Corporate Agility, and the

ways to develop it
12 May 2011
About OCTANE

We are a flexible team of highly experienced

consultants with more than 20 years track record providing
strategic advice to international and Greek clients

We use senior-level, experienced resources for all of

our projects and clients, ensuring that our advice is practical,
feasible, detailed and appropriately justified

We are focused on implementation and results – we

are ready to follow through on our advice with a specific
implementation support plan, and have the experience and
know-how to ensure that this plan is executed

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About OCTANE

We have years of experience providing strategic advice for

STRATEGIC Boards, CEOs and ow ners of major multinationals and leading
VIEWPOINT Greek companies, assisting them in setting strategic priorities,
formulating strategy and applying it to action

RIGOROUS We consistently and systematically use rigorous, data-driven,

DATA-DRIVEN quantitative analysis in order to make our findings more robust
APPROACH and to ensure that we bring measurable impact

Over 20 years of experience, we have built a set of practical,

PRACTICAL
flex ible, applicable tools & m ethodologies which we use
TOOLS &
wherever necessary in order to be more effective and efficient and
METHODOLOGIES
provide implementable solutions to our clients

We have a track record of successfully delivering and

DELIVERY & ex ecuting the most complex and difficult transformation and
IMPLEMENTATION restructuring projects, providing momentum and coordinating key
EXPERIENCE stakeholders to deliver concrete results

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OCTANE Services

APPLIED STRATEGY & CORPORATE FINANCE

survive com pete succeed

EXPORT
External BASED
issues GROWTH
MARKET
POSITION
OPTIMIZATION
EFFECTIVENESS
& CORPORATE
AGILITY
I nternal EFFICIENCY &
issues PRODUCTIVITY
IMPROVEMENT

CHANGE MANAGEMENT & EXECUTION

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We are destined to live in a Darwinian world

“It is not the strongest

of the species that
survives, nor the most
intelligent that survives.
It is the one that is the
most adaptable to
change.” CHARLES DARWIN

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The corporate tools of the past...

• Organization and Structure

• Discipline

• Well-defined roles

• Control mechanisms

• Long-term plans

• Strategic Foresight

• Complicated procedures and rules

• Information

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...need to drastically change in the “white water” world

• Flexibility
• Initiative and autonomy
• Clear accountabilities
• Feedback mechanisms
• Adaptive forecasts
• Perception and proactivity
• Simple principles and values
• Knowledge

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Agility defined

A*gil"i*ty (#), n. [F. agilié, L. agilitas, fr. agilis.]

1. the power of moving

quickly and easily;
nimbleness: exercises
demanding agility.
2. the ability to think and draw
conclusions quickly;
intellectual acuity.

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Five key initiatives that reinforce corporate agility

SIMPLIFY &
CLARIFY
EXPAND
YOUR
HORIZON
BUILD
FEEDBACK
LOOPS

BUILD
A WINNING
EMPOWER CULTURE
YOUR
PEOPLE

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Five key initiatives that reinforce corporate agility

SIMPLIFY &
CLARIFY

• Set clear priorities

• Focus on material issues
• Simplify processes and policies
• Reduce “noise-to-signal” ratio
• Ruthlessly eliminate wasteful effort

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Five key initiatives that reinforce corporate agility

SIMPLIFY &
PRACTICAL TOOLS & TECHNIQUES:
CLARIFY
Profitability analysis
Balanced scorecards

Value-based management

Business process streamlining

“Perfection is finally attained not when there

is no longer anything to add but when there
is no longer anything to take away”
ANTOINE DE ST.EXUPERY

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Five key initiatives that reinforce corporate agility

BUILD
FEEDBACK
LOOPS

• Be brutally honest
• Work in the present – not the past
• Ask the right questions
• Be willing to change
• Pay attention to dissenting views

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Five key initiatives that reinforce corporate agility

BUILD PRACTICAL TOOLS & TECHNIQUES:

FEEDBACK
LOOPS Customer panels
Web questionnaires

Out days
Staff workshops & surveys

“The definition of insanity is doing the same

thing and expecting different results”
ALBERT EINSTEIN

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Five key initiatives that reinforce corporate agility

EXPAND
YOUR
HORIZON

• Be extroverted
• Deploy remote probes
• Develop 360 vision
• Leverage your network
• Test your boundaries

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Five key initiatives that reinforce corporate agility

EXPAND PRACTICAL TOOLS & TECHNIQUES:

YOUR
HORIZON
International forums & events
Pilot projects
Social Media

Global competitors

“The only real voyage of discovery consists

not in seeking new landscapes but in having
new eyes”
MARCEL PROUST

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Five key initiatives that reinforce corporate agility

EMPOWER
YOUR
PEOPLE

• Be honest and transparent

• Give proper weapons and ammo
• Push decisions downwards
• Hold people accountable
• Reward doers

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Five key initiatives that reinforce corporate agility

EMPOWER PRACTICAL TOOLS & TECHNIQUES:

YOUR
PEOPLE
Accountabilities
Decision levels
Project teams
Bottom-up resource allocation

“The best way to deal with chaos is not

through complex systems, but through
simple rules applied by smart people”
MARGARET WHEATLEY

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Five key initiatives that reinforce corporate agility

BUILD
A WINNING
CULTURE

• No stars
• No “weak links”
• Focus on self-improvement
• Confidence and poise
• Expect success

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Five key initiatives that reinforce corporate agility

EMPOWER PRACTICAL TOOLS & TECHNIQUES:

YOUR
PEOPLE
Sharp, demanding targets
Success stories
Rigorous training
Personal Example

“We treat every practice like a final – so it

was easy to treat the final like a good
practice”
KOSTAS TSARTSARIS

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