1.
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Management Report
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into the Digital Future.
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Transformation
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The Future of HR Management :
Plan strategically – operate with excellence
Staying “Online” Sustainably :
What Users Can Do for the Environment and to Prevent Digital Burnout
Brave New World :
A Workplace of the Future
Enterprise 2.0 :
Transformation in the Direction of Networking and Openness Is a Management Task

2.
Transformation
Dear Readers,
What do “Integral Business”, “Smart Working”, “Corporate Demography”, and “Enterprise
2.0” have in common? They are all aspects of one of the greatest and most disruptive develop­
ments of the last century: the complete digitalization, virtualization, and flexibilization of the
w
­ orking world. A brave new world which does not stop with the optimization and automation
of secondary processes; it is nothing less than a profound redefinition of work and its meaning.
­
The success of this development is not primarily dependent on chasing after the latest techno­
logical trends. It is much more a matter of making specifically aimed use of technologies to
optimize the working environment, to respond flexibly to the requirements of different genera­
tions, and to exploit fully slumbering potential. It does not end with the reshaping of the style
of cooperation through the establishment of new management and performance management
a
­ pproaches and the implementation of agile working methods. It includes the design of the wor­
king environment – whether the offer of flexible working schedules or the far-reaching establish­
ment of smart office workplaces dominated by pool offices, think tanks, creative and relaxation
zones, and “business labs” which make decisive contributions to work productivity. Moreover, it
means ­ ringing innumerable transformation initiatives, many of which have not been coordina­
b
ted with one another, in companies into close alignment with corporate strategy and taking their
realization into consideration when developing this strategy. The oft-quoted “strategy execution
gap” cannot really exist when a strategy has been formulated precisely, as is demonstrated by the
results of our transformation study.
If we step aside from the “in-company view”, we are confronted with the issue of sustainability
of business models, especially for Generations Y and Z – sustainable in a social, economic, and
ecological sense. This is a challenge for companies, but it also brings with it potential for new
players never before seen on the market.
But what does this mean when we get to the “bottom line”? We are in the midst of a restructuring
of market conditions and life styles, of a dissolution of classic boundaries: work-life balance is
becoming life balance, competence rather than age will play a role in the future competitiveness
of individuals, classic corporate structures with hundreds of thousands of full-time employees
will yield to flexible, project-related networks, classic disciplinary management will disappear
and be superseded by case-related coaching and mentoring. Questions about “meaning” and
c
­ omprehensive sustainability are moving up the scale of priorities. At the same time, we must
find a way to deal with the consequences of “being excessively informed” and the “always-on
syndrome”. In such a maelstrom of conflicts, technology and digital transformation will play a
decisive role: not only as enablers, but also as disruptors of the 21st century, both opportunity
and risk.
We hope that this issue will give you food for reflective thought, subjects for discussion, and the
desire to contribute actively to this future and trust that you will find it fascinating reading.
Best regards,
Marc Wagner
Partner, Lead Transformation and HR Management
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Detecon Management Report blue • 2013

3.
Content
Sequential Instead of Linear
New Visions of Age, Work, and Diversity
4
Plan strategically – operate with excellence
The Future of HR Management
6
Interview: Transformation Design
About the Role and Needed Mindset of
Effective Transformation Designers in
21st Century Organizations
10
Transformation Excellence
Empirical Insights on Levers to Close the Strategy
to Execution Gap Motivation and Approach
14
Interview: Best Practice at Deutsche Post DHL
„Transformation is a Perennial Issue“
18
Interview: Transformation of HR Services at Deutsche Telekom
Positive Image and a Lot of
Remaining Potential
21
Integral Business Part 1
Re-think Business – Add Value!
24
Integral Business (Part 2)
Practical Steps for Organizations
Masthead:
Editor:
Detecon International GmbH
Sternengasse 14-16
50676 Köln
Germany
www.detecon.com
DMR@detecon.com
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Detecon Management Report blue • 2013
Supervisory Board:
Klaus Werner (Chairman)
Executive Board:
Francis Deprez (CEO)
Dr. Jens Nebendahl
Local Court Cologne HRB 76144
Registered Office: Cologne
Printing:
Kristandt GmbH&Co.KG
Frankfurt/Main
Photos:
Fotolia
iStockphoto
28

4.
Interview with Dr. Ignacio Campino, Director of the DESERTEC Foundation
Transformation in the Face of Climate Change
and Further Global Challenges
32
From Green ICT to Green Business
ICT Sector Plays a Pioneering Role in the
Sustainable Design of New Business Models
38
Staying “Online” Sustainably
What Users Can Do for the Environment
and to Prevent Digital Burnout
42
Interview: Enterprise 2.0
Transformation in the Direction of Networking
and Openness Is a Management Task
46
Detecon Business LAB
Breathing Room for Creatives and Visionaries
50
Brave New World
A Workplace of the Future
52
Mobile IT and Virtual Rooms are Changing the Ways We Work Together
New Working Worlds
58
The Authors
64
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Detecon Management Report blue • 2013

5.
Sequential Instead of Linear
New Visions of Age,
Work, and Diversity
The labor market of the future will be substantially smaller than it is today. One
possible response to the situation is to initiate measures which will keep people
working more effectively and to a greater age. But this will require a change in
perception and in our understanding of age and life phases as well as of the way
we do our work. Managing this historic cultural transformation will be the most
important challenge arising from demographic developments.
he
is divisive:
to live to
Told question of agingwants to be everyone wants antiquity,
an
age, but no one
old. Ever since
the pendulum of age perception has continued to swing back
and forth between esteem and idealization on the one hand and
marginalization and disparagement on the other. Today, older
people feel young longer, they start to feel old at a later stage of
their lives, and their behavior and their life style are more in line
with younger people. So is aging a matter of subjective percep­
tion?
The perception of age
Awareness of the positive aspects of aging has risen ­ ignificantly.
s
According to Ursula Staudinger, a researcher on aging, older
people tend to be better equipped to identify and deal with
n
­ egative emotions; frequently they are socially more compe­
tent and more amiable (www.ursulastaudinger.com). What is
more, they appear to be more dependable. Becoming older is
­
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Detecon Management Report blue • 2013
no ­onger viewed as ­ utomatically meaning physical and mental
l
a
deterioration or a decline in capabilities. Essentially, the only
enemy accompanying old age is idleness. Ursula Staudinger has
even determined that “the latest scientific findings reveal that
the human brain retains its ability to change to a great age.”
Moreover, medicine has made tremendous advances so that
people remain healthier and more vital, even at an advanced
age, than they did only a few decades ago. Just within the last
c
­ entury, the lifespan for some individuals has increased by about
30 years. This is a unique development in human history. But
what is to be done with this additional time we have gained?
Make good use of the years we have gained – but for what?
Politicians and business people at least have a ready answer at
hand: people should work longer as a way to counter demo­
graphic developments and the shortage of specialists and

