innovation playground Idris Mootee

What Did You Get For Christmas? A 24 Carat Gold iPhone or PS3? How About A LG Rolex Phone? That You Have To Wait A Few Months.

In many cultures, gold symbolizes a lot of good things including wealth and good health. I am not a gold person myself although I bought an 18 carat gold camera for collection some 20 years ago (picture below). I saw it in camera shop in Tokyo and pulled out my DIners Club card, not sure why I bought it. I’ve only used it a few times.One day I will add a digital back to it and may be add a few diamonds. Some day.

Tibetan Buddhist believes in 5 sacred stones: the crystal for light, turquoise for infinity of sea and sky, coral for life and form, gold for the golden ray of the sun, silver for the light of the moon. Gold is intimately linked with Divinity and those gods associated with the Sun. It symbolizes wealth and success.

In Judaism, when the Torah portions Terumah and Tetzaveh, gold is mentioned nearly some 40+ times. Gold covers most of the Mishkan and its furniture, including the Holy Ark, which is topped with two solid gold cherubs.

For centuries in China, gold (and even yellow) is a color that can only be used exclusively by the Emperors. All imperial symbols included the colors yellow and purple. The Emperor wore yellow robes and lived under roofs made with yellow tiles. Only the Emperor was allowed to wear yellow. No buildings outside those in the Forbidden City were allowed to have yellow-tiled roofs. Violation results in your head being chopped off.

From archaeological digs, the use of Gold appears to begin in the Middle East, in the sites where the first true civilizations began to rise. Egyptian jewelry found in the tomb of Queen Zer and that of Queen Pu-abi of Ur in Sumeria are not only the oldest pieces of gold jewelry in existence, but also the oldest examples found of any kind of jewelry. 

If you like gold, you must get the ultimate gold watch, or the killer watch - the Rolex Cosmograph Daytona Leopard watch. Last checked it was selling $51,000 from Amazon.com (11% discount from the last price), yes you can get 170 Kindles with that money. The watch has a 40mm wide 18K gold case that frames the timepiece elegantly as the pieces are decorated with 48 diamonds. The 36-baguette cognac sapphire is fitted in the bezel. The sexy leopard printed strap is held safe by a fliplock closure in 18K yellow gold.

If you are a Rolex fan, then this is a must have. LG and Rolex is rumored to be launching a phone with a Rolex watch face embedded in the casing. The Rolex LG phone comes with a luxurious leathery exterior. Can you guess what’s the price tag will be? This will be a hot seller. For me, I am sticking with my Prada LG phone. Nokia has a gold edition phones is plated with an 18-carat gold finish and comes with matching gold wallpapers. Vertu has also teamed up with French jeweler house Boucheron to create a handset built from solid gold that costs $30,000. Now that is a classy one. 


For those of us who likes gaming, now you can have your 24kt gold plated PS3 (from ColorWare) . I don’t think they make too many of them, so hurry up. For Apple lovers, there are 24Kt Gold Plated IPod Touch or iPhone or if you prefer, the 24-carat gold MacBook Pro, with diamond studded Apple logo.

Wish your new year will be as bright and as glittering as gold. Happy New Year!!!

Happy Holidays! Joyeuses Fêtes! 新年快乐! Forhe Feiertage! Boas Festas! 즐거운 휴일! Buone Feste! Felices Fiestas!

Happy Holidays to all readers and freinds of this blog!!  Wonder where "Happy Holidays" come from and what it actually means.  I think "Happy Holiday" is an English translation of the Hebrew Hag Sameach greeting on Passover, Sukkot, and Shavuot or "La Multi Ani" in Romania. It is now used more commonly as a collective and inclusive wish for the period encompassing Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Winter solstice, Christmas, New Year and crazy shopping. For many teenagers, "Happy Holidays" means beating Assasin Creed II, Final Fantasy XIII in 2 days or jamming away with Guitar Hero.

I am not getting many Christmas cards (a good thing) this year. With Facebook, why do I need to send cards?  With heightened environmental concerns to reduce our carbon footprint including those cardboard Season's Greetings, I think we should drop that habbit.  Facebook provided an irresistible alternative to the time-consuming ritual of buying, addressing, signing and mailing cards. I wonder how steep the decline is for people sending Christmas cards.

