The basic facts you should know about the R25,4 billion Gautrain project

image reference
 The 80km Gautrain Rapid Rail Link system consists of three anchor stations situated at Johannesburg, Tshwane and the Johannesburg International Airport. Additional stations along its route include Rosebank, Sandton, Marlboro, Midrand, Centurion, Hatfield and Rhodesfield. Construction started 28 Sep 2006 and the first phase is scheduled to be completed by June 2010.

Is SA's electricity really expensive or are we just used to it being really cheap?

 South Africa's electricity is currently more expensive than electricity in the US, Israel and Mexico and if Eskom gets its 45% tariff increase every year for three years, South Africa will have the most expensive electricity in the world.

Strategic Planning Thoughts

Strategic Planning Thoughts
Here is another very good strategic planning blog. Definitely worth while to check out.

Biofuels feeding cars not people

The world has been in a debate about the "Food-vs-Fuel" topic for a long time, without conclusion, while people remain hungry, major farmable areas remain unutilised, landfills are growing and overflowing and a sustainable solution to generate power and energy is critically needed.

"This bioeconomy is the future. It means good jobs and higher incomes and new reliable crop markets. It also means cleaner, renewable energy and a reduced demand for fossil fuels. And this could mean all the difference to the people of Africa and the developing world. It is for this reason that Africa urgently needs the assistance of the World Bank and other investors to provide scarce capital to build local biofuels projects," says South African Biofuels Association (Saba) president Andrew Makenete.

WWF SA trade and investment programme manager Peet du Plooy argues that biofuels feed cars and not people and have the following downturns:

• food security being threatened
• food prices increasing
• water consumption increasing
• deforestation taking place

He agrees that bioenergy can alleviate poverty if it comes from a sustainable nonfood source using waste biomass for example to generate clean cooking fuels. If used locally to replace oil imports it can improve the resilience of the economy.

What about power generation from waste?

Need something to talk about? The waste-to-energy topic is a good one to get people immediately interested and engaged in a debate.

"The rapid decline in the space for landfill sites and the increasing volumes of waste material have driven many countries to develop more cost-effective and sustainable solutions to tackle waste," said Growth consultancy firm Frost & Sullivan.

However, owing to the low cost of electricity and high capital investment required in waste-to-energy plants, the incentives for using energy generated from waste is moderately limited. Frost & Sullivan stated that new analysis has found that the South African waste-to-energy market earned revenues of about $65,2-million in 2007, and was estimated to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 10,5% between 2007 and 2014. This at least looks promising.

So your electricity went off during your dinner party and you are mad at Eskom? Here is what South Africa is doing right.

The need for new electricity capacity in South Africa has reached a critical stage and everyone is aware of it, moaning and groaning. But do we know what SA is doing about it?

Eskom is in the process of constructing the two largest dry-cooled thermal power stations in the world, Kusile and Medupi, each eventually having a capacity to generate 4800 MW of power. Both of these projects will cost more than R100-billion. The first generating unit of Kusile will be complete in 2013 with its overall completion in 2017. Completion of Medupi's first operating unit is expected to be finished in 2012, with the next units following at 9 month intervals.



image reference click here

In Paarl, Western Cape, a thin-film solar plant is on the way. The facility in Paarl will eventually have a capacity to produce 40 MW of copper-indium-galliom-diselenide (CIGS) modules yearly. This technology is able to convert solar energy directly into electricity.

In Bethlehem there is a hydro-electricity station that generates 3.9 MW hydro power and in Darling the wind power demonstration project is aimed at generating 5.2 MW of wind energy. Dipuo Peters, Energy Minister, also made mention of a new nuclear power station in South Africa up and running by 2020.


wind energy image reference click here
hydro electricity image reference click here


South Africa is rich in resources and is digging deep into all the different resources that may possibly be used to generate power. Is this enough???
Why is Eskom still asking for a 45% increase in electricity prices yearly for the next three years when there are two power stations on the way???

STRANGE DAYS... at last!