6.
e
­xecutives. The number of people working longer than they
have to really does seem to be on the rise. When FC Bayern won
the Champions League final, all eyes were also on the coach,
Jupp Heynckes. At the age of almost 70, he fulfilled the dream
of a lifetime by winning the “Triple”.
On the flip side of the coin, many people can hardly wait for
retirement and ask themselves: Why should I work any longer if
I am not forced to do so by financial circumstances?
In the past decades, the idea of “work” essentially meant one
thing for many people: a straight-forward job biography limi­
ted to one occupation or even one employer. This linear view
originated in the 19th century when workplaces away from the
home became common. The day was divided into clearly sepa­
rated working hours and leisure time. A vision of the ideal career
took shape in people’s minds: one profession, one employer, for
an entire lifetime – until retirement. Since the development of
this model and with rising life expectancy, the time people have
spent working as a proportion of their lifetimes has become
shorter and shorter.
Seen against the backdrop, we are now at a turning point:
i
­nstead of shortening people’s work lives even further, we now
want to extend them. The question now is how older people can
suddenly be motivated to continue working to a greater age. The
answer: we must change the way we work, moving away from
the employment relationships and the linear character typical of
our careers in the past decades. People are devoting more and
more time to volunteer work after they retire, a clear indication
that they want to continue working – but based on different
models.
A different way of working
The instruments needed to offer a way of working which is more
flexible in terms of both place and time are available right now:
thanks to the opportunities created by information and commu­
nications technology, many types of work can be done virtually
­
anywhere, anytime. The time-honored unity of workplace and
job, which had held up for about 200 years, and the concept of
specific working hours have begun to collapse in recent years.
This fragmentation makes it possible to distribute work more
flexibly; new time frames have developed and can be utilized as
needed by individuals to take care of children or parents or for
other activities. Life and work models can be tailored for each
individual and coordinated with one another. Work and the way
people work must be oriented to the phases of people’s lives in
the future and take into account the needs related to each par­
ticular phase.
This flexibility of time and place for work is already familiar and
has been exploited in recent years especially as an instrument
benefiting mothers; now, with respect to older people, it must
be supplemented by the criterion of flexibility of content. Our
awareness that the brain can continue to evolve and change well
into old age makes it clear that there is no expiration date for
ongoing learning. This is why a change in profession or jobs is
becoming more and more important, even at a more ­ dvanced
a
age. In fact, continuing to learn throughout our entire lives
is essential if we are to remain healthy as we age. Our brains
do not retain their vitality on their own; they require mental
­stimulation and, above all, new challenges. This is precisely what
keeps people young longer. Early retirement without stimula­
ting ­ ctivities and intellectual challenges can cause people to age
a
faster than doing a job with plenty of variety.
Focus must be on personality rather than on the résumé
In lieu of linear biographies, we need to make room for sequen­
tial biographical phases which allow timeouts, reorientation of
professional careers, and evolvement. This represents a major
change, especially for Germany, where associates (in contrast,
for example, to America) are frequently reduced to their ­résumés
and the points along their careers. But the person and the per­
sonality must become more important in the future. Lifelong
­
learning and sequential biographies will bear fruit only if HR
staff and executives recognize the development potential of their
associates – and it is by no means exhausted after 40 years.
Companies and society have the chance here to create jointly
­
new visions of age, work, and diversity. It is important not just
to make this cultural transformation possible, but to push ahead
actively in achieving it because the changes reverse in part the
developments of recent decades, even centuries, and will at times
inevitably stir up resistance. In the long run, we will see that
these changes may have originally been initiated so that older
people or women could be integrated more closely. ­ owever,
H
they will ultimately change our working lives to such an extent
that, in the final analysis, the reconciliation of individual lives
with work will be improved for everyone and we will be able to
adapt our working lives to the various phases of our personal
existence, making them more diversified and interesting than
is possible today. This will open the door to greater fullness of
people’s lives, which will surely be enhanced by the longer life­
span as well, and to diversity among the workforce.
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Detecon Management Report blue • 2013

7.
Plan strategically – operate with excellence
The Future
of HR Management
New technologies are revolutionizing our ways of communicating and our working methods. Agility,
simplicity, and thinking in terms of networks will determine successful business actions of the future.
HR management must prepare for the new era as well.
cell phone,
Can you imagine a worldorwithout Internet,Less than 20Wiki­
pedia, Google, Facebook, Amazon? No?
years
ago, this was reality. Technological progress has revolutionized
our communication behavior. It has turned market forces on
their heads and given birth to new industries. International
competition has become significantly more intense, and the
barriers to market entry in these industries have been reduced to
a minimum. Moreover, the concept of the “knowledge society”
has been coined – a world in which the volume of information
is expanding exponentially and one aspect is moving more and
more to the forefront: people!
The changes extend deep into the structures and processes of
companies, with the consequence that “people management”
has become particularly important. It does not take a great
leap of imagination to realize that HR departments will have to
rethink their roles and responsibilities. How can I attract pro­
mising candidates with the right talents (“war for talents”) on
an international labor market which is becoming increasingly
transparent? How do I keep my “top performers” on board when
they are being lured away by job offers on XING, LinkedIn, and
similar platforms? What actions must be taken to integrate and
promote diversified cultures? How can I strategically steer my
personnel to achieve optimal results? These are only some of the
questions to which HR directors are now seeking answers. But
what does this mean for HR as a function tomorrow? And what
will this role look like in ten years?
The present situation in HR
HR today is driven by the aim to operate in an active role in clo­
se cooperation with the business. This goal cannot be ­ chieved
a
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Detecon Management Report blue • 2013
without good know-how of internal business processes and a
fundamental understanding of the market. Otherwise, concrete
demands from the business side cannot be addressed. If HR
intends to meet the standard of being “a sparring partner for
business in terms of content and strategy”, it must act on the
peer level with the business departments. The challenge for HR
departments here is that they must have complete command of
all of the details in administrative processes such as payroll and
reporting, yet at the same time are expected to support manage­
ment in the role of HR business partner.
Technological progress will be an important driver for the HR
sector in future, just as it is today. HR work which is currently of
a highly administrative nature will in the future partly be shifted
to the responsibility of others such as executives, employees, or
freelancers, and in some cases may even be completely com­
puterized. These jobs will be replaced by new highly strategic
tasks for HR.
In other words, HR departments of the future will be concen­
trating on functions of high strategic relevance and high com­
plexity. The HR product portfolio depicted in the illustration
can serve as an aid for the clear identification of the envisioned
tasks of personnel departments which will be future-proof. To
put it succinctly: the HR department will concentrate on the
performance of tasks above the waterline.
Activities characterized by minor strategic relevance and a low
level of complexity can be conducted by any number of inhouse or external actors or be automated. There is no funda­
mental reason why a HR department cannot continue to offer
these functions, but the tasks will in the future be “below the