The holiday season is a perfect time for people all over the world with different religions, nationalities and cultures to come together in love, peace and in harmony, in remembrance of the most important things in life, like our near and dear ones. Happy Holidays everyone!!!!!

Should We Revive Dying Brands And Companies? Or We’re Better Off Creating New Ones? Does "The Circle Of Life" Apply Here?

We make assumptions that it is the management team responsibility to extend or prolong the life of any companies even they have fewer reasons to exist. Management is different from practicing medicine, although sometimes I cam called the strategy doctor. Instead of wasting resources and energy to save a company or a brand, should we just take whatever assets and redeploy them In life, the cycle of life is the natural order of things.

Although we do live longer now but death is inevitable. Technology is the same. Should corporations be the same? Saab is at the end of life and should it deserve a second life? Apple had its near death experiences and came back stronger. Many argued at that time Apple should be sold to Sony. Wang Computers thought they were beating IBM and become the next IBM. IBM was also that close to being disappeared from the scene just 15 years ago.

Management consultants usually have a keen preference in prolonging corporate life, I guess that keep them spending. The pharma companies don’t want patients to die, just stay sick. Why do we care about extending the life of large companies or big brands? Is it because they’re can afford your fees? Or we have a love for them. Yes, build to last. Business schools love transformation stories because they make great business cases, portray CEOs as heroes. For many large companies, transformation and renewal is only source of survival.

The world of fashion has a lot of come back-stories although they are generally not sophisticated from a management capability perspectives compare to the GEs of the world. Think how Burberry, Addidas, Dior, Abercrombie & Fitch all have found prosperity in their new life. Many business school case studies have been written about of how brands were “brought back from the graveyard.” Unfortunately, however, the lessons are often so idiosyncratic. There 100X more cases where companies tried revitalizing old brands, hiring new CMOs and advertising agencies and throwing big money in advertising hoping to rebuild a great brand even when if there wasn't a relevant product or service or a sound business model behind the it.

For those fashion companies, it is about hiring the right designer (call Tom Ford or Marc Jacob) and for other businesses, whom do you call? The designer often viewed as the critical component to reengineering a brand, and total attention must be paid to the brand in an effort to return to its essence and reason for being successful in the first place. It used to be case that you can recruit a top CMO and things will work out. This is not working anymore. You need a master strategist, a great storyteller and a change agent, all in one person (call Indra Nooyi or Steve Jobs). In fashion, you go back to the essence of the brand. In other business what do you do? How do you rediscover your core or find a new core?

Successful transformation and re-Invention rests on two major premises: first, that our time is characterized by a rare confluence of new behavior and economic disruption, and second, that the "new global reality" is turning toward a "whole new emphasis on innovation" . I was speaking to a group of graduating Ivey MBAs on global strategy. You can check them out at slideshare on the bottom right. This is another post next week.

Apple Is Pushing The Limits Of "Interactivity" And Going 3D. Watch Out Nintendo!

Apple is going to push the limits of “interactivity” and planning to go 3D. Using a camera to detect a user's position and overlay it onto an any on-screen object, giving the impression of a "reflection" and creating a more immerse experience. Apple's latest technology would address that through the use of a camera or appropriate "sensing mechanism."

Apple is filing a patent on this innovation. The technology is capable of defining the visual properties of different types of surfaces and decide on how well it would reflect light. Using this, images of the user and their environment could be recreated on the screen with effects added. "Using the detected position of the user, the electronic device may use any suitable approach to transform the perspective of three-dimensional objects displayed on the display," the application reads. "For example, the electronic device may use a parallax transform by which three-dimensional objects displayed on the screen may be modified to give the user the impression of viewing the object from a different perspective."

"To further enhance the user's experience, the detected environment may be reflected differently along curved surfaces of a displayed object (e.g. as if the user were actually moving around the displayed object and seeing his reflection based on his position and the portion of the object reflecting the image." It's a kind of a virtual reality, crossing over the real world with a digitally created one, but giving the visual perception that an object is real.

