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Business Culture (företagskultur) är en viktig del av kulturlivet. Idag är den mer och mer hårfint granskad av publik och offentliga organisationer. Teorien har påverkats av den så kallade 5C: Kunder, Tävling, Datorer, Kostnader och Intyganden. Den är nu mycket kundfokuserad och har distinkta aspekter i termer av 3P: Personer (Publik), Processer och Platform Management. Bernardo Nicoletti berättar mer om det.

When I was asked to contribute to this beautiful site www.tidningenkulturen.se, I had some concerns. I have been a manager in many organizations. I am now a management consultant and enterprise coach. Which are my connections to the culture? Certainly I have never been a manager in cultural organizations neither I have worked in a company which prized culture such as the wonderful factory of Ferrari in Maranello, Italy, full of buildings designed by excellent architects. At the end, I decided to write this article to write about business culture: a not very much talked about aspect of the culture. It changes from organization to organization and, of course, from region to region, since it is influenced by the territory and the executives. Still due mainly to globalization and a set of global gurus in management theories, there is a common base of business culture. It has changed and will change overtime, since organizations are part of the society and are deeply influenced by the environment. Still the basic aspects of the business cultures are rather common around the organizations.

First of all what is the business culture? A culture is the values and practices shared by the members of the group. The business culture, therefore, is the shared values and practices of the people working in an organization. The business culture is important because it can make or break an organization.

The business culture is more and more oriented to the Customer. In jargon, it is called a customer-centric culture. A great contribution in this direction was given by a Swede Jan Carlzon2. He wrote a famous book, called the Tear the Pyramids Down. The thesis was that the organizations, represented as a pyramid, should point not upward to the executives but to the customers.3

The business culture is closely connected with the strategy. The strategy is dependent on the environment. The environment is changing under the push of what I call the 5 C’s3:

The first C is the customer. Customers are changing in some dramatic ways:

  • Empowered and demanding;

  • Complex and confused;

  • Sometimes Malicious.

The second C is Competition. Due mainly to the globalization, the competition is becoming really aggressive.

The third C is Computers. Technology is changing in some dramatic way and it is not cooling down. Some examples of new technology are mobile communications, network, and management of Big Data.

The fourth challenge is Costs. Due to the economic crisis costs is pushing the businesses and as a consequence their culture. There is strong tendency for the organizations to concentrate on their core business and competencies.

The fifth C is Compliance. It is also indicated as GRC: Governance, Risk, and Compliance. There are more and more stringent laws and regulations. There are many reasons, mainly the increase in the requirements of security, against frauds, and anti-money laundering.

Based on the challenges of the 5 C’s, there are three aspects of the business culture which are becoming more and more important. I call them the 3 P’s: People, Processes, and Platforms

People are the basis for a customer-centric culture. The business culture is giving more and more value to the persons. The management of talents is fundamental to assure a future to the organizations. More and more organizations are giving importance to the diversity of the women and the immigrants in the organizations. Finally more importance should be given to HES (Health, Environment, and Safety) in the jobs.

In order to be customer-centric it is essential to view the organization as Processes, not considering the divisions of the organizations in functions. It is essential to manage properly end-to-end processes. The main ones are:

  • New Product Introduction: the innovation activity

  • Inquiry to Order, essentially the sales process;

  • Order to Remittance, the product and service delivery to the customers;

  • Back office: the support activities.

To face the 5C’s challenges, the processes must be more and more Lean and Agile4. This is the philosophy and toolkit to continuously enhance the customer value of the products, to improve the way they are produced and delivered, taking a long term view.

The Platform is the set of technologies which support the organizations. In terms of platforms, more and more people are pushing for Cloud Computing5. This is an approach where providers offer a service (applications, platform, or infrastructure) to the clients, in order to process, and/or store data through the use of distributed hardware/software and virtualized in the network (normally internet). Clients pay for the services on a pay-per-use basis, like the provision of other utilities, such as electricity or gas. The service is fully managed by the provider (be it private, community, public, or hybrid) and the client only requires an access device and an internet connection. The users (be them internal or external to the organization) can access the cloud from anyplace, anytime, and any device.

This is the current culture in most of the organizations. Managers need (and like) to plan. It might be interesting to understand what could be the future transformation in the culture. Change is the name of the game. Maybe I will write in the future about what could be the changes in the business culture based on possible future scenarios.