Thursday, 21 October 2010

RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

Fiat Profits Jump on construction equipment sales


Fiat profits jump on construction equipment sales

Fiat diggerFiat has scooped up booming demand for construction equipment in Latin America and Asia
Italian industrial group Fiat has reported a seven-fold jump in profits, after surging farm and building equipment orders offset flat car sales.
The company made 190m euros ($266m, £169m) net profits in the last three months, up from 25m euros a year ago.
Revenues at its agricultural and construction unit jumped 32%, whereas those at its car business were unchanged at 7bn euros.
Fiat plans to split into separate car and non-car businesses in January.

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The demerger is expected to take place on 1 January 2011, and the company is expected to seek shareholder consent for the move on 16 September.
Existing shareholders will receive proportionate ownership of the two new companies.
The non-car company, to be named "Fiat Industrial", will take over the group's assets in the truck, industrial and marine powertrain, and agricultural and construction equipment businesses.
Building and developing
Fiat Group's overall revenues were up 11.9%,according to its third quarter release.
The company raised its full-year revenue forecast for the second quarter running, by 10% to 55bn euros.
It also doubled its full-year profit guidance to 2bn euros.
Construction equipment orders were up 47% on a year ago, led by heavy equipment, with demand strongest in developing markets in Latin America and Asia.
Agricultural equipment orders were also up, with combine harvester sales rising 6%, but tractor sales fell slightly.
Fiat's car components business also did well, increasing its revenues for the quarter 23% versus a year ago, while those at its truck unit - Iveco - were up 15%.
Vans and Maseratis
However, revenues at its automobiles unit were hit by a 25% drop in passenger car sales in Europe.
Among the worst individual markets were Germany, Italy and the UK, all down by between 30% and 40% compared with a year ago.
But the impact was balanced by a rise in orders for higher value vans and other commercial light vehicles.
Meanwhile, Fiat's luxury car lines both reported surging sales, with Maserati up 44% and Ferrari up 13% for the quarter.

