Compass360 Consulting's Predictions and Prognostications.

Source: wikimedia.org

Following is our list of 12 predictions for 2011:

• Certain regions in the U.S. economy (especially N.Y. city, certain parts of New York state, Colorado, Texas, and Washington State) are on the up-shift;
• Netflix will temporarily hit its threshold of saturation;
• The New England Patriots will obviously play in the 2011 Super Bowl;
• IPTV will continued to be the hot technology while the use of cable technology continues to decline;
• Digital publishing of high-tech books will overtake its printed counterparts;
• The incremental use of automated processes and robotics in the service economy;
• Gold surpassing the $1500 barrier while the value of the U.S. dollar continues to drop;
• The rising prices of batteries, hybrid cars and other high-technology products that use batteries;
• The rising prices of various energy sources, commodities (wheat, oil, cocoa, copper, etc) and food;
• The rise of more state government driven user fees;
• The continuing drop of housing prices at various U.S regions; and
• Chinese software companies introducing their brand of web software to western countries.

Interestingly, one can only expect the political blow back from the rising prices to be quite brutal in 2012.

To the well-informed, most of them are obvious. The key is to take advantage of those points before it becomes a prevailing reality.

Here are some more interesting but obvious predictions regarding to the cyber economy from McAfee Labs, Cisco and an Infoworld's columnist. (updated on 12.31.10)

In our cyber economy, most of us are overwhelmed with many dots of information. Identifying the crisises and the opportunities is always the challenge for most people. The successful opportunity finders are those experienced people who can filter the order from the disorder and determine what are the priorities.

Following are the keys to finding the order:

• View the big tangible picture in terms of the terrain, its cycles and the people within it;
• Recognize the relevant strategic factors (dots);
• Examine the connections between the events, the people and the ideas;
• Analyze the integrity of the data; and
• Deliberate the preliminary decision.

We believed that having a comprehensive strategic process is how one becomes effective in a complex world.

We always meet people who know the current state of their surroundings. However, the majority of them rarely understand the cause and the effect of their situation and the rate of change. Without properly understanding the risk-consequences of their situation, they usually take their circumstances for granted.

When a negative event impacts them, they rarely understand the cause of it. Their usual response is to grind out the course of the situation. This decision usually takes a great quantity of time, effort and resources.

Those who anticipate the on-coming causes, are usually ahead of the herd. They are so prepared that they rarely lose their focus of their time, their energy and their resources.

The successful people are those who frequently connect the dots and reap the rewards. They are usually ahead of the curve.

Summary

Following are some questions for you to think about:

• Do you know the strategic factors that connect you with your vendors, your clients, your alliance and your competition?
• If you know your grand settings, how do you take advantage of it?
• Do you know the current and the future profit opportunities that are within your competitive terrain? If so, what are you doing about it?

By understanding the significant connections with the big tangible picture, one gains insights to do the following:

• Maximizing on new profit opportunities;
• Minimizing on current costs; and
• Ensuring quality

Conclusively, he/she will work smarter not harder.

If you are interested in learning more about our strategic process, please contact us at:

http://www.formspring.me/Compass360CG

Predictions and Prognostications

The trademark of a very good strategist is to know the big tangible picture and predict the future.

Click here to discover IBM's San Jose forecast of the future.

From the NYT, forecasters and policy makers predicted an economy recovery.

The Sign of the Times: The Slow Decline of Silicon Valley

"The world under heaven, after a long period of division, tends to unite; after a long period of union, tends to divide. This has been so since antiquity. " - Romance of the Three Kingdoms

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The Current State of Silicon Valley

The slow economic decay of Silicon Valley is the sign of the times.

The possibilities of California ever returning to the foundation that made Silicon Valley great, are quite low. The economic influences of our global economy have changed the approach of manufacturing anything innovative in California.

We will focused on this interesting matter in a later post.

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Other Topics: The Trends of the Virtual Economy

Social networking, e-commerce and online-game companies are the hot virtual businesses. ...

In our information economy, there are a ton of amateurish ideas that are being touted. While, the venture capitalists support some of these aspirations and the global consumers are willing to use some of it and sometimes purchase it, one can conclude that there is some value to those ideas.

Sooner or later, this cycle of virtual illusion will terminate. The stronger companies will prevail. It is only a matter of time. ...

A Pragmatic View on the Participants of the Virtual Marketplace

If (or when) the economic state of the virtual players ever declines, will he or she be able to afford the rising cost of food and so forth. Are they willing to eat their ipod and pda for lunch and supper? Will they eat their virtual steak and salad from their face book page? Will the food critics offer lessons on the type of digital wine that they should drink with their virtual food?. ...