8.
Future
Culture of Innovation
Corporate
Enabling Services
Culture of Entrepreneur
HR Reporting
Culture of Transformation
HR Strategy
HR Policies
Organizational Development
Management of Social Partner
Vendor Management
Today
Corporate
Governance Services
HR Planning
HR Product Portfolio of the Future
Decision-making Culture
Development Program
Performance Evaluation
Employment Contract
Professional &
Advisory Services
Law Service
Staffing
Idea Generation
Training
Salary & Benefits
Absenteeism
Qualification
Payroll
Transactional &
Employment Services
Working Time
Mobility
Health & Safety
Polls
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Detecon Management Report blue • 2013

9.
waterline” and can certainly be handled by external players if the
company so desires to improve profitability or for other reasons.
The job of the HR staff will be to coordinate and steer out­
sourced services within the framework of effective and efficient
program management.
Setting off into a new future
So the objective of HR will be to take possession of functions
which are as far above the “waterline” as possible. These are
functions of high strategic relevance and, in consequence, with a
high level of complexity. “Corporate governance services” – HR
strategy, social partner and vendor management, HR planning
– and, even more so, “corporate enabling services” – a culture of
entrepreneurship, transformation, decision-making, and inno­
vation – fall in this category.
Every HR department will have to consider the situation in its
specific industry and decide for itself what its main responsibili­
ties will be. The propositions below could be used as the starting
points.
Proposition 1: HR will support a sustainable
culture of entrepreneurship.”
When companies are forced to change faster and faster, when
technology and products become increasingly complex, the
o
­ rganizational forms of work have no choice but to adapt to
these developments. Job descriptions, organizational manuals,
and circular emails are no longer adequate to keep pace with the
dynamics of transformation. The search is on for employees who
think along the same lines as the company, i.e., who have, in the
best sense of the phrase, an “entrepreneurial mindset”.
But how can this be accomplished? First of all, employees must
be given complete information about corporate goals, requiring
in-house transparency to a degree rarely seen in the past. Next,
staff members must be instructed and supported so that the cor­
porate goals can be realized at the work level. The corporate
“tools” necessary for performance of their jobs must be placed
in their hands, and they must above all be allowed the personal
liberties which are the essential prerequisite for entrepreneurial
action.
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Detecon Management Report blue • 2013
This “inner culture of entrepreneurship” must be backed up by a
reasonable tolerance of errors which allows individuals a certain
entrepreneurial liberty. Equally important are specific promo­
tions and rewards such as bonus systems which recognize and
honor responsible, entrepreneurial action. The tasks of creating
the required transparency regarding the strategic asset of the
workforce in the company and training the workforce so that
they think and act in line with the company’s purpose must fall
to HR departments.
Proposition 2: HR will develop into a
recognized enabler for
transformations.
The dynamics of transformations will continue to accelerate.
Executives today are frequently inadequately prepared to handle
this acceleration, both with respect to transformation manage­
ment and to the creation of a positive attitude towards changes.
This is where HR can play a more pronounced role as transforma­
tion enabler than has been seen in the past. Successfully playing
this role in the future will be achieved when HR ­ epartments
d
succeed in addressing all levels of cognitive processes, including
­
subconscious defense mechanisms.
By being aware of subconscious fears, conflicts, and barriers
experienced by the people affected by the transformation pro­
cesses, personnel staffs can secure organization of the processes
with less friction. Understanding that such awareness is necessa­
ry is hardly a revelation. But applying it to situations of reality
often fails because the ideal transformation enabler is missing.
This presents an opportunity for personnel experts in compa­
nies – ultimately, they can slip into the role of “transformation
coaches” who guide employees through a continuous change
process that never really ends.
The major significance of the subject from the HR standpoint
has been recognized in some companies, and they are taking
active steps. At Deutsche Telekom, for example, the department
“Transformational Change” has been established within the
HR division for the purpose of promoting and accelerating the
company’s transformation capability. Essential instruments for
the Telekom approach include a virtual platform available to all
of the group’s employees as well as external stakeholders which is
intended to serve as an opportunity to mold transformation. In

10.
addition, formats which expand the virtual services are offered.
Moreover, a building complex at the heart of Berlin is expected
to serve as a physical anchor point within the innovative startup
world of Berlin.
Proposition 3: HR will create a culture
of innovation.
One thing has not changed even in the 21st century: ideas still
come from people, whether creative individual inventors or
from perfectly staffed teams.
For a long time, attempts were made within the framework of
innovation management to plan, steer, and control innovations
systematically. But creativity as a basis for innovation is hard
to reconcile with aspects such as planning, steering, and con­
trol. So companies must set themselves the goal of overcoming
barriers to innovation – lack of ability, lack of commitment,
lack of permission, lack of confidence – by establishing an open
innovation culture.
HR departments can proactively contribute to this process
by promoting the process, turning innovation and agile wor­
king styles into the responsibility of all of the employees in the
company. HR’s task here is to create instruments which enable
company-wide innovations while simultaneously being innova­
tive itself. So it can start within its own sphere by serving as an
inspiration to others: providing breathing space for creatives,
breaking away from hidebound ways of thinking, and initiating
a culture of error in which mistakes are permitted and an open
sharing of ideas, free of any competitive pressures, becomes pos­
sible.
ted to individual employees who can directly survey and assess
the possible ramifications of specific decisions.
If a decision-making culture of this nature is to be established
in large enterprises as well, decision-making authority must
be transferred in the sense of subsidiarity from executives to
e
­ mployees. Simultaneously, the work units must be structured
in such a manner that the individual employees can assess the
e
­ffects of their decisions as precisely as possible. Necessary
w
­ ithin this context are also the capabilities of the employees
– key words: “acting as an entrepreneur” – which must be pro­
moted more vigorously than in the past.
Another important task will be to overcome the inner resistance
of managers to relinquish authority. All of these tasks can be
addressed ideally by an HR department acting in its role as
“people manager”.
Understand that change is an opportunity
Agility, simplicity, and thinking in terms of networks – ­ hese are
t
the core attributes of successful companies in the 21st ­century.
The core comprises as well the capability of every ­single ­employee
to “reinvent himself/herself continuously.” HR departments
which grasp the change in HR functions as an opportunity to
redefine the scope of their tasks and to assume responsibility for
functions of high strategic significance and great complexity will
operate “above the waterline” and contribute to the success of
their companies.
Proposition 4: HR will encourage a new
decision-making culture.”
In many large companies, decisions are either obstructed or
slowed down by complexity: complexity of internal structures
and complexity of the actual content of projects, processes, and
markets.
There are good reasons why a comparison of large corpora­
tions with midsize companies reveals the dominance of a fast
d
­ ecision-making culture in the latter. The decisive elements here
are flat hierarchies and greater freedom to make decisions gran­
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11.
Interview: Transformation Design
About the Role and
Needed Mindset of Effective
Transformation Designers in
21st Century Organizations
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Detecon Management Report blue • 2013

