of risk is a very interesting concept that indeed aim at reducing risk but also -and counter intuitively- increasing it
• Predictive analytics: Variance analysis, looking at past data certainly explains what happened, looking at current data helps knowing where one stands, however wouldn't it be better to manage your activities when an likely opportunity is detected and anticipated? When indicators warn of a possible risk before it transforms itself into a real concern? Predicting a situation through analytics gives you the ability to anticipate, exploit or correct situations before they even occur. Gary Cokins explains extremely well this mind frame that forces you to organize yourself in such a way that you rely a lot less on last month data and a lot more on what you should aggressively pursue next.

In my current activities, I applied these concepts directly with our distributors in the APAC region.  It is essential to keep the pulse of our business partners in this credit crunch context and shrinking economy. Knowing when we can take risk without stopping the business or what to do when we start detecting difficulties that must be corrected has been key and given us the tools to reduce exposure or accept risk. The beauty of the approach is that we can manage the events before they even occur and redirect the business where it should go.

Process maturity model

Carnegie Mellon University has developed a process maturity model that was initially used for software engineering. However, it has been very effectively adapted to any kind of processes.

It can be defined as 5 different levels:

1. Initial (chaotic, ad hoc, individual heroics) - the starting point for use of a new process.
2. Managed - the process is managed according to the metrics described in the Defined stage.
3. Defined - the process is defined/confirmed as a standard business process, and decomposed to levels 0, 1 and 2 (the latter being Work Instructions).
4. Quantitatively managed
5. Optimized - process management includes deliberate process optimization/improvement

One very important point to remember is that it is almost impossible to skip a stage.
Assess the maturity level of the process in your organization and move from there.


This is a very neat model to have in your toolbox. Not the first time neither the last I am using it.

Awards

Yearly awards are always meant to be a special event that recognize the contribution of individuals or teams for their exceptional work during the year. Personally knowing most of the recipients, I know how much sweat and pain went into these awards and how little these prize will ever be able to fully say thank you.

This got me thinking. Aren't we celebrating the company's dysfunctions? Why does it have to be blood and sweat?