#OpenTalk2022
20 -21 SEPTEMBER 2022
The Rise of the Ecosystem Economy
Produced by the Haier Model Institute (HMI)
and the Business Ecosystem Alliance
About RenDanHeYi OpenTalk 2022
There has been fevered and insistent debate about the fourth Industrial Revolution, the emergence of the metaverse, AI and AR, the constant momentum of change. This two-day virtual event urges people to stop and think, to consider how the basics of organization and competition are shifting. With input from thinkers and practitioners from throughout the world, The Rise of the Ecosystem Economy cuts through the tech hyperbole to consider the future shape of organizations and the rise of the ecosystem economy, an entirely fresh way of looking at how organizations compete.
Produced by the Haier Model Institute (HMI) and the Business Ecosystem Alliance, the event also features the latest inductees into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame and the announcement of the recipients of this year’s Zero Distance Awards.
This event offers live interpretation
into Mandarin Chinese
PROGRAM
Tuesday 20 September
Session #1
8:30 - 9:30 am UK • 9.30 - 10.30 am CEST
RDHY: The State Of The Art
Contributing live:
Andreas Holmer
MAQE
Fabrizio Martire
Gummy Industries
Arianna Cataldo
Intesa Sanpaolo
Moderator:
Emanuele Quintarelli
Boundaryless
Description
The management philosophy, RenDanHeYi (RDHY) is the cornerstone of the innovative management and organizational practices of the Chinese company Haier. But, can RDHY be made to work in the same powerful way in other companies, industries and countries? This session brings together executives from throughout the world who are putting RDHY to work in their own organizations. As RDHY evolves into a globally understood and applicable management approach, it provides unique insights into the state of the art.
Session #2
3:00 - 4:00 pm UK • 4:00 - 5:00 pm CEST
Inside Transformation: Ge Appliances
Contributing live:
Antonio Boadas
GEA
Marshall Meyer
Wharton
Moderator:
Annika Steiber
Menlo College
Description
The Haier/GE Appliances story embodies critical lessons and principles for twenty-first century business leaders and students of management and innovation. While we can think of great business combination successes, this case is uniquely modern in how it forces us to re-think everything, to imagine a complete and systemic transformation of a century-old American white goods stalwart compelled by a 1980s Chinese start-up to re-emerge as something better, more competitive, more profitable, and designed for the digital century.
Session #3
5:00 - 6:00 pm UK • 6:00 - 7:00 CEST
Reinventing Competitive Advantage
Contributing live:
Claus Jensen
Chief Innovation Officer, Teladoc Health
Ying McPherson
Chief Strategy Officer for Unifi
Moderator:
Kaihan Krippendorff
Outthinker
Description
Nearly every major competitive strategic concept – from Porter’s Five Forces to Christensen’s Disruption Theory – has sought to explain why one company outperforms another. The next era of competition will be defined by the ecosystem. This session will explore questions critical to the future success of any organization: Can the principles of company-based competition be applied to ecosystems? How should they be adapted? What new sources of competitive advantage are relevant to ecosystems? What are the key ecosystem battles to learn from today? What role will ecosystems play in the future of the global economy? How do you decide which ecosystem to align with? What are the foundational elements you must put in place to initiate an ecosystem that will thrive? It maps out the reinvention of competitive advantage.
PROGRAM
Wednesday 21 September
Session #1
12:00 - 1:00 pm UK • 1:00 - 2:00 pm CEST
Beyond either/or: building organizations where efficiency and entrepreneurship happily co-exist
Contributing live:
Markus Nordberg
Head of Resources Development at CERN
Julia Hautz
Innsbruck University; co-author, Open Strategy
Tom van der Lubbe
Co-founder, Viisi
Moderator:
Michele Zanini
Description
What are the competing priorities in your organization? Perhaps its scale versus flexibility, creativity versus discipline, or risk-taking versus prudence. Each of these trade-offs reflect a deeper paradox, the tension between exploit and explore. The evidence suggests that most large-scale organizations don't get this trade-off right. Every day, in a thousand ways, exploit wins at the expense of explore. Fifty years ago the penalties of clumsily managed trade-offs might have been tolerable, but not now—not when a business must be a paragon of penny-pinching efficiency on one hand and a champion of continuous creative destruction on the on the other. In today’s environment of hyper-competition and hyper-change, the winners will be the organizations that are capable of making subtle and perfectly timed trade-offs or, better yet, of redefining the frontiers of exploit and explore.
But what does this look like in practice? How do you escape the curse of either/or thinking? In this session, we’ll unpack the lessons from a diverse group of organizations that have learned how to transcend the toughest tradeoffs in management.