This provide game developers new ways to use their imagination to come up with new games that cross the two worlds. It is a direct challenge to Wii. Nintendo has a lot to worry about. Gaming will go 3D very soon. The Blu-ray Disc Association released its finalized 3D specifications. 3D playback will be "display agnostic," meaning that the format will be compatible across "any compatible 3D display." What exactly a "compatible 3D display" is still an unknown, but I believe we need to get a new TV to watch 3D. PS3 is probably ahead in the game.

Is Best Buy Ready To ReInvent Big Box Retailing? Or Are They Too Busy Thinking About Competing With Wal-Mart And Amazon?

There is a Business Week article about how Best Buy is now flexing its market power to help manufacturers and brand owners to develop more marketable products. As the last standing consumer electronic retailers, now they don’t have much direct competition, but instead will be competing with two of the most hyper-efficient retail systems on earth – Walmart and Amazon. 

Best Buy’s CEO Dunn has a vision and ambitious plans to play this game. The big box retailer business model needs reinvention and there is not enough value from selling LCD TVs and PCs. Best Buy needs to be the gatekeeper or tastemaker of consumer electronics. They need to turn their retail stores into giant consumer labs. That way they can shape, influence and even participate in development of new product and service platforms. It makes sense that the big consumer electronics companies won’t like the idea. They want to see the retailers to be reduced to just a distribution channel with little market power. That is not going to happen. 

Best Buy will continue experimenting new ways to engage and enlighten consumers and grow its influences along the way. The big box retailer has optimized their format over the years by using clustering instead of standardized format. It has revamped hundred of stores, introducing "customer-centric" formats to appeal to local shoppers. Can Best Buy reinvent retail economics just as Apple did? Apple retail miracles have proved to be exportable. They broke every rule of retail economics.

Apple's Regent Street store (London) has become a tourist attraction in its own right. Most important it takes £2,000 per square foot. Compare to high-end department store such as Harrods or Harvey Nicols which is making about £700-£750 per square foot, while Topshop in Oxford Circus takes about £1,000 per square foot. Other high traffic electrical retailers average about £700 per square foot. 

The most interesting thing about Best Buy’s strategy is the digital service platform; this one is not as easy. Blockbuster has gone down that path quite unsuccessfully. Best Buy bought online music service Napster a year ago and then took a stake in CinemaNow, Sonic Solution's movie-streaming service. I think they need a lot of more thinking to play in this complex landscape with Apple and Sony seeing this as their core. Thais is what Kai Patel, Best Buy EVP for emerging business is thinking all the time. Wal-Mart and Amazon has a slight cost advantage over Best Buy. Adding Costco and many other online retailers. Best Buy can never compete purely on cost. Best Buy has no choice but to rethink what unique differentiated customer experience can help transform Best Buy with its 1,000 plus stores. 

What innovative new services that can create high margin revenue stream? What digital platforms they can effective build and effectively compete? What are the top three strategic partners (you've to pick your friends)? What is Best Buy new role in supporting product development? If Best Buy is a consumer electronics middle ware, what would they do? Can Best Buy effectively serve the unmet needs of small/medium businesses? What's Best Buy strategy for connective health care? What are the strategic options for redesigning and reinvention of current format? And does Best Buy needs a cool brand like Apple that separates the store from the products? It is probably easier to design a cooler brand than making Best Buy cool.I can go on and on. In the age of rampant consumerism – desire-driven market – Best Buy has a lot of rethinking to do.

Should Banks Get Into Virtual Currencies? I Want My Facebook Savings Account.

Facebook’s Gareth Davis said at the GamesBeat conference in San Francisco earlier this year that Facebook is “looking at” a virtual currency, that makes perfect sense. Is is a pure virtual currency or is it kind of a dual currency, meaning including real money? A Facebook currency can facilitate a lot of new behaviors. A virtual currency and payment ecosystem has already been slowly growing within Facebook over the last 2 years.

Virtual currencies do exist today, either through offer providers such as OfferPal, Super Rewards, Peanut Labs, and Gambit, direct credit card or Paypal/Amazon/Google payments through providers like Jambool and Spare Change, or mobile payments through providers like Zong and Paymo. But a Facebook currency is one step forward.

