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.