Overview
We live in an age when work has changed as radically as the world around us. The improvements in productivity once brought about by automation, technology and developments in management techniques have inevitably started to bring diminishing returns. In the future, information, and the people who possess and deploy it, will become at least as important as the technology they use.
Economic growth will no longer come only from putting more people to work, as in the past, or from greater consumer demand. It will come from a continuing increase in the resource that developed countries still hold as a competitive advantage — the productivity of knowledge workers.
But the increasing value of knowledge workers lies at the heart of a paradox. In the past, employers owned the means of production. Today's knowledge workers own the means of production — the knowledge in their heads. As a result, they have become both assets and costs. But while costs must be managed and reduced, assets have to be increased. How do you square this apparent circle?
The answer lies in an approach we have used with successful organisations all over the world. Our approach is simple, direct, powerful and effective. It drives out fixed costs and replaces them with variable costs. It increases efficiency. It empowers your workforce to do more and more in a way that makes your business resilient and responsive. It places vital management information in the right hands, at the right time, and eases the communication process across the enterprise. The business becomes so lean and responsive that profits can go up, even if revenue falls.
