The online assessment tool, NXTmove, has been developed by a group of business consultants with extensive experience and qualifications in their respective fields of expertise.
In the beginning...
It started as a discussion framework on what companies do right and what they do wrong, why some fail and some succeed whilst at face value they look very much the same.
We realized that there are critical inflection points towards success, not visible to those without extensive experience and knowledge across many industries and companies. Some of these inflection points seem to be very small but they have enormous implications for the success of a business.
The story unfolds...
We have spent about six years on research in an attempt to identify the most critical inflection points with regards to the following pillars in a business:
People
This covers aspects such as leadership, the energy and success of a company’s workforce, the way the business defines all relationships in and around the business as well as the way the business presents itself to the public as a credible value partner in life.
Technology
We came to the realization that the majority of companies have not yet fully embraced and utilized the enormous impact and possibilities modern technology holds. Companies tend to think of technology in isolated boxes, as providing process solutions and cost cutting tools that will enhance efficiencies. This is obviously wrong.
The correct way of thinking about business and technology is that modern Information Communication Technology (ICT) must become an integrated, intelligent and networked platform integrating all functions and processes in the business with customers, employees, suppliers, financial institutions, environment, business intelligence etc. This will result in an opportunity to create a fully automated, integrated system of artificial intelligence that will be the enabling framework to all stakeholders.
We also came to the conclusion that in the successful future company, processes are being collapsed into technology capabilities.
Customers
Our research has clearly indicated that for the majority of industries, companies and even institutions, this is the most challenging aspect of the business. There are so many aspects in and around the business with a profound impact on the success of dealing with customers that it has almost become the norm to fail in this. The challenge is found in the fact that customer service, at the point of contact with the customer, is only a very small part of successful customer service.
Risk
In our experience the majority of companies struggle to get a holistic picture of the new risk factors they face. We understand the complexity of this and the fact that new radical risk factors emerge (seemingly) from nowhere to become the most destructive force that can cripple and even destroy a business or an entire industry.
The 9/11 world trade centre incident is only one of many examples. The impact this had on air travel as an industry could not be anticipated or calculated. Future risk factors are extreme, quick and sometimes devastating.
The plot thickens...
We undertook research and compiled experience-based business intelligence along similar lines against critical business attributes such as marketing, branding, and leadership.
The next challenge was to create a framework to assess where a business positions itself within this framework of key inflection points towards success. Since nothing worthy in a business happens in isolation, every aspect of the business is directly or indirectly linked to every other aspect. You cannot have good customer service if the perception customers hold towards the brand on the business is negative; or if customer service agents are not properly trained; or if the ICT systems go down often.
Achieving success against a critical business attribute involves getting many things right. With this understanding in mind, we had to overcome the cross referencing/multiple problem source issue in such a way that we could compile a holistic picture of a business on all the key aspects towards success.
A further challenge was to write benchmark reports, recommendations and projects that will enable a company to address all the critical areas in the business. Keep in mind that we had to understand every aspect of best practice without being drawn into the mindset of case studies where best practices were tried and they failed. This was one of our biggest challenges. If research indicates what best practice is and a case study in one business indicates that the implementation of such a best practice failed, do we change the benchmark strategy or not? We have decided not to change, because we have seen a fantastic strategy collapse, not because of the strategy, but because of bad implementation.
And in conclusion...
We’ve worked for eight years on the thinking behind NXTmove and invested more that 10 000 man-hours (research time excluded). There are more than 60 million possibilities of calculating and compiling a business profile and reports. The average detailed report will be anything between 15 and 60 A4 pages. The reports are very honest, benchmark-based and easy to read. NXTmove is designed to be a real-time consulting platform. We now experience that NXTmove teaches us about what a business should do – somehow we find it to be a very weird and wonderful experience.