12.
How can business leaders reach a new depth of self-awareness to perceive and imagine a world of new
possibilities and lead others there? In an explorative conversation with Peter Schreck and David Gommé,
well-known leaders in the field of transformation design, they explain their ideas and challenge for leaders.
D
MR: Before we dive into the ideas of transformation design
too quickly, we should first discuss the term. How do you define
transformation design?
DMR: What do we need to be aware of as designers of transformation processes which are meant to motivate, inspire, and guide so
many different people?
P. Schreck: Let me start by quoting what Wikipedia has to say
about transformation design before we enter into our discussion
about the role and needed mindset of transformation designers,
keeping in mind our individual professional contexts:
D. Gommé: One of the most important points I have learned
during my career as a coach and consultant and while helping
senior executives to achieve their vision for the company is just
how critical it is to business transformation to understand the
causes and nature of human transformation.
“In broad terms, transformation design is a human-centered,
interdisciplinary process that seeks to create desirable and
s
­ustainable changes in behavior and form – of individuals,
s
­ ystems and organizations – often for socially progressive ends.
It is a multi-stage, iterative process applied to big, complex
i
­ssues – often, but not limited to, social issues. Its practitioners
examine problems holistically rather than reductively to under­
stand relationships as well as components to better frame the
challenge. They then prototype small-scale systems – composed
of objects, services, interactions and experiences – that support
people and organizations in achievement of a desired change.
Successful prototypes are then scaled. Because transformation
design is about applying design skills in non-traditional terri­
tories, it often results in non-traditional design outputs. Pro­
jects have resulted in the creation of new roles, new organiza­
tions, new systems and new policies. These designers are just
as ­ikely to shape a job description, as they are a new product.
l
This emerging field draws from a variety of design disciplines
– service design, user-centered design, participatory design,
concept design, information design, industrial design, graphic
design, systems design, interactive design, experience design – as
well as non-design disciplines including cognitive psychology
and perceptual psychology, linguistics, cognitive science, archi­
­
tecture, haptics, information architecture, ethnography, story­
telling and heuristics.”
In my experience, the most successful business endeavors have
always been those which, in addition to the business side, put
strong emphasis on promoting and supporting human develop­
ment. I call this integrated transformation design – the “double
helix” of combining human transformation with business trans­
formation.
Integrated transformation design is a series of processes
enabling a business to act as a highly innovative, rapid response
­mechanism to emerging needs and challenges while ­maintaining
an ever developing standard of social responsibility.
Integrated transformation design highlights the two faces of
transformation that transformation designers must keep in
mind if they want the transformation processes they are guiding
to be highly effective in the sense of motivating, inspiring, and
leading the company’s employees: First human transformation,
the result of organic personal development and evolution, and
second business transformation in the sense of organizational
dynamics that is mostly about maintaining a company’s compe­
titive edge and value proposition.
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13.
Interdisciplinary
Fundamental
21st-century LeadershipDynamics
Transformation Design
Purpose
Holistic
Consciousness
Culture
Living Human Beings Capabilities
Integral
Integrated
Transformation Designer
Human Transformation
Eternal Timeframes Evolution professional
principles
Innovation Shift Startups Agile FacilitationUniversalComplex Passion Perception Intuition
Double-Helix
Future
Self-awareness
Systems Coworking
Spiritual
fluid
Collaboration Network Manager CollectiveIntelligence Instincts
Technology
Self-Organisation
Business Transformation Frequencies Atmosphere
Community consumer-centric Pressure Energies
Social
Business Models Stress
DMR: The field of transformation will remain organic and keep
on constantly evolving if we integrate conscious human evolution
into our transformation processes. In our earlier conversations, you
always stressed that business and technology transformation is by far
not enough. We need businesses, business cultures, and organizational systems that are able to respond to the human development of
individuals and groups. How could this work?
D. Gommé: If a genuine working partnership among the
i
­ndividuals within an organization for the purpose of creating
dramatic new futures is truly to be established, the most im­
portant thing for a transformation designer is to make sure that
those ­nvolved are prepared and ready for the transformation to
i
happen.
Human transformation begins with the creation of an inner
state and mental ecology which facilitate personal transforma­
tion. Equally fundamental are the definition of our personal
values, the knowledge of what our life’s achievements and con­
tributions are to be, and what we regard as our mission.
Leaders who discern and grasp this vital perspective – because
as individuals they are on such a journey themselves – are able
to integrate this ongoing human process into the creation of an
exciting new future for the company. You and I together consti­
tute the living structures of change and transformation.
The challenge for the integrated transformation designer is to
design processes, roles, and systems which “recruit” what is
happening inside the employees – the evolution of new ­ alue
v
s
­ystems, new needs, and new ideas and capabilities – to be
used as potent transformation catalysts to create a new, future-­
minded corporate culture.
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Detecon Management Report blue • 2013
Provided that a business is well managed and empowered, the
collective intelligence generated by its associates can transform
the organization from within. Often, however, management
does not have the personal development and ability to inspire
its people to make this happen.
P. Schreck: You like to mention Apple, when you name examples
­
of organizations that are good at integrating the human perspec­
tive and inspiration of employees and customers in their design
processes. Could you explain this here?
D. Gommé: Apple has had incredible success with consumeroriented, user-friendly designs. The comparison between Apple
and other competitors, mainly two to four years ago, high­
lights the fundamental shift and trend change from productto ­onsumer-centric approaches in innovative thinking and
c
design. Apple has been far more successful at integrating the
human perspective. One of the key lessons is that many designs
­
today are the result of misdirected ideas or even unsolicited
m
­ adness rather than of consistent purpose. Apple’s approach
­
to ­nnovation has been – and still is – to design products and
i
s
­ervices that are purpose-driven – relatively speaking – rather
than just a little different from what other players have put
on the market – a few different features, a modified shape, a
­distinctive color.
P. Schreck: What would be an example of a purposeful design
principle?
D. Gommé: Staying with this case study, Apple’s incorporation
of the “touch” dimension is a good example of how a company
can design “responsive” products. Purposeful design is all about
offering experiences that are intuitive for users. This type of