Alastair Reynolds opened worlds of wonderful scientific possibilities for me.  Although fictional, I used to think that magical designs used to tweak and improve oneself will exist one day, in the far distant future. Who would have known that this possibility is already within our reach?

Intel Corp's researchers says that by 2020 you won't need a keyboard and mouse to control your computer.   Scientists at their research lab in Pittsburgh are trying to develop ways to read and harness brainwaves.  Sensors implanted in the brain will harness the brain waves.  Intel research scientist Dean Pomerlea, said the research team has used Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) machines to determine that blood flow changes in specific areas of the brain based on what word or image someone is thinking of. People tend to show the same brain patterns for similar thoughts, he added.  Basically, different words or images displays standard patterns.

When they are able to identify patterns that represent specific words one will be able to type by just thinking about it.  Imagine writing emails or reports while stuck in traffic!  I would personally like multicore functionality....

Read more....

From defensive to offensive resilience

The Business Continuity Institute currently defines business continuity management as:
“an holistic management process that identifies potential impacts that threaten an organisation and provides a framework for building resilience with the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation and value creating activities.”

The term business continuity MANAGEMENT has broadened the discipline’s scope from that of business continuity PLANNING, which is now just another part of management. Business continuity management includes “building resilience”, which moves us from the concept of reacting to recover from an event to becoming not vulnerable to the effect of the event. In the context of business continuity, the term has often been used with regard to IT and the facilities environment. To describe the act of taking over seamlessly so that system continues uninterrupted.

To achieve offensive resilience, rather than just business continuity or defensive resilience a broader focus is necessary. IBM has articulated its concept of business resilience as:
“The ability of an organisation’s business operations to rapidly adapt and respond to internal or external dynamic changes – opportunities, demands, disruptions or threats – and continue operations with limited impact to the business.”

Business continuity has been focused upon a defensive resilience posture, consisting of three basic building blocks - recovery, hardening and redundancy – that are widely recognised as vital ingredients for successful business continuity plans. A defensive posture is useful in protecting the organisation and its revenue streams but it does not help the bottom line. IBM has identified three further building blocks that support an offensive resilience posture, which are focused upon improving the organisation’s competitive position – accessibility, diversification and autonomic computing (inclusion of self-managing hardware and software). In practice, these building blocks can be used all together or in various combinations depending upon need.


The focus of business continuity is changing to become ever more concerned with prevention / avoidance of interruptions and business resilience supports this trend.

read more...

Balanced Scorecards: rigid rule or helping guideline?

The theory says success results from a Strategy-focused organisation, which in turn, results from Strategy Maps and Balanced Scorecards. In Balanced Scorecards language vision, mission, and strategy at the corporate level are decomposed into different perspectives, as seen through the eyes of business owners, customers and other stakeholders, managers, process owners and employees. (www.bptrends.com)

It is important to notice that this is a top down method which is very much considered out dated because such a system mostly fails if it is passed down from top to bottom as rigid rules. Still, Balanced Scorecards may be very handy tools as helping guidelines to externalise and formalise the relationship between cross-linking factors in your business. Emphasis has shifted from just the measurement of financial and nonfinancial performance, to the management (and execution) of business strategy. Balanced Scorecard systems give us the ability to view three different dimensions of organisational performance: Results (financial and customer), Operations and Capacity. (www.balancedscorecard.org)

Figure 2 below shows an integrated relationship among the key parts of a scorecard system - Vision, Strategy and Perspectives. Balance is achieved through the four perspectives, through the decomposition of an organisation's vision into business strategy and then into operations, and through the translation of strategy into the contribution each member of the organisation must make to successfully meet its goals. (www.balancedscorecard.org)


(www.balancedscorecard.org)

Vital to know what the economy is doing next! Impossible?

To be able to plan effectively for the future of your company it is important to be able to make good decisions NOW based on relatively substantial information. The decisions you make are directly related to how the environment around you is going to change and react to fluctuations in the current and future economy. Impossible to determine what the economy will do next? No! Difficult? Most definitely!
It is extremely complex and almost impossible to predict what the economy is going to do in the short-term. We will see the results and experience the effects of short-term fluctuations without being able to have predicted it, but still being able to manage it. What is important is predicting the longer-term trend of the economy, whether or not the economy is in a expansion. prosperity, contraction or recession. After a recessionary phase the expansionary phase can start again.