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Wednesday, 20 October 2010

Sustainability Change Agent: Three Tips for Changing the World

Sustainability Change Agent: Three Tips for Changing the World

By Deborah Fleischer | December 14th, 2009  2 Comments
Change Agentbig
(all images from Alan AtKisson)
I had the pleasure of attending Sustainable Silicon Valley‘s (SSV) two-day Sustainability Change Agent Training with Alan AtKisson, November 16th and 17th. It was a packed workshop full of information and interactive exercises.  Parts of it fully engaged me and parts of it left me feeling frustrated, so I decided to wait a few weeks before writing about it.  I wanted to see which concepts and tips stuck with me.
AtKisson, a sustainability consultant and author, has built the workshop around the principles explored in his recent book, The ISIS Agreement:  How Sustainability Can Improve Organizational Performance and Transform the World. Chapters 7-10 cover much of the information presented in the workshop.  The unique thing about the training, and where the real learning took place for me, is AtKisson’s interactive approach that included story telling, singing and small group and one-on-one exercises.
More than 70 participants from a range of sectors participated. Sustainability directors from large Silicon Valley companies such as Intel, Yahoo! and Palm, sustainability managers working for municipalities, NGOs and consultants gathered to learn about the ISIS Method–a methodology for transformation that integrates indicators, systems, innovation and strategy.
After letting things percolate a few weeks, my favorite three tips to be a more effective sustainability change include:
1.  Walk the Talk: Personally, I spiral into a pessimistic place at green conferences when I see piles of cardboard and waste piled up in the trash cans after the lunch break.  My thinking is this: if we are expecting others to implement greener practices, we need to go the extra mile to practice what we preach.
In AtKisson’s system, he stresses the importance of understanding the different roles people play within a system. So was I a Change Agent (a person skilled at promoting ideas) when I made the request that our sandwiches be served on a platter, rather than brown paper bags, on day two?  Or was I seen as the Iconoclast, a critic of the status quo?
Kudos to both SSV and our host, Applied Materials, for rising to the occasion and making some simple changes on the second day. While reading the book afterward, I came across Rule 1 in the Code of Ethics for Sustainability Professionals (see page 114):  “Walk the Talk: We cannot promote change in others if we are not striving to exemplify that change in our own personal and professional lives.” If you are planning a green event, take the time to plan it to minimize its impact (if you need some help, here is an older post I did on Six Steps to the Greenest Meetings Possible).
Prymid2. Before Moving Into Action, Look at the Whole System and Identify the Best Leverage Point(s):  One of the best concepts presented in the training was the reminder to step back and spend some time thinking strategically–identify key indicators, understand what is causing key trends and think though the system implications before moving into action.
AtKisson has several frameworks to help organizations think more strategically about systems:
  • The Compass of Sustainability, which integrates the perspectives of natural systems, economy, well-being and society. The tool helps organizations include all these different perspectives when thinking about the future;
  • The ISIS Pyramid, which guides organizations to begin by thinking about data and trends (indicators), to build a map of critical links and connections (systems), to identify the key leverage points in a system and the best way to make change (innovation) and finally to plan carefully how to introduce a new idea in a way that it will thrive and spread (strategy);  and
  • The Amoeba of Cultural Change, a tool for mapping cultural change strategy and planning for successful diffusion of innovations.
Using the issue of water supply in Silicon Valley as the issue of focus, we worked through the ISIS Pyramid process, building understanding and agreement step-by-step. We played with developing simple maps that linked causes and effects within a system. While the maps were a bit of a mess, they did help identify potential leverage points for intervening in the system.
I also liked AtKisson’s framework, based on the innovation diffusion theory of Everett Rogers, that suggests five aspects  that will enhance the likelihood of an idea spreading :
  • Relative advantage–is it a better idea than what exists?;
  • Complexity–a complex idea is harder to spread;
  • Observability–will others see it?;
  • Trialability–can others test it first? and
  • Compatibility-will it fit into the daily flow?
3. Don’t Spend Too Much Energy on the Reactionaries and Curmudgeons:  AtKisson uses the metaphor of an amoeba to reflect the different roles people play within a system and how they affect decisions to adopt, ignore or resist new innovations. Another key tip that is often overlooked in the rush to get things done is to understand the key players within the system you want to impact and be strategic about where to focus your energy.
AmoebaHe has identified a range of roles, including theInnovator, the person who invents a new idea, but is often overly enthusiastic about it; Change Agents,  people skilled at repackaging ideas and convincing people to try or adopt them;Transformers, organizational gatekeepers who are interested in new ideas, but selective about which ones they allow past their filters; andMainstreamers, who tend only to adopt a change when all the incentives line up and when the people around them are all doing the new thing.
Then there are the Controllers. The advice was stay out of their way so they don’t kill an idea too soon! Curmudgeons are pessimistic about change and can zap your energy.
In our simulation, the Iconoclast was so busy loudly complaining about the status quo and the reactionary so effective in opposing the idea, that the change agents and innovators headed off into a corner to work amongst themselves.
While ignoring the Reactionary and Curmugdeon is a solid strategy, don’t forget to bring others along that eventually will be your allies.
The take home message–a Change Agent needs to create alliances with Innovators and Transformers and avoid the negativity of Crumudgeons, Laggards and Reactionaries (see Chapter 9 of the book for more strategies on the Amoeba). AtKisson concludes Chapter 9 by saying, “Life is too short, and the stakes are too high, to waste time trying to sell ideas to people who oppose them, resist them or kill them–or who will sap a Change Agent’s energy.”
On a final note, check out AtKisson’s recently published a essay called Pushing Reset on Sustainable Development, outlining his thoughts on how to continue accelerating sustainable development in an era of financial collapse.
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Deborah Fleischer is president of Green Impact, a strategic environmental consulting practice that helps companies engage employees, strengthen their relationships with stakeholders, develop profitable green initiatives and communicate their successes and challenges. She brings deep expertise in sustainability strategy, stakeholder engagement, program development and written communications. You can follow her occasional tweet @GreenImpact