China is taking virtual currency very seriously. China worries that “virtual” game money could affect its ability to control its money supply. So virtual currencies are now regulated in China, probably not by the central bank. No kidding. It has yet to become part of G7 agenda. There is a reason for the concern. Last year, nearly $2 billion in virtual currency was traded in China, according to the China Internet Network Information Center. Some experts say they believe there is a much larger underground economy in the virtual world. People are trading things.

What about currency exchange? In the first quarter of 2010, social sites IMVU and MyYearbook will launch a virtual currency exchange allowing users from either service to exchange currency between the sites. This is a small step. Currency Connect is billed as a "cross property virtual currency exchange" system similar to how you would change US dollars into Japanese Yen, But, it does make me wonder whether a bank or credit card company should get into the game. How about a standard online currency? Someone we can use to invest and earn interest online? I want to sell my CafeWorld in Facebook if the price is right.

Bottom-line Human Resource Management, Visible Leadership And Hot Pink.

These are photos from our Christmas party last Friday. It was a good one when people have the opportunities to get to know each other, unfortunately due to the snow storm a few cannot make it because their flights were canceled.

I was often asked the question "how do you build a high performance culture?". The answer is simple. Assemble the best minds, create a high performance environment and encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration. It is no secret formula. but not easy to pull off. I’ve long decided earlier in my career that I only work with the best, hire the best and train them to be the best. The idea of “mediocrity” kills me. This word is not in my dictionary and I shouldn’t know how to spell it.

At Idea Couture, we are careful of who we hire, we received 30-40 unsolicited applications every month, not many have the aspiration, quality and commitment to be the best. If you ask some of us, it is more than just hard work. Most companies don’t understand talent. Money, titles and fancy offices are hardly the solution. If someone likes the glorification of a glorified title and a bit more money, that says something about a person. Who wants to join as first officer when everyone knows the ship is sinking?

In good times investing in talent seems to make sense and can be done on faith. But it's in the tough, and challenging environment where how and where you invest can really make a difference. We need to be always thinking about how do we get smart and align talent management with business performance. Cornell’s Professor Gary Fields coined the term "bottom-line human resource management." In his view, truly strategic human resources starts with the targeted business performance results and determines what investments and actions will achieve them. Many HR practices fail to do that. Many HR focus is on paper pushing rather than action and impact.

People work for people-not brands, not companies, not shareholders, not strategies. Your leaders are your organizations to your people. Your leadership team is crucial. One bad decision of getting a wrong person joining the leadership team can cause heavy damage.

Leadership needs to be visible, highly visible. When leaders practice invisible leaderships, people not only lose confidence but they will become cynical. Leadership presence is very important. Visible leaders also need to be approachable leaders. People need to feel comfortable coming to a leader when they are dealing with a very tough situation or admitting a mistake.

It is our jobs as leaders to find the best opportunities for our best people. Great talents want great opportunities. They want the chance to tackle bigger problems and bigger challenges. They love the excitement of being able to stretch, learn and grow. They are comfortable to accept their weaknesses and positively work towards improving them. As leaders, it is our responsibilities to find opportunities, you cannot delegate that to someone else.

I don’t know how the hot pink became part of our corporate ID color. I guess since I first used it in some our presentations earlier in the year and everyone is liking it. It sort of just happened. People are jokingly saying we are the McKisney consultants in black suit and pink socks. I forgot who said that. This is the Moleskine book that we sending out to our clients. I do like the pink on black very much. Thanks Jess fo the design.

Hot pink is a popular color these days, even Kenton County jail is using that for their uniform. The traditional orange prison jump suits were replaced with hot pink ones. You want to know why? The switch was prompted one Sunday afternoon last year when Col. Scott Colvin, chief deputy jailer, was looking from his office window toward Paul Brown Stadium and noticed all the Cincinnati Bengals fans decked out in orange. “I thought, ‘Man, if someone got away from here, they’d score a hot dog and get away,”  

I know hot pink is in. I didn't realize it is that hot.

Google's Goggles: From Visual Search To Face Search. What's Next?

