It is difficult to know how to approach rapidly changing markets and generate new growth in a VUCA world. So forget about strategy and planning because you cannot prepare for it?
Actually, you can!
Here is a guide to identifying and getting ready for VUCA.
Volatility – unexpected or unstable challenges
Volatile also means changeable, unstable or fluctuating. Process, supply chains or markets, for example, can be erratic. But people’s attitudes and opinions can also change from one day to the next. The keyword “stakeholders” and how to deal with them in your business environment is increasingly important. Dangers that arise from volatility in the VUCA world include outdated and incorrect information, too slow feedback or risk aversion.
Uncertainty – change is possible but not given
There is uncertainty and lack of clarity and having the right information, in the right time and at the rights place, makes it that detailed planning, data engineering and insightful analyses hardly possible. As a result, you have to deal with increased and erratic risks. Due to the uncertainty factor in the VUCA world, there is a risk of working with incomplete and outdated information or of falling back on old, “tried and tested” methods.
Complexity – interconnected parts and variables
The density of information is growing more and more; and the information does not only stand for itself but is interconnected. There are dependencies everywhere that must be considered. For example, a company operates in many countries, all of which have different stakeholders which end product or services are all interlinked. The complexity of the VUCA world often leads to dealing only with the symptoms, choosing short-term fixes or falling into a “rigidity” because analysis seems impossible.
Ambiguity – unclear causal relationships
In a VUCA world, there is a lack of unambiguity. Information is ambiguous, so decisions are difficult to make. This situation occurs, for example, because a company operates in a complex market, supply chain or process with many different stakeholders. In different collaborating businesses, you find ambiguity in requirements, descriptions and values among other things, when they are formulated unclearly. Risks of ambiguity in the VUCA world include the inability to grasp the viability of events, taking inappropriate measures or misinterpreting information.
To survive and thrive in a VUCA world/environment, businesses must integrate digital technology into ALL areas of their business, resulting in fundamental changes to how businesses operate, deliver value, and grow.
One of KEY’s purposes is designed to deal and control the VUCA world. Its unlimited flexible modelling and data engineering capabilities can capture and harness the complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity and deals with all the volatility in each unique environment.
KEY drives collaboration and information flow enhancements to build knowledge throughout the environment you are operating in.
This information flow environment and creating a information loop that allow your environment to dynamic learn and build on each other’s knowledge, to counter the effects of VUCA.
In the process a dynamic Knowledge Asset as a business to create a competitive advantage – the one who start first will always be ahead.