Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results!

A Chief Executive Officer of a company that leverages intellectual capital to achieve exponential results for customers stated that, “changing the game” is the key to corporate success, in an era where globalization is changing the nature of business itself.

The new economy is characterized by shrinking profit margins, eroding brand loyalty, and increased scrutiny by investors and regulators. To achieve competitive advantage, or simply stay in the game, companies have to make significant decisions in dramatically shorter time.

To meet this strong market demand, the new generation of business leaders need tools that identify and quantify opportunity and risk in the shortest time possible. He summed up saying that, yesterdays tools simply have no place as they take too long.

Challenging the traditional view of business, its risks and rewards and seeing new investments as an intrinsic part of sustainable growth strategy is key in the present environment.

How true the above thought process, whether applied to big business or small, chambers of commerce and industry, professionals, civil society organizations or even governments and regulators, can be seen by a scan and mapping of the environment in Sri Lanka and neighbouring India. Whilst a majority of Sri Lankan business and the Sri Lankan government and its regulators have either stuck to tradition or stuck or in between then and now, their Indian counterparts have taken great strides forward by “changing the game”.

The few businesses that changed the game in Sri Lanka like Dialog, Ceylon Tobacco, Unilever, Millennium IT, Brandix, MAS and Dilmah have reaped the benefits of enhancing significantly the intrinsic value of businesses whilst for most others growth has merely come by acquisitions or via cash cows made possible through regulatory and wrong privatisation driven advantages.

Let us next take the chambers of commerce and industry in Sri Lanka.

They have failed to take the bold path to success by encouraging members to play a different game of the type played by the Confederation of Indian Industry and their counterparts. Indian business encouraged by their chambers have looked beyond Indian shores for growth, leveraged competitive advantages of human and intellectual capital, sought scale driven gains, open competitive self sustaining business entrepreneurship driven advantages.

They have not relied on short term government hand outs or closed door policy regimes and inherent regulatory advantages.

The professionals in Sri Lanka have stuck to the straight and narrow path, preventing competition in the name of nationalism and reaped the benefits of protection.

The present day audit practices still sticks to the traditional narrow certification of the accuracy of accounts, where the responsibility for preparation is with management and has not dared to satisfy the needs of the investors by assuring that the directors have utilized resources with efficiency and effectiveness and optimized shareholder value creation.

Civil society organizations have also not changed their approach or game strategy, sticking to the traditional role in peace building, economic and social empowerment and even in assuring that civil liberties and rights are assured to the communities they serve.

Whether it is in education, health, economic development, macro economic management, poverty alleviation or infrastructure development, successive governments have played the same old game. Regulators have also not prepared the pitches that will enliven the games played on them, despite the living examples of success seen in South Asia.

It is now time for all segments of the Sri Lankan economy and their leaders to awaken and develop new game plans that seek “IC squared”, which by itself will change the game, the entrepreneurship approach and of course the end results.

Business leaders must constantly seek to enhance their abilities to define winning strategies and achieve results expected by their stakeholders, seeking to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of resource allocation, improving processes, practices and tactical execution in the delivery of products and services that delight the customers, better control the total cost of risk and reduce the risk based capital tied up, seek improved and more effective methods of supply chain management, distribution chain management and marketing, leverage logistics and enhance revenues.

The management and risk mitigation strategies must ensure “no surprises” and above all employees must operate in an environment that they are encouraged to perform better whilst building talent, capabilities and attitudes for tomorrow’s challenges. Ideas, innovations and customer focus must receive enhanced emphasis, Corporate commitment, team spirit and a corporate culture aligned to a “Winning and getting it right every time by changing the game appropriately” must prevail within well defined and always applied corporate ethics and value systems.

Take a cue from the success once upon a time of Sri Lankan cricket - change the game and lead from the front and drive for sustainable growth leveraging competitive advantages.

Playing the same game is like being insane and doing the same thing and expecting different results!