14.
d
­ esign conforms to natural aspects of human physiognomy and
is in line with users’ natural instincts, giving it strong appeal.
P. Schreck: So, what do you think is the challenge for leaders
who want to transform their companies into what we might call
purpose-designing organizations?
D. Gommé: The key challenge for the coming years will be the
creation of environments and networks that collaborate in a way
where taking responsibility and being accountable becomes part
of their DNA, thereby fully establishing the mindset of “inte­
grated transformation”.
Having said this, I think the same challenges we see in the col­
laboration of the open freelance and startup worlds will become
very relevant for the transformation efforts of bigger corpora­
tions. Corporations are beginning to understand and accept
that they need a more open and informal approach to com­
munication and collaboration among their employees from dif­
ferent departments and with people outside of their company
walls. It will be crucial for success to have good transformation
facilitators working alongside good managers so that the often
rigid structures of corporations can be transformed into more
fluid network organizations.
Again, let’s look at Apple. What Apple must do now is trans­
form what the mind and the vision of Steve Jobs did for Apple
– while he was alive and steering the organization – into some­
thing the people at Apple can accomplish even without another
Steve Jobs. The great challenge for the corporation today can be
expressed like this: Will it be able to nurture the type of leader­
ship that can liberate the great talent in the company by libera­
ting the vast creative potential of its people?
Peter Schreck is a leading expert on
new trends and inspiring activities in
the field of co-working, co-innovation,
participation, and (social) entrepre­
neurship. He holds an MBA in busi­
ness design and is the founder of Idea
Republic. Idea Republic’s network of
creative professionals helps organiza­
tions to strengthen their collaboration
and innovation capabilities by applying
cutting-edge facilitation methods,
products and spaces. Detecon is a
c
­ ooperation partner of Idea Republic.
P. Schreck: Many elements are managed to death because ma­
nagement takes over even though it is not in a position to help
– not even by implementing better or newer or faster manage­
ment practices. Organizations, countries and networks require
the facilitation of transformation processes, and facilitation is
very different from management. As transformation designers,
we facilitate human and inter-human processes that allow po­
sitive energies and (potentially) brilliant ideas to grow and take
shape. Good management will always be needed as it is a part of
business life. But there is certainly an urgent need for a more ef­
fective balance between the two roles. One of the many reasons
for the excessive influence exercised by managers is ego – mana­
gers are more prominent on the stage, while facilitators operate
in the background, to enable people to realize their potential
individually and collectively.
David Gommé is part of the Idea
Republic network and has been an
e
­ xecutive coach and organizational
development consultant for several
decades, focusing on the development
of human capabilities within organi­
zational contexts. He is the founder
of Capable Dynamics, whose mission
is to help high performers create
winning strategies and superior value
by ­ erceiving the ways that the future
p
is shaping the world, the marketplace,
and how we think and behave. He
likes to lead people back to their
core by ­ sking the question: “Do you
a
p
­ articipate in life?”
DMR: Peter, you have collected a great deal of experience not only
within big organizations, but among organizations and individuals. Maybe you could share with us your key findings when it comes
to inter- and intraorganizational collaboration. What is needed for
the design of an effective transformation process?
P. Schreck: Good facilitation practices and professional facili­
tators! What really works and is needed in my opinion are fa­
cilitation professionals who support people as they enter a new
network community, helping them to easily find the subgroup
of people who really share their interests and goals and to colla­
borate with them.
13
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15.
Transformation Excellence
Empirical Insights on
Levers to Close the Strategy
to Execution Gap Motivation
and Approach
Performance improvement initiatives and transformation programs are a permanent reality in most organizations today. Our experience reveals that many organizations face a significant strategy to execution gap. This survey was designed
to provide insights on key levers to minimize this strategy to execution gap.
14
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16.
Transformation initiatives are ideally coordinated with one
another, into close alignment with corporate strategy. But the
reality often looks somewhat different. To obtain more insights,
we set up a total of 54 hypotheses describing key aspects of per­
formance improvement and transformation programs and asked
approximately 800 experts in the area to share their experience
with us. These experts had different roles in these programs:
they were sponsors (typically at the CxO level), internal pro­
gram or workstream leaders, internal experts, or external consul­
tants. They were asked to assess the 54 hypotheses in areas such
as these:
• Drivers, ambition level, and impact
• Leadership, mindset, and culture
• Organization and governance style
• Processes, methods, and tools.
An evaluation of the gap for each assessment concerning the
as-is situation and impact on future success enables determina­
tion of the levers which will be most effective for the required
enhancement of efforts. They have been analyzed for all respon­
dents and for each respondent group, i.e., sponsors, internal
program leaders, internal experts, and external consultants.
Respondent Structure
After very careful validation, we had 104 complete data sets to
be used for the evaluation. The data provide insights into the
perception of experts from companies like BMW, Continental,
Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Post Worldnet, EnBW,
Hewlett Packard, Ikea, Merck, OET, RWE, SAP, Schott, Deut­
sche Telekom, Volkswagen, and Zurich.
The respondents …
Their assessments considered these questions:
• Does the situation described by each statement match (com­
pletely or partially) or not match (completely or partially) the
current situation in the selected program?
• Is the impact on the sustainable success of future performance
improvement or transformation programs considered negative,
neutral, or positive?
… are adequately distributed concerning their roles: approximately
40% project managers, 40% consultants, 5% sponsors, and 15%
stakeholders;
… are very experienced; approximately 50% spend more than 80%
of their time on transformation endeavors;
… are in charge of large transformation programs: approximately
50% > 100 project staff members involved, 30% > 11 consultants,
and about 40% affecting a workforce of more than 10,000.
Key Questions and Survey Approach
Sponsors
Organizational
Performance
Assessment of
54 hypotheses
in the areas
The Goal:
Development with ideal
transformation-capabilities
Strategy
to
Execution
Gap
What are levers
to minimize the
Strategy to Execution
gap?
Time
As Is:
Development with limited
transformation-capabilities
Program
Leaders
As Is Assessment
Assessment Spread
Analyses
• Drivers, Ambition
Level & Impact
• Leadership Mindset
and Culture
• Organization and
Governance Style
• Processes, Methods
and Tools
Affected
Stakeholder,
Experts
Levers Rankings per
Participant Group
Gap = Need for
more Effort
Assessment of Impact of
the situation described by
the statement on success
of future programs
Most Relevant Levers
Correlation Analyses
Connected
Statements
External
Consultants
Source: Detecon
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Detecon Management Report blue • 2013