What’s next in search? From text-based search to audio search and now coming to search-by-sight? What-you-see-is-what you-can-search is an interesting idea. It will be soon be available for smart phones and Google's Chrome browser. So what exactly does it do? Imagine you can point a phone on a product you saw in a store, searches on that would display including reviews, prices and availability etc. This will be a killer app.

This Google’s toy project, according to Google engineer Xiuduan Fang is about image-based search, "I am working on a 20% project to facilitate the input of Web image searching. Chrome extension for Web Goggles.” Just in case you don’t know, the 20% figure refers to a Google program that permits engineers to devote a fifth of their time to whatever they think is cool. The idea that you can drag an image into a box and search results will be shown. Google Goggles currently is available as an application for phones running Google's Android OS, but they are working to release other versions, too. A Web browser interface would expand the service's availability beyond phones.

There are plenty of situations where you might want to point your phone at a subject while out and about. Imagine in a wine store, in the supermarket, in a department store or electronic stores. What it does is they compare an uploaded image to a database of billions Google has collected and analyzed. Just like those facial recognition software they used in CSI. It can recognize landmarks and read the text of any products, but until Google works out privacy controls it doesn't make use of its ability to recognize faces. I can see law enforcement people holding up those phones in train stations and airports. Is that a good idea?

Here’s a better application: Drag a photo of your exboyfriend or girlfriend into Facebook’s Goggles and it will show you hundreds of faces that resemble your ex and help you to look for replacement. You can then invite to your Facebook CafeWorld and get to know them a bit more. Just in case you’re curious of how those software works. Our faces have numerous, distinguishable landmarks, the different peaks and valleys that make up facial features. These landmarks are defined as nodal points. Each human face has approximately 80 nodal points. Some of these measured by the software are: distance between the eyes ;width of the nose depth of the eye sockets; The shape of the cheekbones and the length of the jaw line These nodal points are measured creating a numerical code, called a faceprint, representing the face in the database. Camera angle and light variance can create a bit of a problem.

Another applications that I think makes sense is ATM and credit card security. The software is able to quickly verify a customer's face. After a customer consents, the ATM or check-cashing kiosk captures a digital image of him. The FaceIt software then generates a faceprint of the photograph to protect customers against identity theft and fraudulent transactions. By using the facial recognition software, there's no need for a picture ID, bankcard or personal identification number (PIN) to verify a customer's identity. This can definitely cut down cedit card fraud.

Sex And Creativity. Is There A Connection? Study Shows Number Of Sexual Partners Correspond To Creative Output.

Creative people are fun. Creative people are likeable. But many creative minds are unorganized and sometimes deficient in handling complex logic. Some creative minds are highly analytical too, although the processing was sort of in the back and you don’t see it.

Creative people are more social than others. Here’s a case in point. Psychologists at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and the Open University found that professional artists and poets have about twice as many sexual partners as other people. The study also shows that the average number of sexual partners increased as creative output went up. So the more creative you are, the more sexual partners you should have. You tell me if this true. Now I understand so many people wants to be a creative director.

More on creativity and sex drive. The desire to be creative or feel creative, whether expressed in music, industrial design, art, fashion or photography or film, coexists with the primal urge to commit the sex act, and other layers in between. It is like onions that we have many layers. What if your desire for sex is weak, does it mean you are less creative than others? If you buy the above argument, then this should the case. When sex is suppressed in some cultures, does this in effect force the libido up into "higher" forms, and thereby further enhance creativity? I don’t know.

I believe our creative motivations are often based on some of our most primal passions, such as joy, fear, anger, love and lust. In an article Creative Juice – A Dozen Key Lessons for Creative Dreamers, Suzanne Falter-Barns quotes Deepak Chopra: “Creativity is ultimately sexual – I’m sorry — but it is!” I am not a Chopra’s fan, he may be right this time. Love and lust makes us think differently in that it triggers global processing, which in turn promotes creative thinking. Love and lust are good for creativity.

The Dirty (Open) Secret That Drives Technology Adoption - Pornography.

