An organization has two lives – external and internal.

The external life is the life in the marketplace with the customers and competitors.

The internal life is the life within the organization – the coworkers, the processes, the projects, the competence, the trainings, …

The connection between these two lives is done through the company strategy. Company strategy is about what the company does to win customers over and away from the competitors.

If the strategy has also the “maximization of its gross margins” as its goal relative to the competitors, then the strategy becomes a Competitive Strategy.

We can further open up the Competitive Strategy with its main elements:

The external life is the driver in this duality of lives. It is the reason why the internal life exists in the first place. It is the purpose of the internal life. If there is no external life, then there is no internal life. However, there are many organizations, especially when they get bigger, where the internal life gets far more attention than the external life. This is a symptom of the fact that fewer people in the organization get directly engaged with customers in the external world.

But this is not good. It must not be so. Such an overwhelming focus on internal issues leads to distancing the organization further away from the markets, customers, suppliers, and competitors. Organization’s internal life starts taking precedence over its market life. This will necessarily lead to a major disconnect with the purpose of the organization. This in turn will cause distortion of the organization, followed by stagnation and death.

What must happen is that everybody in the organization must have some direct engagement with the external world – with customers. Everybody. Our whole mental being must be immersed in the external world. The two lives must overlap like in the picture below.

Only then can organizations keep its vibrancy and stay on the path of its purpose.

So, if you are not engaged with a customer, then ask to be engaged. If you are not on the phone talking to customers, then ask to be put on the phone. If you are not traveling to customer site, then ask to travel to customer site. Use any possibly opportunity to get directly engaged with customers.

In the beginning, there were only engineers in the EC. The EC was the engineers.

Then, students started appearing – a few in the beginning, then many shortly after. And the Engineering City merged both engineers and students into its community. Seeing students alongside the engineers is now a common sight in the EC.

But last week we saw something new. We had an enormous number of customers visiting the different companies of EC all at the same time – there were customers who came for the FAT (Factory Acceptance Test), there were customers who came to see product demonstrations, there were customers who came to establish relationships with our companies. So, we could see a new picture emerging, where seeing customers alongside the engineers and students will become the new normal.

Soon after, we will start having many technology suppliers visiting the EC to enlighten us with their latest products and technologies. At the same time, many partner companies will start frequenting the EC and become part of it. And we get the following incredible vibrant city.

And then, the magic must start happening.

Because of the last tragic events, the Engineering Week has been postponed.

Trade Show: Convergence India Country: India City: New Delhi Dates: January 17 - 19, 2024 Booth Fees: Covered by the Ministry of HTI Application Deadline: October 17 Application Site: հետևյալ հղումով

More than a month ago, on August 4, I took the opportunity to announce fumpetition.org and the Mirroshambo fumpetition during the EC Community Meetup. Last week that fumpetition ended with a winner. You may check my blog post about it.