17.
Results of the Survey: Top Ten Levers for Improvement
The survey reflects the experience of business transformation
e
­xperts from a broad range of industries. The perception of
achievement and overachievement of program targets as com­
municated officially internally and externally is much higher
(70%) than personal perception (40%).
The top ten levers suggest major need for improvement con­
cerning trust, culture, communication, methods, and tools;
sponsors display a remarkably positive perception of the as-is
situation compared to all other respondent groups.
Overall the respondent groups have highly divergent percep­
tions of the need for action concerning the 54 levers; their selec­
tion of the top ten levers differs notably.
The results in detail:
“The leadership teams in the various operational units cooperate
on a basis of trust.”
This hypothesis ranks first concerning need for improvement
except by external consultants, who rank it fifth.
“We have an effective learning culture and processes in place.”
This is not ranked in the top ten by sponsors and stakeholders.
“We are highly professional when it comes to management of
complexity in our legacy structures, processes, and systems to
avoid limitations and enable disruptive change.”
This hypothesis is ranked in the top ten by all respondent
groups, although only ninth by project leaders.
About 60% of the sponsors consider as-is performance situation
to be quite good, whereas only 22%-33% of the other groups
agree with this statement.
While most respondent groups see very high relevance for suc­
cess (> 70%), less than half of the project leaders think so.
“We have a realistic allocation of resources to achieve project
success in terms of people and skills.”
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Detecon Management Report blue • 2013
This lever is top priority for external consultants, stakeholders,
and project leaders, but not for sponsors. The reason is that
71% or the sponsors have a positive perception of the as-is­
situation while only around 30% of all other respondents assess
the current situation as satisfactory.
“The staff in the various operational units cooperate on a basis
of trust.”
This is a top lever for consultants only. Only one-third of the
external consultants and 20% of the stakeholders see the as-is
situation as positive while almost 60% of the project leaders
and sponsors have a positive perception of collaboration among
staff.
“The business strategy can be explained by a large proportion
of the staff.”
This lever is considered only by consultants as a top lever. Spon­
sors, for instance, rank it 21st.
Again, sponsors have a very positive perception (about 90%) of
the as-is situation concerning this aspect while less than half of
the project leaders and stakeholders are comfortable with the
as-is situation.
Consultants are the most critical group as only 22% rate the asis situation as satisfactory.
“We have a realistic allocation of resources to achieve project
success in terms of time.”
Especially critical for project leaders, but also for consultants,
while this lever is only of medium relevance for others.
Remarkably, again almost 60% of the sponsors have a positive
perception of the as-is situation while only one-third of the
other groups see the as-is situation of this aspect as positive.
“Our transformation process, methods, and tools are highly
e
­ ffective and efficient.”
This is viewed only by stakeholders and project leaders as one
of the top ten critical levers; again, almost 60% of the sponsors
consider this aspect as given.

18.
Remarkably, two-thirds of the stakeholders are critical of the asis situation, and a stunning 80% consider transformation me­
thods and tools as highly relevant for success while less than half
of the project leaders do so.
“Managers remain accountable until impact has materialized.”
This hypothesis is assessed only by project leaders as a critical
lever while sponsors rank it 25th.
Roughly half of the project leaders consider as-is to be satisfac­
tory.
“Payback time is long enough to support fundamental change:
rated among the top ten solely by project leaders and stakehol­
ders.”
Only a quarter to less than half of the consultants, project lea­
ders, and stakeholders are satisfied with the as-is situation while
almost 60% of the sponsors think that payback time is long
enough.
We continued to dig more deeply into these insights and took a
look at the top ten levers according to respondent group.
Deep Dive on the Assessments by Respondent Group
The top ten levers by respondents groups, if it goes to terms of
improvements, are shown like this:
Summary, Recommendations and Next Steps
The top ten levers reveal a major need for improvement concer­
ning trust, culture, communication, methods, and tools; spon­
sors have a remarkably positive perception of the as-is situation.
Respondent groups have highly divergent perceptions of the
need for action concerning the overall top ten levers, and the
top ten levers per respondent group differ significantly.
Further analysis of the data, i.e., the total set of 54 hypotheses
and the analysis of groups of hypotheses, will provide insights
which we would be happy to discuss in an expert group.
We recommend that the different actors in transformation pro­
grams raise their awareness of the fact that their counterparts
might have significantly different perceptions of the as-is situa­
tion with regard to specific transformation aspects, the impact
of these aspects on the success of transformation programs, and
the need for improvement concerning these aspects.
It is evident that closing the gap between these different percep­
tions and developing a joint understanding of the specific focus
areas are likely to improve target achievement of transformation
programs and can thereby contribute significantly to closing the
strategy to execution gap. Further analysis of the feedback and
incorporation of the insights into specific transformation con­
texts based on these results is the next step to be taken.
Communication, active top management involvement, ­ ealistic
r
budgets, manager accountability, and stretch targets are top
p
­ riorities for improvement only for sponsors.
Process transparency, focus on results, business case standardi­
zation, and understanding of strategy are the top levers only for
internal experts.
Effective learning, overlap between initiatives, realistic resour­
ce allocation, manager accountability, and staff attitude are top
priorities for improvement only for program leaders.
Trust among staff and transparency regarding customers and
their needs are levers which require much higher focus as per­
ceived by external consultants in comparison with other respon­
dent groups
17
Detecon Management Report blue • 2013