Pornography is always a problem with today’s technology. I am not passing judgment but the easy access is causing some problems. For the adult video rental store, it is easy to manage. The storekeeper just kicks out any curious kids out of the shops. In the world of mobile, it is not so easy. They say porn and technology has always worked together so well because each meets the needs of the other. Nerd needs anorak.

Some see the opportunity and come up with the idea of a Droid phone. Neither Google's official Android Store nor Apple's iPhone App Store sells any porn apps, a new store, MiKandi was launched to fill the unmet needs. MiKandi has launched a mobile app store that will exclusively cater to adults whose interest is in erotic art if you want to call it that. They plan to port its app to BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices as well as Java-compatible mobile phones next year.

The store offers adult content, but you won't be able to access it with your iPhone. Oh, we knew this was going to happen. So let's just get it over with. Someone's trying to make a lot of money from cell phone porn. Next time people are watching videos on their Blackberries, don’t assume that it is CNN news. The MiKandi Market apps only work with Android phones and not with Apple (or other more morally minded handsets). Adult what is adult is another question. But this is about open source.

The business model? The application attempts to create a red light district for adult Android apps allowing adult content providers to set up shop within a MiKandi app. They promise little to no censorship when it comes to "controversial" apps, except in cases when the law is being broken. Remember this is not just content, these applications can be anything.

We all know how adult video rental fueled the mass adoption of the VHS as well as the Internet. Many early Internet porn start-ups make money day one. Now the porn industry is considering which HD format to adapt. Still, if the porn industry sides with HD-DVD, it would hardly signal a death knell for Blu-ray. From a console perspective, which disc format the porn industry ultimately chooses won't have nearly as big an impact as could a decision by one of the console makers (Microsoft or Sony) to open up its console to a wider variety of digital video formats, coupled with a highly compatible web browser -- currently PS3 has the edge, but the machine is far from perfect. I don’t want to see porn directly downloadable onto a game console, a bad idea.

US Federal campaigns against the porn industry are a relatively recent innovation -- largely because the current incarnation of the porn industry is itself a recent innovation. 40 years ago, the porn industry was effectively below the radar and small. A demimonde of grainy stag films and sleazy peep shows, porn was ghettoized in red-light districts. In 1973, when the Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in Miller v. California. (Miller defined "obscenity," in part, as material that an "average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find offensive.)

By incorporating "community standards" into the test for obscenity, Miller presumed that porn was a local problem, to be dealt with by local communities. But quickly porn was evolving into a full-blown industry with a mass market. This is a difficult one, the Internet or mobile internet is a global thing, the community standards vary from France, Denmark to India and Japan. Expect to see more innovation around pornography in the mobile age - Porn 2.0.

Everytime You Search On Google, You Are Adding To The Consumtion Of 1% Of The World's Energy.

Here is one not commonly known fact, we know massive data center use up tons of energy just for cooling, in any typical data center only 40-45% of energy use is for the actual computing -- the rest is used mostly for cooling down the servers. Data centers' emissions of carbon dioxide have been running at around one third of those of airlines, but are growing 10% a year and now approach levels of entire countries such as Argentina or the Netherlands.

Apple is building its own server farm. Apple has secured a $300 million tax cut from North Carolina politicians in exchange for investing $1 billion over nine years for a so-called technology “hub.” Wonder why Apple needs such a big server farm? There’s only one reason, Apple is contemplating a large-scale strategic shift to deliver multiple applications as a service on an enhanced Apple device, which I think will be entertainment related.

Back to the energy saving topic, here’s one of the greenest data center on earth which will be housed in a massive cave beneath an orthodox Christian cathedral in Helsinki. It is a former bomb shelter carved into the rock by the fire brigade in World War Two as a refuge for city officials from Russian air raids. Excess heat from hundreds of computer servers will be captured and fed into the district’s heating network, a system of water-heated pipes used to warm homes in the city. This makes perfect sense and I don’t see why these server farms need to be in California. Should we move all our servers to Scandinavia, Northern Canada and Alaska?

