The Leadership Dilemma: balancing innovation and keeping the lights on in tough times

OVERVIEW

Recession, inflation, the cost of living. You don’t need telling in any finer detail what’s contributing to the challenging environment leaders find themselves in, but an exchange of ideas and approaches with peers might help. You’re under huge pressure to deliver cost savings while maintaining business as usual and continuing to drive innovation. It’s a struggle. So what’s the answer?

Getting the balance right

Trying to innovate while prioritising keeping the lights on is not a new theme. Finding the space for innovation, agility and transformation is always tough when you’re having to worry about ensuring there’s adequate revenue to get the products and services out that drive revenue! Innovation itself should be a force for simplification, but you need to be set up with the right culture. How do you strike the right balance between driving business progress and maintaining day-to-day operations?

Data and what to do with it

It’s not easy to transform if you have disconnected data, poor processes and a fragmented view. What’s required is change at speed that gets you what you need when you need it. How do you champion agility to minimise disruption and get you where you need to be at the right speed?

The technical debt

The load that organisations carry with technical debt can be a real drain on innovation. A pound spent on technical debt is a pound that can’t be invested in innovation and transformation. How can today’s business break the pattern of ‘kicking the can down the road’ to open up innovation cycles and truly modernise?