19.
Interview
Best Practice at Deutsche Post DHL
„Transformation is a
perennial issue“
Klaus Kenfenheuer is Vice Presi­
dent Project Controlling (Corpo­
rate Controlling) at Deutsche Post
DHL. He is highly regarded as
an expert for transformation and
­investment projects.
In his role as Vice President Project and Investment Controlling, Klaus Kenfenheuer has been
in charge of a large number of restructuring and transformation projects at Deutsche Post DHL
– one of the most recent was the winding up of the domestic US Express business. We spoke to
him about success factors, methods, and challenges.
DMR: Mr. Kenfenheuer, how do you appraise the significance of
the transformation issue at Deutsche Post DHL?
Kenfenheuer: As we are a global corporation doing business on
an extremely dynamic market, the subject of transformation is
of course a “perennial issue” and has become a part of our daily
business. Generally speaking, a rough distinction must be made
among three forms of transformation programs.
The first category encompasses projects revolving around ne­
cessary structural adaptations, including the so-called “trigger
events” which set off the process of dealing with structural
problems such as the restructuring of the domestic US Express
business a few years ago.
In the second category, we concentrate above all on responses
to macro-economic changes such as the recent financial crisis.
We have implemented programs like the “Index Program” (in­
direct costs excellence), which specifically supports long-term
improve­ ent in our cost structure.
m
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Detecon Management Report blue • 2013
In addition to these first two categories, however, we have a large
number of efficiency programs which are constantly in play and
aimed at increasing productivity and continuously optimizing
our processes. The latter is definitely comparable with trends in
the automotive industry.
DMR: What major trends can be discerned at the moment, especially regarding the subject of increasing efficiency? Are there any
standardized procedures?
Kenfenheuer: We have increased our efforts to establish
“Center of Excellence” units in the company. In the past, the
v
­ arious units frequently had a closer resemblance to a row of
isolated ­ ilos. The creation of these “Center of Excellence” units
s
heightens standardization – for reporting topics, for example –
bundling know-how and making it available from a centrally
a
­ ccessible point, and is also a solution for the issue of dependen­
cy on key resources. Moreover, it is simpler to introduce new
tools or updates from a central platform.

20.
DMR: How is the experience from previous transformation projects
preserved so that it can be applied profitably during the next transformation and improve performance capability?
Kenfenheuer: We have a central project reporting tool which
has been integrated into our group reporting tool. We record
the performance of our most important projects on this portal
monthly or quarterly. During the restructuring a few years ago,
the records encompassed more than 800 single projects, clas­
sified according to divisions, functions, and countries. ­ tatus
S
reports with traffic lights include commentaries on project pro­
gress and possible threats to implementation. The focus here is
on action-oriented controlling. This simply means that we are
primarily interested in knowing what actions have been initia­
ted so that the objective can be realized to the greatest extent
still possible if the plan has gotten off track. Any findings are
pre­ ared quarterly in the form of business reviews and miles­
p
tone reports – this is the same procedure, by the way, we follow
with all of our large investment projects. We answer specific
questions in our reporting. What has been achieved? What are
the residual risks? What went well, and what did not? What
follow-up activities are called for?
DMR: What analysis techniques have you preferred to use during
the recent transformation projects?
Kenfenheuer: Our approaches are largely pragmatic. In many
cases, objectives are set top-down and validated using bottomup business cases. We use external benchmarking only in very
specific situations. The problems with external benchmarks are
related to the issues of comparability, peer group, and the high
expenditures of time and money needed for meaningful bench­
marking. Internal benchmarks, in contrast, are of great signifi­
cance for us as they are also valuable in the sense of best practice
sharing. The size of our company and our business model enable
us to make good comparisons within the corporate group.
DMR: Are these transformations planned and realized completely
by in-house experts, or are external consultants also involved in the
process?
Kenfenheuer: Steering and control are often handled by top
management, especially in our large-scale transformation pro­
jects. At times, we also involve consultants for certain specia­
list subjects during the concept drafting phase, as was the case
during the realization of our US restructuring. However, the
concrete realization of the transformations is again primarily
the ­esponsibility of our line organization. Experts from our
r
in-house consulting are being brought in for support with
i
­ncreasing frequency. The responsibility for the actual realiza­
tion is clearly with the local management – otherwise, the longterm effects of projects like this will never materialize.
DMR: So there is a downward trend in the use of consultant support?
Kenfenheuer: That is not necessarily the case. In the past few
years, Deutsche Post DHL has put a lot of effort into expan­
ding its in-house consulting so that we develop our own best
practice know-how and our project experience can be utilized
in later projects. We also turn to our in-house consulting much
of the time to handle the PMO responsibilities – in no small
part because this serves as an excellent entry method for young
executives. In recent years, we have also invested a lot of energy
in the creation of our own “first choice methodology”; methods
and tools standardized throughout the group ensure that we all
speak the same language and have a systematic approach and
structure for dealing with the issues. Whenever necessary, we
contact external consultants as well for assistance with specialist
subjects. This is of course true for support closely related to IT;
we are dependent on external help in this case because of the
required resources, even if nothing else.
DMR: You have already mentioned the success factors line responsibilities and involvement of top management. What do you believe
makes the difference between success and failure of transformation
projects?
Kenfenheuer: I consider in-depth and active involvement of
top and middle management to be essential. Simply being pre­
sent at the kick-off and closing event is not enough. It is must
be clear at all times that this subject has the attention of the
executive board and enjoys absolute priority. The same applies
to local management. Since we are a truly global company, it is
decisive that national management be a part of the crew.
During the projects, the subject of “communication” plays a de­
cisive role, of course. Experience shows that mistakes are often
made here – especially when it is a matter of clearly conveying
the benefits of the project to the people who are affected by it.
In our view, deeply involved “management of performance and
consequences” in particular plays a decisive role. Since clear tar­
gets have frequently been set for the programs, performance can
be meaningfully measured as a rule. Aberrations from the plan
can be made transparent and the necessary conclusions can be
drawn. This is true in a positive as well as in a negative sense.
Experience – especially in the last few years – has proved that
fundamentally all of the initiatives should pursue an overriding
objective and come together as far as possible in a central stra­
tegy program.
19
Detecon Management Report blue • 2013