Data centers such as those run by Google already use around 1% of the world's energy, and their demand for power is rising fast with the trend to outsource computing. Every time you search on Google, you are adding to the consumption of that 1%. Research firm Gartner issued four recommendations for improving energy management for corporations:

• Raise the temperature at the server inlet point up to 71 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit (24 degrees Celsius), but use sensors to monitor potential hotspots.
• Develop a dashboard of datacenter energy-efficient metrics that provides appropriate data to different levels of IT and financial management.
• Use the SPECpower benchmark to evaluate the relative energy efficiency of servers.
• Improve the use of the existing infrastructure through consolidation and virtualization before building out or buying new/additional datacenter floor space.

Some called this the Moore’s Law of data centers, the growth of cooling requirements parallels the growth of computing power, which roughly doubles every 18 months. That has brought the energy challenge of data centers to the top of the list. Have you come across any innovation allows waste heat from servers or data centers to be recycled (or managed) in a non-traditional way that conserves energy? There must be a solution.

The Banking Industry Is At Its Industry Breakpoint. Industry Transformation Is Now In The Making.

We are finally reaching the end of the financial turmoil; it was bad but not as bad as anything close to the great depression. China is a key factor although many are skeptical. The dilemma facing Beijing will be to balance the use of its huge foreign reserves to boost its own slowing domestic economy against continuing buying U.S. Treasury bills. As the second-largest holder of U.S. Treasury bills, China will inevitably end up financing the $700 billion bailout plan ultimately went to the banks and auto industries.

If China chooses to stop buying U.S. securities, or even to sell off its holdings, the effects could be devastating; there are no reasons why they won’t continue to finance their biggest customer. It is like walking into a dealership buying a car and they won’t lend you the money to make a sale. For now, Beijing seems willing to help maintain U.S. financial stability and continue to purchase government-backed treasury bills. It also announced a $586 billion national infrastructure program, the largest stimulus effort ever undertaken by the Chinese government to lift its economy.

For the banks and other financial services, it is time to start thinking forward, time to deal with new realities. Suddenly an industry that was traditionally recognized, as stable now needs to rethink their business architecture. What lessons they can learn from others that can help bankers to reframe, rethink and reinvent the future.

With times of change, bank executives and corporate strategist need to think, work and execute beyond the the normal - to drive the banking industry into uncharted paths and directions and be better equipped as change agents. There are a lot of complex problems to solve, trust to rebuild and new meanings to drive and support organizational change. No longer is yesterday’s “normal” the standard or all your benchmarking is a throwaway. Imagining and leading in the future requires a deeper involvement to tackle the daily issues and the big picture issues.

How banking and the personal financial services might respond post turmoil? Understanding this shift requires banks to likewise shift, to reinvent themselves by rethinking architecture, products, customer experiences and relationships. Here are some possible approaches: Bankers should redesign their product development approach and process so they can be more agile and responsive to rapidly changing market needs.

• Bankers should replace their mass-market thinking and start thinking individual segments. It is time to write off some of those millions of (sunk) investments of useless CRM systems.They need to out serious effort in creating differentiated products and services. They need to figure out how to attach meanings and emotions to financial products.
• Bankers should sort help to rethink product platforms completely differently than before, re- emphasizing capital preservation over aggressive cross-selling of investment products. Banking must relentlessly eliminate complexity in all products and services. What’s simplicity means for personal financial services is a good starting point. Making sure relevancy, value and convenience are the core of the value equation.

• Bankers should revisit the fundamental design of internal processes. From product development to product and service integration, there are plenty of broken links. Bankers must re-design risk management at a model level, not just relying on models with a normal distribution curve of risk, they need to reassess risk algorithms to deal with abnormal market periods.
• Bankers need to accept and prepare for more government involvement. Example is Credit Card issuers need to revamp internal systems and overhaul how they communicate with customers and it will spread to other financial service products. The new rules limit fees, restrict changes to interest rates etc.
• And for Swiss bankers, this is the end of Swiss banking as we know it. No bank will be shielded by the banking secrecy anymore with the diplomatic showdown between the US and Switzerland. Swiss banks will race to rethink their value propositions and market positioning.

The list is non-exhaustive and I can write another 10 pages. But need to get back to my day job and have some rest, my jet lag from the Asian trip is killing me.