Foster innovation for environmental protection problem solving

Why is it that some industries are honored for exemplary performance in environmental protection while, other wallow in water air and other charges of pollution from industry?

How can an enterprise build environment management systems that encourage innovative efforts to strengthen business performance through new approaches to challenges such as protective air quality standards? How can the concerns of organizations such as Greenpeace be addressed in a manner that meets diverse goals without compromise on essentials in any quarter?

Developing a cadre of key human resources with new and proactive environment protection knowledge and skills, is a first step. Professionals from the field of Environmental Science have lead roles in the corporations that will make it beyond the horizon. Teams must have multi-disciplinary capability, marrying diverse fields such as Biology and Physics, for the modern organization to have a problem solving approach. Organizations must have the confidence and the energy to meet extreme points of view with a solution oriented end in view. People trained in Environmental Science have this kind of perspective and can add dramatic value in a team with highly targeted specialists.

Specialists in Environmental Science would most often be from the bottom of an institutional pyramid or from near the periphery of a large corporation, since the field is relatively new to Higher Education anywhere in the world. Such people and teams need material and moral support from Top Management. Hence Boards and Executive Committees should have people with a voice for nature. Executives will have to demonstrate genuine passion for the conservation of the key resources on which their careers depend. Such thinking can be good for business results as well, as many companies have shown. Successful corporations now take pride in LEED Certification as they continue to do in Stock Market ratings, movements and evaluation. Lip service and feigned concern will not hold public patience any longer-managements must be action-oriented in addressing environment as a Stewardship issue.

21^st century vision calls for long term and sustained efforts to conserve the non-renewable and to build templates of success that are sustainable and embracing of all constituents. This cannot be for altruistic benefit but must be seen to be of substantial and enduring material consequence to the future of trade and industry.

Pessimism utility

Tsunamis occur once in a lifetime, and thankfully, never for most.

A shut down for a major part of a revenue season is most unlikely.

There are no storms on the business horizon and all is calm.

Your diary is full and you have no time for this.

Is there a point to all this?

Well, I hope not, but we cannot be sure. It pays to err on the side of caution, for things you least expect can hit you in the face, even later today.

There must be many serious risks for which you are well covered, but could there be others lurking in less frequented corridors, waiting to strike?

Could there be some grains of truth in the publicity-seeking claims of your opponents?

Do you have a trained team to help your business recover from events with potential for severe harm to your business?

Can your Group Image be sullied by a development involving one of your brands?

Post your thoughts here-you do not have to identify yourself, or email in confidence to drsbanerji@gmail.com

You could be grateful for the outcome, though I hope you find it a waste of time!

Effective Disaster Recovery Plans

Why do some enterprises recover from disasters, while other seem to suffer in Enron fashion?

Do we believe that disasters hit others but cannot touch us?

Could there be a scenario that we have missed?

Do we have time left after preparing for next quarter's results?

Have key people with disaster recovery skills retired or left?

Can we improve the Disaster Recovery Training Process?

What does this have to do with Risk Management?

· Leader in launch of cars with hybrid engines

· New manufacturing plants are state-of-the-art in terms of environment conservation

· Awarded the Energy Star by the Environment Protection Agency

· Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification by the Green Building
Council.

· Has reduced water usage by 15% since 1999. Recycled water in the paint shop costs no more than fresh water.

· Has reduced electricity and gas usage by 17% in the last 5 years.

· Has cut emissions by 40%

· Has cut the space needed to make a truck from 18 feet to 12 feet.

· 2011 goals include zero landfill waste. The latter is down by 95% already and this saves over $ 1 million every year.

· Has asked vendors to move inside its own plants to reduce movement, time and cost.

Please celebrate these business results with posts here of your own achievements.

Some notes I scribbled after reading Toyota’s business results:

1. Get Technology Risk Management to make money, not cost.
2. Get a helicopter and do your Risk Assessment from up there.
3. Risk Management topics embrace diverse disciplines.
4. Information Technology can add value in new areas.
5. I must act more green rather than try to appear like that.
6. I need targets to generate enthusiasm.
7. I will benchmark with Toyota.
8. I will benchmark with the Japanese to preserve my heritage.
9. This philosophy makes money!

Disaster Recovery Template Urgent Review

Do you use Triclosan in any of your products? You could soon face trouble on this front as reports surface of its carcinogenic potential. Probability is low because Triclosan manufacturers should be able to defend their turf, but you never know with Greenpeace!

Order a Process Review in any case, of risk assessment of all ingredients in your products.

Let not that nail threaten your kingdom!

Enjoy your weekend,
but do it first thing Monday morning!

