COVER STORY JANUARY 2019
“There’s so much change going on
in the world, and it’s vital to find
the opportunities when they arise”
Richard Hill, head of manufacturing, NatWest (above)
Unless someone has that mindset, they won’t
ever look at collaboration or innovation or any
other challenges, because they are working in the
business, not on the business.”
Understanding the landscape
The manufacturing managers of tomorrow
will therefore require a very select set of skills,
many of which will inevitably be very different
to those needed today. Chief amongst these is
an appreciation of technology. David Willett,
corporate director at the Open University,
explains that technology needs to be at the
forefront of managers’ minds in the coming
years. “Manufacturing firms will require skilled
workforces, with strong leaders and managers,
to successfully integrate automation and drive
effective business development,” he says. “These
leaders need to ensure technology is introduced
smoothly, workers have the skills to manage it, and
all change is communicated effectively, minimising
disquiet amongst employees.”
This will require a significant change in mindset
for many leaders – including the trailblazers.
Future Fit identifies the need for innovation
and forward-thinking as a key component of a
successful manufacturing leader. The report found
that innovation is seen as important for most
manufacturers: 100% of trailblazers and 79% of
‘the rest’ believe a focus on innovation will lead to
an increase in market share. However, this focus
appears to be getting lost in translation – only 15%
of manufacturers put innovation at the top of their
agenda, and just 57% said it was a priority at all.
At first glance, this disconnect may be slightly
odd, says Hill, but it gives an insight into the way
companies view innovation. He cites Bill O’Connor,
an innovation strategist at Autodesk. “Bill’s opinion
is that a lot of companies think they are being
innovative, but don’t benchmark themselves in the
right way,” he explains. “Understanding the wider
world and predicting how to take advantage of the
disruption that is coming isn’t easy, and takes a lot
of resources. Bill says that businesses may think
they are doing enough and understand disruption,
but in reality don’t actually have the capability
to do it effectively – and don’t understand the
opportunities and risks that are actually coming
towards them. One of the critical things for leaders
is to understand the landscape, which takes a lot of
time and investment.”
NatWest have partnered with the Warwick
Manufacturing Group (WMG) at Warwick
University to look at applying some of the findings
of Future Fit into the real world. WMG’s Create,
Test, Launch programme “focuses on getting
companies to understand themselves better and
improve their innovation outlook, and how that
mindset manifests itself into a more future-looking
strategy,” says Hill.
Schemes like this, he continues, will help
businesses gain the flexibility they will need to
meet the challenges of the future. “The current
leadership cohort are getting to grips with how they
are going to continue to lead effectively in a world
where change is happening at a far faster rate than
ever before. They will need to evaluate the external
environment much quicker and process more
information and data. As a result, the business
strategy will have to be a lot more flexible – in the
future, a five-year plan will seem like an extremely
long-term view.”
New skills needed
This need for innovative thinking clearly doesn’t
come naturally to everyone. More to the point, it
can often be a challenge to develop this mindset
through one’s career, warns Willett. “The
leadership skills needed to oversee the radical
changes that are facing the industry may not come
naturally and cannot necessarily be acquired ‘on
the job’,” he says. “Often industry experience
15%
of manufacturers
put innovation at the
top of their agenda
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