Although the-then US Secretary of Defense was mocked at the time for his comments, we believe that he was quite right to observe that ‘There are known knowns; … We also know there are known unknowns; … But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know. …it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.’
DVC exists to help companies to understand and respond effectively to the ‘unknown unknowns’ that might affect their business.In order to future-proof and support the long-term strategy for that business. –
Change is not new – as Heraclitus pointed out, ‘all things are in a state of flux’. What seems to be different today, however, is that change is much more volatile and harder to predict. Who for example,would have anticipated that the British Government might actually speculate about deliberately breaking the law? Change is becoming much more dynamic and disruptive – what we call ‘anarchic flux’. Our role is to help our clients to address the challenges that this poses for their businesses: how does the leadership and organisation of a company need to alter to be able to be the disruptors, not the disrupted. We call the proprietary approach we use to help clients the L.O.A.F Programme (Leadership and Organisation in Anarchic Flux). This has 3 phases:
1. Understanding
We help clients understand the real challenge they face. Quite often the apparent issue is not actually the real issue. In doing this we build on our range of experience which encompasses social science, brand development, international relations, and IT.
2. Strategy
On the back of our analysis, we work with the client to develop a comprehensive strategy to respond to the challenges identified. This will be integrated with existing strategies and business processes to ensure that it is embedded.
3. Execution
We support all relevant functions of a client’s business to implement the strategy smoothly and effectively. This may include, inter alia internal process and system design, stakeholder engagement, thought leadership and brand roll-out.
There may well be other agencies which will claim to do this. However, what makes us unique is that our people have made careers in disruption – we know what it is to understand and address highly challenging issues, sometimes in very volatile environments. For example, our people have:
- As far back as 1998 we were advising pioneering corporates on their very first environmental impact statements under the title of Social Responsibility Reporting and have helped them on every stage of their sustainability journey since
- We’ve published ground-breaking thought pieces predicting and addressing subjects such as the sharing economy, power of the pressure group, evolution of e-commerce and the impact of social media on the corporate conscience and agenda
- In particularly difficult political circumstances we’ve guided organisations through negotiations with mafia behaviours on their business in the Balkans, the inter-governmental issues driven by Boko Haram in Nigeria, and disasters such as the Costa Concordia
Our contributions span development of new understandings and the normalisation of agendas within a business. Digital transformation, attracting high performing employees, knowledge retention and sharing are regular aspects of our engagement work. Helping to curate strategies to define excellence and propagate effective ideation cultures is a specialism we have developed working with senior management and Boards, and cascading throughout global teams.
L.O.A.F has recently been used to create the FinTech disruptor banktotal, which is focused on bringing shariah-compliant banking to the underbanked and unbanked in Indonesia and Africa. It uses disruptive technologies including blockchain, cloud-based technology systems and biometric identification, to streamline retail banking for these emerging economies.
If you would like to discuss how we might help your business disrupt rather than be disrupted contact on meg@dvcconsultants.com
About the authors:
Quentin Anderson is Executive Chairman, DVC Consultants and CEO and Co-Founder of BankTotal. He has decades of experience in advising companies, and for 18 years was a CEO of companies in the WPP group.
q.anderson@dvcconsultants.com
www.dvcconsultants.com www.banktotal.org
Thought Leadership- Cogitare
Cogitare-The Latin for “To Think, ” is the collective name for DVC Consultants thoughts, insights and perspectives on a broad and eclectic number of subjects. From Brexit to Global Poverty, Islamic Banking to Subsistence Agriculture, Disruptive Technologies to The World Bank. It reflects the wide range of sectors and issues we consult on. We hope you enjoy reading them.
DVC Consultants: Exploring unknown unknowns since 1995
0 Comments