Suggestions

For those who are interested in unique holiday gifts:

We suggested the following items:

• Chinese cultural items from Of Course Lion Source;
• Chinese tea from Red Blossom Tea;
• Chinese culture books from Dr. Roger T. Ames;
• Strategy and Leadership books from Mark McNeilly;
• Chinese strategy books from Dr. Ralph D. Sawyer;
• Books on consulting, technical project leadership, problem-solving and writing from Gerald M. Weinberg_(His books are also available in the e-book format.);
• Mind mapping software from Mindjet; and
• Interesting desktop programming tools from IDM

[DISCLAIMER] We are not compensated for suggesting these items.

Wishing Happy Holidays to our readers

--- Compass360 Consulting Group

A Macro Approach of Strategic Implementation (1)

About three to five years ago, we heard about a major dilemma where a grand organization (Competitor A) was being outmaneuvered in the global marketplace by an upstart rival (Competitor B). This upstart was utilizing a combinational approach of the various strategic principles (from the Art of War and other strategic classics) and the "GO (weiqi) game" approach of encircling their opposition in their various business ventures.

Macro economic numbers tell us that the winning streak  of the Competitor B has been extended. We presumed that they are continually using this unique strategic approach.

We will comment on this topic later next year.

Questions for Our Reading Audience

If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing. - W. Edwards Deming

Here are nine questions for you to think about?

1. What is your compass for making strategic decisions?
2. Has your Big picture of profit opportunities enabled you to connected to the Big Tangible Picture of shifts and changes?
3. Are you able to manage multi-strategic situations and variables with no problems?
4. Do you prefer a simple strategic criteria or some sort of technology as your foundation for making good decision?
5. Better yet, does your technology properly support your decision-making process?
6. Lets presumed that your process has helped you maximize your profit opportunities. What is your current success rate?
7. Is your success number comparable to your competition?
8. Are you able to decide with fearlessness?
9. In summary, did we get you thinking?

Becoming Effective in a Complex World

Strategically, we all want to be effective. Being effective means that we can maximize our profits while minimizing our operating costs concurrently. It also enables us to (almost) to almost always be ahead of the competition and the market curve. The challenge is having the strategic process and the execution prowess to be effective, 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week.

Within the confines of our information economy, the world has become more fluid and quite dynamic. One point changes another and so forth. Suddenly, a major event alters the objectives and the approach of many at another point of our globe.

For example, a major political and/or economic occurrence that started from the shores of Asia now prevents a prompt delivery of a major item for a small company located in Washington state. Not only does it alters the economic state of their current and future objectives, the revenue base could be affected for many months.

Should this company have anticipated it? If so, do they have the leadership and the resources to counter the change? Is it better to respond or to react to it? ... It depends greatly on their strategic and situational experience.

You can comprehend the big picture from a top down view by doing the following:

• Recognize the current state of the terrain and the competitors within it;
• Examine the operational direction of the terrain;
• Analyze the reliability of the data; and
• Determine the strategic positioning of the terrain.

Identifying the ebb and flow and the causation of the big picture is also significant. It enables one to know where he/she stand within it.

There are more detailed steps to the Compass process. (We will touch on those steps later.)

Summary

If one can assess the strategic scope of your marketplace and the contending competitors within it, he/she would know the illusions and the reality within the terrain. By knowing the correct categories of market intelligence (the economic numbers, the logistic numbers, etc.) and assuring the veracity of the data, one can predict their strategic actions and their contingencies. The probability and the possibility of their strategic positioning becoming an advantage increases.

We will focus on this matter in a later post and in our future book.

Strategy Statistics (1)

"90% of strategies fail due to poor execution. ..." - Harvard Business School research

We believed that the origin of this problem begins in the poor understanding of the following three points:

• the "assessment of the market terrain" process;
• the "positioning of oneself through the planning and preparation" process; and
• the "influencing of the terrain and the competition within it.

One cannot plan and execute when he/she does not understand their market terrain and beyond. Do you agree?

We will discuss more about those big points in our future book.

A Simple Contest

We will give a paperback copy of Ralph Sawyer's Essence of War to the first person who can explain to us the conceptual parallels and the technical differences between Jiang Tai Gong's Six Secret Teachings and Sunzi's Art of War. It must be technically specific. The end date for this contest is the 1st of Jan. 2011. If there is a tie, we will either draw straws or flip a coin.

We will print the winning answer at the end of Jan. 2011 or the early part of Feb 2011. If none of the participants provide the correct answer, we will stage a similar contest or a different contest at a later date. We will give the correct answer sometime in 2011.

You can send your answer via this channel. Please include your email address. If you win, we will e-mail you a request for your mailing address. We are committed not to spam you or anyone with any marketing messages from us (Realistically, we have never send any marketing spam to anyone. We have a larger endeavor to complete.). At the conclusion of this contest, all sent e-mail addresses will be deleted from our archives.

Good luck in your participation and thanks for your time and your attention.