What's in a Metaphor, Part I

I mentioned in my previous post that I am writing a book on strategy implementation and business architecture. It is based on an approach that we have used successfully with several clients over the years. These clients, in industries as diverse as utilities, telecommunications and automotive, saw themselves confronted with the destructive power of market liberalisation or deregulation. We helped these companies to address these threats by pro-actively aligning their business- and IT-architecture with their new strategic reality through the implementation of modular architectures. So, when in 2003 a colleague mentioned the term 'tsunami' to describe the kind of change these companies faced, we felt we had found our metaphor. From there it was only a small step to the book's working title: Taming the Wave, Dealing with Tsunamis in Business. But everything changed on Sunday, December 26th, 2004...

In the past, the term 'tsunami' has been used in business literature as a metaphor for what is called disruptive change. This suggests that it is only the magnitude and nature of the change that determines whether or not we are dealing with a tsunami. In our book, however, we planned to use a narrower definition of tsunamis, namely:

A tsunami is a (set of) change(s) of a discontinuous nature, that is imposed by external forces and over which (very) limited control can be exerted. Left unaddressed, a tsunami is likely to have devastating impact on both the strategy and architecture (organizational structure, processes and information systems) of a company.

Apart from the regulatory tsunamis we had been dealing with at client companies, we recognized two other types, namely technology and business model tsunamis. But that was before that fatal Boxing day in Asia...

As soon as the scale of destruction and the number of casualties became evident we decided to drop the tsunami metaphor, in deferrence to the 150,000+ victims and their families. Though this was no hard decision at all, it did mean that we had to start looking for a new metaphor to use in our book. This Thursday we will have our first brainstorm in order to find one that is not associated with such massive loss of life.

On a slightly lighter note, I would like to call your attention to something that I found somewhat freaky. Last Thursday, January 6, all media in the Netherlands joined forces and organized a National fundraising campaign for Asia. They were able to raise a total of 112 million euro, which is of course fantastic for a small country like the Netherlands. 'So, what's freaky about that?', you may ask. Well, 112 is the national emergency number in the Netherlands, like 911 in the U.S.. Things like this make me wonder whether there is any truth in numerology ;-)

New Year's Resolution

January 2, 2005. Time to live up to one of my New Year resolutions and start a blog. As suggested by its title, I plan to use this blog to share with the RoW my musings on all things business that I happen to come across in my daily work as a management consultant with Quintel Management Consulting (www.quintel.nl) in the Netherlands. Add to that the fact that I am a bit of a business junkie in the sense that I am an ardent reader of business books, magazines (BusinessWeek, Economist, Harvard Business Review, etc.) and e-letters (i.e. Harvard's Working Knowledge and Knowledge@Wharton) and you'll probably begin to understand the scope of my blog. I will use this blog to structure my own thoughts, share ideas and reflect on them, call your attention to interesting articles, books or developments. I am particularly curious to get your comments and feedback on these 'musings'.

I won't use my blog as a diary and won't comment directly on any assignments at hand. Nor will I disclose any client names or data. Furthermore, any views put forward in this blog are my own and are not necessarily shared by my colleagues at Quintel.

Finally, a bit more on myself. I hold an MSc in Electrical Engineering from Delft University of Technology, where I graduated on the design of dedicated architectures. Upon graduation I joined Arthur D. Little, where I worked as a Business Analyst in the Telecommunications, IT, Media and Entertainment (TIME) Practice for 3 years. I left in 1996 to read for an MBA at London Business School, spending one term at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, U.S.A. I returned to Arthur D. Little in 1998, where I was involved in the creation of its European E-Business Centre. When Arthur D. Little filed for Chapter 11 in early 2002, I decided to take a break before moving into a new job. After having worked as a free agent for nearly 2 years, I joined Quintel Management Consulting in November 2003. Quintel is an Arthur D. Little spin-off, started by fifteen colleagues in January 2002. As Quintel's first Principal I am currently preparing a book on strategy implementation and business architecture, due out in 2005. Apart from strategy implementation and business architectures, I am particularly interested in technology and innovation, game theory, systems thinking and strategy dynamics. Hence, it is about these kind of subjects that you will come to read in this blog.