Category: responsibility

Collaborations and Partnerships in the Pay-per-Use Economy
accountability · Build Operate Transfer · Business · Circular Economy · Commerce · destination management · Energy Savings Plan · entrepreneurs · Historic District · Historic Towns · intercity transit · Logistics · Mobility · Partnerships · pay-per-use · Resilience · responsibility · shared economy · Tradition · travel plan

Collaborations and Partnerships in the Pay-per-Use Economy

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Consumers, Manufacturers and Businesses in the Servitization Economy

Consumers increasingly prefer usership to ownership by utilizing pay-per-use and other on-demand services, as scalable and resilient value-driven outcomes such as pay-per-mile become available.

The Traditional make, use and dispose economy is supplanted by a circular one in which resources have a longer useful life, with product and materials recovery at the end of service life. End to end providers will be replaced by multiple product and service offerors with unique expertise in the provision of customer-centric rather than asset-centric services.

Small Businesses, especially those with clients located in rural and smaller urban communities, can increase their capabilities with environmentally viable offerings by entering into collaborations and partnerships in a multi-sector ecosystem as new companies enter the marketplace to target these opportunities via data democratization and new organizational models.

Reduce Transit Times and Travel Costs with Pay-per-Use

Travel Plans     Intercity & Local Transport

Communities that rely on connections and collaborations within and among regions will have access to technologies to transition from a sale to a service culture that features pay-per-use and pay-by-outcome models such as pay-per-mile and power-by-the-hour, creating locally owned enterprises and achieving economies of scale pricing in areas ranging from travel service and destination management, to local and intercity mobility programs connecting large cities with micropolitan areas, and innovative energy savings, water conservation and building automation systems solutions for buildings typically found on main street and in historic districts. Technology tasks include data sources integration, micro payments, flexible billing and cost-effective self-service customer and partner interfaces.

Linking Manufacturing and Services

Circular and Shared Economies create new value as pay per use models and outcome payments change the points of reference of projects and transactions as manufacturers repair and upgrade their products with modular designs; asset management and optimum maintenance become major capabilities. Equipment re-use, remanufacturing and redeployment as well as asset harvesting allow manufacturers to offer life cycle management services.

a collaborative system that delivers seamless customer experiences

Ships, Captains and Leaders
accountability · Maritime · Maritime Heritage · responsibility · ships · Tradition

Ships, Captains and Leaders

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Crisis Accountability and Responsibility

This is the story of two ships, their masters and how they reacted in the aftermath of a mishap. You have heard of the Costa Concordia; a ship with state-of-the-art navigation and communications technology. The other ship was a 1637 ton sailing barque that lost all its masts in a storm off the Falkland Islands in December 1905.

So, at face value nothing in common; different times and ships, part of the world as well as type and cause of the accident.  Even the ending is different: the sailing ships managed to limp into Montevideo harbor after 46 days with its valuable cargo of nitrates intact.

What they have in common are the culture, values and traditions of the two masters and crews. So, how could their behavior and performance after their respective mishaps have been so different.

There are of course many reasons but the one that is key is the role of a ship’s captain, and for that matter any business or government leader, in the 21st century compared to 100 years ago.

Today a ship and its captain are pretty much on automatic pilot; in fact, many decisions are made off the ship in an office somewhere where “managers” decide on a course of action. While maintaining objective responsibility, a captain is reduced to a mere figurehead.

The captain of that other ship was the ultimate decision maker. He had no choice, being so far away from home and for long periods of time. He and the ship owner shared in the risk and responsibility as well as in the rewards in the event of a successful voyage. In other words: total accountability!

Technical issues aside, this could be a determining factor in the performance aboard ship and in the conduct of a business, a government or a nonprofit institution.

Systems with diffused power and limited liability have major advantages but, as with the economic crisis of the last several years, they also lead to disasters with long term consequences for everyone.

A century ago the captain had every incentive to perform. He also had total responsibility and the unconditional allegiance of the crew; the ultimate team effort with a clear leader! Today’s captains are salaried employees. Nothing wrong with a salaried employee but who are the real de-facto captains of today’s ships? The implication is that today’s highly trained and sophisticated managers do not take responsibility by design. They have a job to do and they do it extremely well. Under this scenario, when something goes wrong it is difficult to establish accountability and assign responsibility. More importantly, it takes a long time to determine the causes of a problem and make the necessary adjustments.

Note: The captain of the sailing ship was this writer’s grandfather.