Post here or email in confidence to drsbanerji@gmail.com
if you need help or have a question.

Business Stewardship Practices

· HAZOP process know-how for all parts of the enterprise.

· Focus in Mission Statement with reinforcement in all Management communication.

· Incorporation through MBO in Performance Evaluation.

· Company-wide training in Risk Management techniques.

· Foster lateral thinking to restructure around fault lines.

· Regular rehearsal of Disaster Recovery Templates.

· Benchmarking with a business with more serious risk than yours.

· Effective and consistent use of non-financial authority, with prior audit of all labels, printed, media and other communication.

· Drive towards greater process transparency and documentation.

Business Stewardship: HAZOP your logistics now!

Consider the accidental release of harmful virus by an accredited laboratory, as part of routine calibration procedure.

This has happened in the same month as report of accidental leakage for 5 years, of an engineered gene at the facilities of one of the world's leading agri biotech companies.

1. What happens when your products are not in your physical control?

2. When did you last update and rehearse an off-site emergency?

3. How soon could you recover from a sudden adverse event?

4. Could there be some disasters for which you have no recovery template?

5. How bad is training and compliance in the weakest limb of your concern?

Does your selling price cover these costs?

The WTO is so complicated that transfer of resources between people is difficult to see. Steel, oil, chemicals and minerals are examples of sectors that have seen changes in nationalities of makers and users. Countries that have led the world in the production of these goods, no longer do so, though their consumption growth remains unabated. Governments and companies in emerging countries delight in the visible effect on GDP, foreign exchange reserves and structured employment. Pollution, depletion and extinction remain fashionable concerns and the passion of the crazy troublemakers.

The culture of deficits and political mileage give elbow room that ground zero does not have. Stewards of enterprises at the micro level must be watchful for elements of costs that bookkeeping has overlooked, for they could land on your lap during your watch.

1. Costs of all inputs that your production shares with the poor. Electricity, air and water are famous examples. There could be others in your 'A' list of Purchase.

2. Indirect subsidies on your customer’s earnings or ability to pay. Farmers in the third world and the health insured in the US are important examples.

3. Technological discontinuities in fields with which you are unfamiliar. Genetics and electronics could reach much further than you know.

4. Recovery from disasters related to the environment and the economy. Some may send faint signals but others not at all.

5. Litigation and compensation related to product liability. This could be determined very differently from your own will and beliefs.

Most people would not like more portents of doom, but the list remains incomplete.

How many unthinkable events lurk on the horizon?

There is shocking news in my email today!

Rick, an Ecologist at a US University, has found that one the world’s leading pesticides can harm the amphibian populations in the areas where it is used.

Tony from the company that developed the active ingredient says that the dose Rick used was 7 times more than the label recommendation.

1. Is Rick guilty of product abuse?

2. Could Tony’s employers keep track to check abuse of their most precious asset?

3. Tony and the journal from which I picked up the story are on the opposite side of the Atlantic from Rick. Could your media relations match this for response?

Now I know why Product Stewards are so nosy with we Marketing guys!

Business Stewardship: Key skills for the years ahead

Consider the controversy in the United States about jobs going overseas. It has not all been about lower pay rates, but also to do with a mismatch between skills that business needs today, and the influences of personal higher education choices in the recent past.

Could this happen to your company? Do you have teams and management processes that protect you from losing out in the days on the horizon?

• ADSL and a clutter of satellites mean that audio and video can now accompany text on real-time. Have you replaced layers of supervision with CRM freeware? Have you dramatically cut travel and related costs and time with Webinars? Do you track and compare customer behavior on your Internet site with that of your competitor, within legal provisions?

• New technology has changed medicine and understanding of the mind. Social norms call for more objective function and are less tolerant of individual whim. Business is global and must function across cultures. What is the level of health literacy and emotional competence amongst your key people? Do they function effectively in a matrix and are their mental faculties adequate to deal with a gender-sensitive and international milieu?

• The media has become more demanding and is better resourced. Do your people know the limits of their non-financial authority and are they trained to interact with reporters and regulators? Can you handle emergencies and recover from a foreseeable though perhaps unlikely disaster? Are your off-site emergency systems as good as the ones in your factories?

• Internal and Interactive marketing now matter as service components enhance physical product brands. Do you have the new elements of the Marketing Mix in place? Do you have a plan to acquire new skills? Are internal customers recognized? Are you assured of quality in transactions between peripheral and outsourced personnel and consumers?

Erase disconcerting scenarios with affirmative action and protect your future profits, shares, brands and image.