Why Sustainability Is Now the Key Driver of Innovation - Harvard Business Review


There’s no alternative to sustainable development.
Even so, many companies are convinced that the more environment-friendly they become, the more the effort will erode their competitiveness. They believe it will add to costs and will not deliver immediate financial benefits.
Talk long enough to CEOs, particularly in the United States or Europe, and their concerns will pour out: Making our operations sustainable and developing “green” products places us at a disadvantage vis-à-vis rivals in developing countries that don’t face the same pressures. Suppliers can’t provide green inputs or transparency; sustainable manufacturing will demand new equipment and processes; and customers will not pay more for eco-friendly products during a recession. That’s why most executives treat the need to become sustainable as a corporate social responsibility, divorced from business objectives.
Not surprisingly, the fight to save the planet has turned into a pitched battle between governments and companies, between companies and consumer activists, and sometimes between consumer activists and governments. It resembles a three-legged race, in which you move forward with the two untied legs but the tied third leg holds you back. One solution, mooted by policy experts and environmental activists, is more and increasingly tougher regulation. They argue that voluntary action is unlikely to be enough. Another group suggests educating and organizing consumers so that they will force businesses to become sustainable. Although both legislation and education are necessary, they may not be able to solve the problem quickly or completely.
Executives behave as though they have to choose between the largely social benefits of developing sustainable products or processes and the financial costs of doing so. But that’s simply not true. We’ve been studying the sustainability initiatives of 30 large corporations for some time. Our research shows that sustainability is a mother lode of organizational and technological innovations that yield both bottom-line and top-line returns. Becoming environment-friendly lowers costs because companies end up reducing the inputs they use. In addition, the process generates additional revenues from better products or enables companies to create new businesses. In fact, because those are the goals of corporate innovation, we find that smart companies now treat sustainability as innovation’s new frontier.
Indeed, the quest for sustainability is already starting to transform the competitive landscape, which will force companies to change the way they think about products, technologies, processes, and business models. The key to progress, particularly in times of economic crisis, is innovation. Just as some internet companies survived the bust in 2000 to challenge incumbents, so, too, will sustainable corporations emerge from today’s recession to upset the status quo. By treating sustainability as a goal today, early movers will develop competencies that rivals will be hard-pressed to match. That competitive advantage will stand them in good stead, because sustainability will always be an integral part of development.
It isn’t going to be easy. Enterprises that have started the journey, our study shows, go through five distinct stages of change. They face different challenges at each stage and must develop new capabilities to tackle them, as we will show in the following pages. Mapping the road ahead will save companies time—and that could be critical, because the clock is ticking.

Stage 1: Viewing Compliance as Opportunity

The first steps companies must take on the long march to sustainability usually arise from the law. Compliance is complicated: Environmental regulations vary by country, by state or region, and even by city. (In 2007 San Francisco banned supermarkets from using plastic bags at checkout; San Diego still hasn’t.) In addition to legal standards, enterprises feel pressured to abide by voluntary codes—general ones, such as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, and sector-specific ones, such as the Forest Stewardship Council code and the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool—that nongovernmental agencies and industry groups have drawn up over the past two decades. These standards are more stringent than most countries’ laws, particularly when they apply to cross-border trade.
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Ram Nidumolu () is the founder and CEO of InnovaStrat, a Santa Cruz–based firm that helps companies design and implement sustainability strategies and new business models. C.K. Prahalad () is the Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor of Strategy at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and a member of the board of directors of the World Resources Institute. M.R. Rangaswami () is the founder of the Corporate Eco Forum, a global organization of senior executives, and the cofounder of the Sand Hill Group, a San Francisco–based strategic management, investment, and advisory firm.

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