ICT and Leadership: A Catalyst for Business Success in Ghana - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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ICT and Leadership: A Catalyst for Business Success in Ghana

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Title: ICT and Leadership: A Catalyst for Business Success in Ghana


1
ICT and Leadership A Catalyst for Business
Success in Ghana A Presentation at the 9th AITEC
West Africa Conference and Workshop, La Royal
Palm Beach Hotel, Accra, Ghana, 21-23 September,
2005 Robert Ankomah Opoku Research School
of e-Commerce Luleå University of Technology,
Luleå, Sweden
2
Content
  • The Changing Face of Business
  • The Case of Ghana
  • Fundamentals of Business Success
  • What ICT can do
  • Leadership and ICT
  • Leadership What is it ?
  • The Way Forward
  • Conclusion

3
The Changing Face of Business the World Over
  • The complexity of business
  • Note that Globalisation and organisational
    issues were cited as two of the biggest
    challenges facing many companies in 2005.
  • The Boston Consulting Group Innovation 2005
  • The greater responsibilities of business
  • BUT the underlying reasons for conducting
    business are as constant as the basic needs for
    survival.

4
The Case of Ghana
  • Things are not different
  • The intensifying competition for resources and
    demand.
  • Companies need to be more flexible, more
    results-focused, and more fast-acting.

5
The Case of Ghana (contd)
  • Companies are finding that such initiatives
    require able and visionary leadership.
  • The challenge to help build effective leadership
    both in the next generation of business leaders
    and throughout the organization today.

6
Fundamentals of Business Success in this
Environment
  • Two key issues
  • 1. Knowing the marketplace and being able to
    determine the future.
  • 2. Taking advantage of trends in ICT use.
  • BECAUSE
  • The world is changing very fast. Big will not
    beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating
    the slow.
  • Rupert Murdoch,
  • CEO of News Corporation,US.

7
Fundamentals of Business Success in this
Environment (Contd)
  • However,
  • a. Success can only be maintained through
    effective leadership and sound management
    practices.
  • b. Technology can make things better in every
    aspect of the value chain
  • -Both in primary and support activities
  • -Creating new products
  • -Production methods
  • -Streamlining business processes
  • -Opening up new export markets

8
What ICT can do
  • Rudiments
  • ICT has changed and will continue to change the
    way we
  • Learn,
  • Communicate,
  • Obtain information,
  • purchase products and do business.
  • ICT can improve
  • efficiency and lower costs
  • Increase your understanding of your clients,
    suppliers and partners
  • and improve your communications.

9
Leadership and ICT
  • It is up to an effective business leader
  • not only to choose the best out of a pile of ICT
    technologies available on the market
  • BUT to work with a team in the implementation and
    diffusion of these technologies in order to
    achieve better results.

10
Leadership and ICT (contd)Some differences
between Managers Leaders
  • Managers
  • Agenda Managers plan steps, timelines, budgets,
    and resources.
  • Structure Managers organise structure and staff,
    establish procedures to monitor the
    implementation.
  • Execution Managers role is to minimise
    deviations and help produce predictable results.
  • Leaders
  • Agenda leaders establish directions and visions.
  • Structure Leaders work to align people with that
    visions.
  • Execution Leaders energize and equip people with
    the right tools to help them overcome those
    obstacles.

11
Leadership What is it? And What it is not
  • "Control is not leadership management is not
    leadership leadership is leadership. If you seek
    to lead, invest at least 50 of your time in
    leading yourself-your own purpose, ethics,
    principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least
    20 leading those with authority over you and 15
    leading your peers." - Dee Hock Founder and CEO
    Emeritus, Visa
  • Management is doing things right, leadership is
    doing the right things.
  • -Peter F. Drucker, American Educator and Writer

12
Leadership and ICT (contd)
  • Leadership is a complex process by which a
    person influences others to accomplish a mission,
    task, or objective and directs the organization
    in a way that makes it more cohesive and
    coherent.
  • A person carries out this process by applying
    his/her leadership attributes (belief, values,
    ethics, character, knowledge, and skills).
  • -John Kotter,
  • What Leaders do (1999)

13
Leadership and ICT (contd)
  • Leadership and three levels of ICT implementation
  • Considering technologies that
  • Step 1 Are directly relevant or fundamental to
    organizations core mission
  • Step 2 Lack revolutionary potential but
    organizations need them anyway. For example, a
    website
  • Step 3 Meticulously identifying technologies
    that are nothing than a distraction

14
Next Generation of Business Leaders
  • Why next generation of business leaders is coming
    from ICT, not from finance or marketing?
  • -Msc MBA targeting aspiring business leaders and
    entrepreneurs
  • The idea of charging for calls belongs to the
    last century. Skype software gives people new
    power to affordably stay in touch with their
    friends and family by taking advantage of their
    technology and connectivity investments.
  • Niklas Zennström, CEO Co-founder of Skype
  • Types of leaders we should cultivate as a nation
  • -Values leaders
  • -Thought leaders
  • -Action leaders
  • -Visionary leaders

15
The Way Forward
  • Education
  • Building skills-development programmes and
    developing local capacities.
  • Our leadership and skill development programmes
    should focus on developing eight core
    competencies strategic thinking, influencing,
    leading, thinking globally, championing change,
    utilizing judgment, building relationships, and
    managing disagreements.

16
The Way Forward (contd)
  • Our Teaching Programmes
  • Our educational curriculum should nurture
    thought leaders-individuals who can successfully
    synthesize multiple and, some conflicting agenda
    into a cogent strategic plan to achieve their
    goals by infusing ICT into their solutions.

17
The Way Forward (contd)
  • Opportunities available to the Ghanaian business
    leader with the use of ICT
  • Breaking down markets/organizations into key
    activities.
  • Assessing the potential for adding value via cost
    advantage or differentiation.
  • Identifying current activities where business
    appears to be at competitive disadvantage.
  • Determining strategies, built around and focus on
    activities where competitive advantage can be
    sustained.

18
The Way Forward (contd)
  • It is time to develop ourselves into connective
    leaders- leaders who do not demand that everyone
    adheres to the vision but can tolerate a diverse
    range of viewpoints.
  • The ideal leadership in the twenty-first century
    must go beyond the chance factor.
  • Our creativity in leadership should involve
    resourcefulness, productivity, effective
    communication, innovation, imagination and
    persistence, thus the imperative for a mechanism
    to promote newer forms and levels of leadership.

19
Conclusion
  • To our business leaders, the basis of good
    leadership is honourable character and selfless
    service to ones organization. In the employees
    eyes, ones leadership is everything one does
    that affects the organizations objectives and
    their well being.
  • A respected leader concentrates on
  • What s/he is (beliefs and character)
  • What s/he knows (job, tasks, human nature)
  • What s/he does (implement, motivate, provide
    direction)

20
Conclusion
  • Companies that create the future are rebels.
    Theyre subversies. They break the rules. Theyre
    filled with people who take the other side of an
    issue just to spark a debate. In fact, theyre
    probably filled with people who didnt mind being
    sent to the principals office once a while.
  • -Gary Hamel and C.K Prahalad,
  • Seeing the Future First,
  • Harvard Business Review.

21
Finally
  • Thank you for your attention
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