Business Stewardship: Quality Branding

A real-life, stranger-than-fiction news report with a photograph, in a leading Indian newspaper today, speaks volumes about today's nit-picking consumers.

The country's largest consumer goods company, with operations around the world, designs and exhibits a billboard for its ice-cream, with a lady licking the creamy stuff, lying on her back, legs wide apart. A man, poor fellow, has stumbled in disheveled form between her legs.

All the company wanted was to connect consumers with a 'modern, youthful and vibrant brand'.

The sods objected and the company removed the man from the advertisement. We are left with the woman alone in ecstasy, Popsicle handy near open mouth.

Please protect your Product Management from such vigilante attack!

p.s email drsbanerji@gmail.com for a copy of the media report with a photograph of 'before' and 'after'.

Business Stewardship: Growth with consensus

The President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Kalam, in a recent address on National Growth Objectives, has laid out an 8 point plan for employment generation and the country's development.

The address makes for compelling reading as it seems to choose areas with which almost no constituent in the sub-continent of a billion people, could disagree. He moots water conservation, area-specific farming, value-addition in rural India and a host of the most staggering yet simple ideas. Each of them can be done and the Nation could start today. None of them are out of material reach and all seek harmony with nature. They should render poverty to the dregs of small pox and achieve widespread social justice as never before.

They are good for business and would help industries and the stock market as well.

The process by which his Excellency has arrived at his prescription, merits analysis and is worth trying at whatever level we operate. It is based on facts, resonates with crying needs and meets foreseeable concerns of all sections of society.

The potential for agreement in no way dilutes the strength of conventionally opposing points of view.

Please email at drsbanerji!@gmail.com for the media report.

Business Stewardship: Developing Key Human Resources for Brand and Image Care

05

My company is performance driven and not paternalistic.

My people have clear and specific goals on what they must contribute to care of our brands and our fair name.

We are prepared to meet a number of eventualities and disasters and spread the culture of Hazard Analysis and Risk Management down to the engine room of our ship.

We are in tune with environment signals and weigh opposing views objectively.

Our system of rewards reflects our priority for Corporate Environment and Social Responsibility.

Business Stewardship: wipe your footprints

1.Promote the development and use of bio fuel.

2. Discover new medicines through pharmacognosy.

3. Use plant extracts as industrial enzymes.

4. Encourage medical nutrition.

5. Preserve and enrich germplasm.

6. Discourage artificial fiber.

7. Achieve universal food security.

8. Transform subsistence agriculture.

9. Reduce post-harvest and storage losses.

10. Dialogue for a common minimum program of development.

What is your Business Stewardship type?

1. Can you rank the following in order of importance?

Environmental audit

Marketing audit

Compliance audit

Financial audit

2. How much time have you spent, during the past 12 months, on the following matters?

Environmental stewardship

Product stewardship

3. Do you compete on the basis of technology or customer service, both or something else?

Now Visit

http://www.crestamarketing.com/

Take their TOCO test.

Now ask

a. the person to whom you report,
b. some people who report to you,
c. a vendor and
d. some consumers, sellers and influencers

to fill in their TOCO impressions of your business.

You will have a Jo-Hari window of your enterprise and may find the conclusions on use.

Cresta Marketing has a link to this site, but I endorse them on merit and there is no financial consideration for me.

Business Stewardship Direction: Global brand protection service for corporate definition governance.

A brand protection solution is not always on agenda. It may not encompass intangible aspects or a company as a whole. There could be differences in country managements and certainly external environments would vary.

Marketing Audit templates are useful to keep track of elusive goodwill and image impact on international branding trends. Click on the link below for a flavor of how you can go beyond Accountants and Directors for an independent valuation of an investment center:

http://www.crestamarketing.com/

Large corporations may see no merit in Consultants for issues that they have in tight Regulatory grip, but public opinion and media reporters could do with counters from a pedestal of independence. Business Process will need in any case, facts gleaned from primary data, to use the work of Howard Gardner at Harvard on influence and persuasion.

This morning’s Financial Express (Indian) has two articles on Biotechnology that prompt this post.

Please email drsbanerji@gmail.com for links to the articles and for an excerpt of Professor Gardner’s revolutionary ideas.

Cresta Marketing has favored me with a link but my reference to their site is on merit and without any financial consideration for me.

See you tomorrow!

Teaching Business Stewardship

April 03 2005

‘This should be a cinch” I told myself with a mental grin.

The pleading Principal was effusive with a torrent of gratitude as I condescended to take the Services Marketing course for Management students.

“Why does the stall at the corner sell more than all the other snack people?” I fumbled for an answer as the young student asked her pesky question.