Session #2
2:00 - 3:00 pm UK • 3:00 - 4:00 pm CEST
ZERO DISTANCE AWARDS
Contributing live:
Representatives of the Zero Distance Award winning organisations of 2022.
Moderator:
Stuart Crainer
Thinkers50
Description
The concept of Zero Distance emphasises the connection between the business and the end-user or customer. This has become central to the management model of our age. In 2020 the Business Ecosystem Alliance (BEA) launched the Zero Distance Awards. The awards identify and celebrate the work of organizations throughout the world in eliminating the distance between their employees, their operations and their customers. The BEA believes that ecosystems are a dynamic means of bridging the gap between organizations and their customers. Each year, BEA acknowledges the groundbreaking work of organizations in seeking to achieve Zero Distance. Already the awards have celebrated the work of companies throughout the world including Viisi, Jaipur Rugs, Bosch Power Tools, Fujitsu Europe, Mammut, Cipla and Blue Cross Shield of Massachusetts. This year’s winners will provide new practical inspiration.
Session #3
4:00 - 5:00 pm UK • 5:00 - 6:00 pm CEST
THINKERS50 HALL OF FAME
Contributing live:
Rob Goffee
Sally Helgesen
Stella Nkomo
Danah Zohar
Gary Hamel
Moderator:
Stuart Crainer
Thinkers50
Description
Founded in 2009, the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame honours the legacy of an elite group of thinkers whose work has had a profound and lasting influence on the world of management. The Thinkers50 Hall of Fame is hosted by the Haier Group.
To be inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame someone must have had a long-term impact on the way people think about and practice management. These thinkers have all made a profound contribution to how we understand management and how it is practiced globally. The work of the six new inductees is celebrated at this event and four join live to talk about their work.
Session #4
6:00 - 7:00 pm UK • 7:00 - 8:00 pm CEST
THE RISE OF THE ECOSYSTEM ECONOMY
Contributing live:
Jeffrey Kuhn
Bill Fischer
Moderator:
Janka Krings-Klebe
Description
In the ecosystem age, organizations have made great strides in reconceptualizing themselves as ecological systems rather than machines. This new zeitgeist has unleashed the entrepreneurial élan of employees, producing a level of serendipity unimaginable a century ago, and creating enterprises that are highly adaptive. But, there is a vast difference between adapting to the future and creating it. Steady organizational evolution is paramount, but it must be combined with bold, unconventional strategies that are difficult to for competitors to decode and imitate. In the ecosystem economy, organizational evolution and strategic revolution must be pursued simultaneously.
Additional, pre-recorded content
START-UP FACTORY
Joost Minnaar
Corporate Rebels
Pim de Morree
Corporate Rebels
Description
Following up their bestselling book, Corporate Rebels, for the last two years Joost Minnaar and Pim de Morree have been working on a book about Haier and its management innovations. It was, they admit, a long, interesting, and intense process, but in September the result is published: Start-up Factory. In this session, Joost and Pim share details of their journey, their inside-track on what the world can learn from Haier as well as the development of their Corporate Rebels Academy.
SEVEN LEVERS TO SHAPE THE ECOSYSTEM ECONOMY
William Malek
Description
Using his expert knowledge of the energy-sector, William Malek identifies seven levers—from becoming systems savvy to focusing on value creation—which are key for any organisation to understand and take advantage of the rising global influence of ecosystems. The emphasis is on practical inspiration, igniting ecosystem knowledge and sensitivity.
WORK IN PROGRESS
Umberto Lago
Description
Umberto Lago has been a university professor, private and public manager, entrepreneur and consultant. He is an associate professor of management at Bologna University, Italy and co-author of Reinventing Giants which was the first book to chart the rise of Haier’s management model. He provides exclusive insights into his latest work and thinking, covering everything from football finance, turnarounds to the creation of a RenDenHeYi manual.
Mastering the competitive future
Chen Jin
Description
In conversation with BEA’s Stuart Crainer, Professor Chen Jin provides his unique perspective on the new competitive landscape. He describes a new competitive world order informed by the ideas of people like David Teece and the practice of companies driven by management innovation. In addition, he provides an interpretation of the Chinese take on innovation and ecosystems as they shape the new world.
Professor Chen is a professor in the Department of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Strategy at Tsinghua SEM. He is also Director of the Research Center for Technological Innovation at Tsinghua University. He has been a visiting scholar at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a visiting fellow at Sussex University. He has published more than 30 books on the management of technology and innovation in China.
