Cap Gemini Ernst & Young’s Business Forum Tackles the Realities of Volatile Economy
Senior Executives from Morgan Stanley, Centra, AMR and Cap Gemini Ernst & Young Provide CEO Checklist for Dealing with Permanent Market Volatility
September 30, 2002 - New York, NY
Responding to the new reality of permanent market volatility, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young U.S. LLC, one of the world’s largest management and IT consultancies, and ebizChronicle.com, the fast growing online daily of e-business and strategy, hosted a senior executive summit where panelists and attendees discussed and shared strategies on how to capitalize on the volatility in today’s economy. The event was an outgrowth of ebizChronicle.com’s “Challenge The Economy” editorial review [www.ebizchronicle.com/columns/detail.cfm?id=176].
“Permanent volatility is part of the economy and it is here to stay,” said CGE&Y’s Americas CEO Mark Hauser, and program host, to a packed audience of over 40 senior executives from the IT, publishing, financial services and pharmaceutical fields. “Companies must develop strategies that allow them to not only adapt to the market but to capitalize on it for competitive advantage. Information technology and real time information systems are part of the answer but the human factor is also critical for success. Companies must have people who are adaptive, flexible and who can leverage technology,” he added.
At this first of its kind forum, ebizChronicle publisher and noted technology thought leader Sarwar Kashmeri moderated a lively exchange between the distinguished panelists: Joseph Quinlan, Senior Global Economist, Morgan Stanley; Leon Navickas, Chairman and CEO of Centra, Inc., Bruce Richardson, Senior Vice President, AMR Research, and John Avallon, Vice President of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young.
Panelists discussed how adaptability, flexibility, connectivity and change management are all necessary attributes for a company if it wants to survive and prosper in today’s new economic climate. All agreed that many business models and technologies are inadequate to deal with volatility. As a result, companies must add the capacity to respond to market changes and cannot be faced with inflexible technology. “Anything fixed is at risk,” said CGE&Y’s John Avallon. Dell, Nike and Reebok were all mentioned as being adaptive enterprises.
“There is a need to shift speeds to efficiency and high-performance,” added Centra’s Navickas. Business process augmentation and software “will play an important role in how we challenge the economy,” he noted. Navickas further pointed out that companies can capitalize on volatility by leveraging investments and the latent power that companies already possess in existing technologies, but a behavior change is needed first, calling it “the biggest impediment” to overcoming volatility.
Morgan Stanley’s Quinlan believes that market volatility also stems from a global disconnect and that raising the educational level of workers can be an effective way of dealing with this. He urged American corporate leaders to remember that the winners of tomorrow will leverage intelligence around the globe. AMR Research’s Richardson, however, said that process reengineering and new applications focused on improving performance and human capital will be needed in order for companies to adapt to volatility.
In order to sustain competitive advantage and growth, the panelists provided the following checklist for CEOs when dealing with permanent volatility:
- Focus on driving performance and maximizing ROI
- Make sure collaborative systems are simple
- Embrace volatility – not only on the macro level, but on every level of the business; and let this drive strategy, business models, etc.
- Identify volatility drivers and use them to guide the operating structure you put in place
- Make sure your organization has the capacity to respond
- Leverage technology to respond to your company’s needs
- Business process reengineering is a must, especially in regard to human capital
- Raise the educational level of all employees
About Cap Gemini Ernst & Young
The Cap Gemini Ernst & Young Group is one of the largest management and IT consulting organizations in the world. The company offers systems integration, and technology development, design and outsourcing capabilities on a global scale to help businesses continue to implement growth strategies and leverage technology. Early 2002, the organization employed more than 56,500 people worldwide and reported 2001 global revenues of more than 8.4 billion euros. More information about individual service lines, offices and research is available at www.cgey.com.
Contacts:
David Schutzman - Cap Gemini Ernst & Young
david.schutzman@capgemini.com
(917) 934-8680