“Why do some doctors do better than others’? Things were heating up and I resolved to study the subject a bit before taking more classes.

An obliging junior lecturer plied me with titles as I nonchalantly asked for some leads.

It turned out that the old 4 Ps of my youth had aged with me and People, Process, Physical Evidence and Preferential Customer Services were the new kids on the block.

The students diligently helped me with the differences between essential and peripheral types of physical evidence and showed me the help keys for a Customer Relations Management Consulting program. I learnt about the travails of on-line marketing services and realized to my eternal consternation that Services Marketing puts Product Management in the shade.

It is all about intangibles and enhancing the brand offer, I am told.

These kids need no Patents as I did. Their branding is as sticky as a cult, yet you can neither feel nor touch it. They live by their wits and are the ultimate open source in protecting a business or a vocation.

“You are the best of the Customer Service Consultants I have ever met. The others just read from their notes and do not listen. The students love you. Please come back next term”.

I nodded and exited, tail between my legs.

Dr S Banerji
Visiting Faculty, Bachelor of Management Sciences 5th Semester. R.I.P.

April 02 2005. Business Stewardship. Pharmaceutical and aviation industry bench marking for environmental ethics/complexity

April 02 2005

1. Active ingredients and aircraft models are centers of learning. Companies protect their invaluable assets with ever-widening circles of knowledge. A pharmaceutical company has the best doctors and a company that makes aircraft, the best pilots. They act as keepers of public conscience within rooms in which decisions are made and protect the interests of all stake holders.

2. Side-effects are at least as important as the potential business from product features and its main applications. Pharmaceutical promotion is incomplete without warnings and aircraft companies go to great lengths to protect all categories of customers.

3. Interactions are your business. A pharmaceutical company studies what happens when its active ingredient is used with any other that may have conceivable chance of combined application. Aircraft makers take a degree of responsibility in areas vastly separated from its direct field-runway length, ambient noise and long confinement in enclosed spaces.

4. Use instructions are clear and comprehensive. There are wide margins for error. Communication is tailored to the professional competence of the audience. No effects levels are stated. Back up is built in. All foreseeable contingencies are planned in detail.

5. Manufacturers are on 24*7 alert to respond to a related emergency, wherever on earth, or in space it may be.

6. Service providers are trained and must pass certification periodically, and product access is restricted

7. Adverse events and near-misses are audited in detail and preventive action chased with vigor to reduce chance of recurrence.

8. The weakest link is used to measure product resilience and product stewardship performance.

9. All stake holders including opponents are engaged in continuous and earnest dialogue. Issues are addressed through filters of fact and correction is rapid and real.

Both industry sectors make money and contain some of the best examples of human ingenuity.

Excellence in environmental philosophy/complexity pays!

Business Stewardship Apr 01 2005

Best Practices to consider Risk Assessment for Hazard Analysis

Chemical plants, especially after Bhopal, excel in Hazop studies, Assessment Risk vulnerability techniques and Disaster Recovery Plan checklists.

Many influential stakeholders expect personal top Management liability to extend well beyond company gates. ‘Not under our control’ does not help your Disaster Recovery Template.

Hazop study does apply to all business process. People in functions other than Manufacturing need Hazop training at least as much as those on the shop floor and under close supervision. Hazop procedure helps secure product, financial and aspects of liability wherever we choose to apply it. Root cause analysis is unfortunately spurred most often only by a Tsunami-like disaster. Failure mode effect criticality may lurk beyond superficial concerns in professional minds. It is worth examining periodically, every transaction over a period of about a fortnight, to uncover new areas for OSHA EPA Hazard Analysis. Corporate Governance and product label issues often prompt the thought that a Disaster Recovery Plan Template, could have improved reliability and control. Money and decisions by humans have the potential toxicity of the worst chemical. It is not common to spot such a hazard in a salesperson’s day, but risk assessment and failure reports should be as ubiquitous as refreshment vending machines.

Probabilistic considerations tempt Executives to dismiss sensitivity analysis in areas where the rarest of mishaps can have the impact of an apocalypse. Change must come from the very top, with a passion for Employee Training Workshops that turn the most unlikely of people in to guardians with the skills of Managers in plants with the most hazardous of manufacturing processes. Check all the Departments, Functions, Sites of your company and then look again for every nook and cranny, to uncover spaces and souls without a Sample Disaster Recovery Team that can execute a Sample Disaster Recovery Plan in a flash.

You do not have time? Count on Consulting Services Customized to your Needs, to act as your personal Fire Brigade!

Post your most immediate thoughts here now or email in confidence to drsbanerji@bondtechnologies.net