To determine what will happen to economic cycles we need to look at several leading indicators, which are predictive tools which are believed to change in advance of changes in the economy, giving you a preview of what is going to happen before the change actually occurs. The most trustworthy leading indicators are GDP (Gross Domestic Product), CPI (Consumer Price Index), PPI (Producer Price Index), JSE All Share Index, interest rate spread, employment indicators(such as job advertisement space in the Sunday Times, percentage change with year ago), NAPM (the National Association of Purchasing Management index), Consumer Confidence Index, durable goods orders (such as new passenger cars sold, percentage change with a year ago), ECI (Employment Cost Index) and productivity reports. To read more in depth about each leading indicator, follow www.investorguide.com

Thus impossible? No! Important and worth the effort? Yes!

Don'ts for startups

If you are a startup company or watching one, Robert Scoble has a few things to say about what startups should NOT be doing. Check it out and while you're at it don't miss the Posterous interview. a Startup whose doing it right.

http://scobleizer.com/2009/11/13/the-worst-things-startups-do/

SWOT analysis or SWAT team?

Are you using SWOT analysis as a strategic planning method to see how you can capitalize on your strengths and improve on your weaknesses? Are you using SWOT to help you develop new ideas and broaden your view of solutions? Or are you a tunnel visioned SWAT team, just aimed at demolishing your threats.

SWOT analysis is a is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. It involves specifying the objective of the business or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are helpful or harmful to achieving the objective.



To use SWOT analysis to help with creative strategic planning, in forming new strategies for the business venture or project and broadening your view. Ask the following questions:

How can we use and capitalize each strength?

How can we improve each weakness?

How can we exploit and benefit from each opportunity?

How can we mitigate each threat?


It is always important to keep in mind that if SWOT is not used creatively, taking into account all the solution possibilities, SWOT may harm performance. It may limit the number of possibilities considered in evaluation.

Need to formulate a Strategy for your business?

Strategic analysis involves understanding the environment outside your organisation, whereas strategic planning is using that understanding to ensure long-term success(http://www.3s4.org.uk/drivers). When analysing your environment it's important to investigate and research all possible drivers(something outside of your organisation that has an impact on you). These include economic, political, technological, environmental, sectoral and social trends. It is a good idea to look at leading indicators to determine how these drivers will change in the future so that strategic planning can be done accordingly. Leading indicators in South Africa are divided into four main sub-groups, namely financial, global, real sector and business opinion surveys.

For example when Job advertisement space in the Sunday Times (percentage change a year ago) is increasing it is a good indicator that the economy is improving and therefore you can plan accordingly.

Goal 9

Reinvent strategy-making as an emergent process. In a turbulent world, strategy making must reflect the biological principles of variety, selection, and retention.

25 Stretch Goals for Management - Gary Hamel

quote

Stephen Covey: "People and their managers are working so hard to be sure things are done right, that they hardly have time to decide if they are doing the right things."

The core strategic challenge is to know what exactly should be done before trying to figure out how it should be done.

Scenario Planning

"I think there is a world market for about 5 computers" TJ Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

Imagen the world in 2100...
Can we plan ahead? The same amount of technological change will happen over the next 10 years that was experienced from 1943 up to now. The difference today is that we have better planning methods.

Scenario Planning stands out among the strategic planning techniques that managers use, because of it's ability to capture a whole range of possibilities in rich detail. It is more than just corporate planning in that it simplifies the avalanche of future possibilities into a limited number of possible states.
The difference between Scenario Planning and other planning techniques is that it explores the joint impact of VARIOUS uncertainties. Thus the scenarios attempt to capture the richness and range of possibilities that would otherwise be ignored.

I leave you with a question, we can make provision for the known unknowns, but can we make provision for the unknown unknowns??