Corporate executive development for integrated assets management in a new global economy

Abstract

The sudden shift from a worldwide boom economy to a recession in just under two years has caused a dramatic change in the direction corporate executives need to drive their organisations. The rapid slide from economic growth into recession on a global scale has been dramatic. This has prompted the need for a radical re-orientation of corporate strategic, tactical and operational planning and decision-making priorities to deal with the shift to a new global economy. However, a survey conducted in December 2008 by Booz and Company found that corporate executives are struggling to make the right moves in the current economic environment, with many wavering in their confidence of fulfilling the expected decision-making and leadership capabilities essential for navigating their companies through the crisis. The accepted past wisdom has been that economic downturns are the great incubators of innovation-driven strategies. But in today's reality, innovation usually takes a backseat to survival. What happens in this situation is that innovative strategic vision and decision-making often tends to weaken, with a general shift towards more survivalist operational initiatives. In this regard, corporate assets, both current and physical, are significantly affected. Physical assets management is primarily about capital assets, the productive assets in which an organisation has invested, particularly during times of economic growth. This has become blurred however, and Integrated Asset Management has expanded to include strategic, tactical and operational planning as well as decision-making of a company's total wealth. It has become a prime responsibility of corporate executives to get more from existing assets and to understand how these assets are performing through adopting key innovation and leadership initiatives in sustainable practices. This paper considers the growing interest world-wide, by corporate organisations as well as universities, of professional executive management development in general, and executive management of corporate assets in particular, in a new global economy that requires the essential capabilities of: establishing corporate strategic planning through innovation-driven, though risk-informed, decision-making; leadership in the establishment and implementation of organisational tactical and operational planning through knowledge-based decision-making; implementation of sustainable practices in preparation for a future competitive edge; as well as business knowledge transfer through the appropriate organisational training of a company's human resource assets.