21.
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22.
Transformation of HR Services at Deutsche Telekom
Positive Image
and a Lot of Remaining Potential
Joachim Bauß has been guiding the development of the central shared service unit “HR Business Services” at
Deutsche Telekom since the concept and start-up phase in 2006. In this extensive interview, he gives readers
insights into what has been achieved and reports on his personal experience as well as ideas for the future.
DMR: Mr. Bauß, in your position as director of HR Business
Services, you are responsible for a gigantic HR “service factory”:
volume has now grown to about three million orders, one mil­
lion incoming messages, and 500,000 calls a year for 250,000
customers in 40 companies belonging to Deutsche Telekom.
When you think back to the early days, would you have been
able to imagine right from the start such a development of what
was then the Personal Service Telekom (PST)?
Bauß: As things have turned out, it has become more than was
originally envisioned in our ideas. At that time, it was typical to
combine the establishment of a shared service with a specific,
clear focus on efficiency: cutting costs through standardization,
process automation, reduction of complexity – the big issue was
first and foremost downsizing. People did not become aware
until a later point that, beyond this, better management and
clear interaction between the shared service and other corporate
functions were possible. From that point on, it was not just a
matter of making existing operations more economical; more
and more new tasks were added to the scope of responsibility.
Finally, the staff has grown from the approximately 1,000 asso­
ciates at the start to about 1,600 associates today. However, the
tasks that required a staff of 1,000 in 2007 are handled now by
600.
So the scope of our activities has expanded substantially in com­
parison with the original vision; a large number of knowledgebased topics have joined transformation. I am highly satisfied
with the development.
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Detecon Management Report blue • 2013

23.
DMR: The shared service center concept has in the meantime
become a popular classic for the reorganization of crossover
tasks. However, there are numerous examples on the market in
which the envisioned targets were missed by significant margins.
What do you regard as the typical pitfalls during the establish­
ment of shared services, and how can they be avoided?
Bauß: One important point is the clear definition of the roles
of “business partner” and “competence center” as well as the in­
terfaces in this triangular relationship. Moreover, while seeking
the greatest efficiency, you must not lose sight of the issues of
quality and service; you must keep reminding yourself of what
is ideal for the corporation as a whole.
DMR: Is it possible to increase appreciation of a shared service
unit in the corporation on the basis of this expansion of respon­
sibilities and to detach it from the key phrase “cost-cutting”?
Bauß: The image of the shared service center is changing. In the
past, it was often associated with a machine room, and many
associates from other HR organization units were not happy
about the idea of working in shared service. That attitude has
fundamentally changed. But ultimately, appreciation comes
from the results as they are perceived.
During integration meetings and workshops, I like to use our
associate satisfac¬tion values as a powerful argument. They are
at a very high level and can hold up absolutely against the HR
­average as well as the values at corporate headquarters. ­Obviously
people on the inside feel differently from those on the outside.
DMR: Dave Ulrich, the intellectual father of the three-pillar
model comprising business partner, competence center, and
shared service, recently spoke about the significance of the roles.
He himself now reacts allergically to the term “business part­
ner” because it is interpreted wrongly so often. In his view, all
three pillars must in the end see themselves as business partners
because the issue at stake is always the joint support of the busi­
ness. Do you agree?
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Detecon Management Report blue • 2013
Bauß: Absolutely. This is the only way to achieve genuine opti­
mization from a holistic perspective. One good example is our
manager hotline we launched a year ago. We offer here a tele­
phone channel for questions related to a management task such
as general legal conditions or tools. From the standpoint of my
unit, I initially incur additional costs with this service. But we
realized that a channel of this nature is very important for the
managers below the executive level, e.g., the leaders of teams
comprising perhaps 15–20 associates at the hundreds of Tele­
kom locations in Germany. From the corporation’s viewpoint,
it naturally makes much better sense if someone calls us directly
and talks to our agent for fifteen minutes, spending a quarter
of an hour for the call instead of an hour combing through
the many different sources in search of an answer. We want to
encourage this type of thinking: Where should we deliberate­
ly supplement services so that we improve something from the
corporate viewpoint? The costs directly attributable to the HR
organization in a typical DAX company amount to about one
to two percent. Of course it is important to optimize in this
area. But we must not throw the baby out with the bathwater,
because HR has an impact on many other costs which are not
incurred directly by HR.
DMR: The interaction of the roles you describe is the result of a
cultural maturing process over a period of many years. How and
when is it triggered best?
Bauß: The cultural transformation starts with the decision in
favor of this approach – and with the first staff assignments
who actually contribute to the transformation of the HR world.
The value of Dave Ulrich’s model immediately begins to appear
during the transformation itself: it reveals that there are three
completely different challenges. There was once a time when the
principle of “one size fits all” reigned: one person did everything
from policy to processing to consulting. But the person who can
perform all three of the roles equally well does not exist. That
is why a division of labor and differentiation of content among
the three roles as peers ensures effectiveness as well as efficiency.
Along this path, you must use massive communication to carry
along the associates, the new model must be embodied in the
actions of the management team, and it takes time – but I have
major doubts as to whether there is a general prescription for
this.

24.
DMR: Where do you see the limits to the “industrialization of
services”? How meaningful are service “factories” that bring to­
gether such disparate topics as HR, IT, finance, or procurement
under a single roof?
Bauß: Within HR, the merger of the services is of great added
value because we repeatedly determine that knowledge- and
transaction-based issues are highly dependent on one another.
So, in the end, the HR department comes up with a model
which, on the one side, includes the business partners who act
as a kind of co-pilots to concentrate strongly on the concerns
of the business. There are also HR strategy issues. On the other
side, there is a kind of HR-COO who holds the reins of all of
the issues related to the service machine HR. This development,
typical for HR, will have been implemented in most companies
in the near future.
Multifunctional shared services could be the next step. But
the one thing that will be almost impossible to achieve here is
the scaling advantages in operations. It will be difficult to find
s
­ omeone who takes care of the accounts receivable in the mor­
ning, drafts an employment contract at lunchtime, and is con­
cerned with procurement development in the afternoon – not
at the costs usual in the operating area, at any rate. In terms of
management and governance, on the other hand, I see clear be­
nefits, especially because it gives greater weight to the perception
of the “in-house service provider”.
DMR: Let’s close by daring to take a look into the future.
Smartphone voice assistants can tell us today, for example, how
Bayern Munich played versus Dortmund. Can you imagine that
in the foreseeable future HR questions will be answered using
database support without the direct involvement of your asso­
ciates?
Bauß: That will certainly be possible for standardized questions.
The technology, especially voice recognition, is improving
­steadily.
We recently introduced our voice portal where callers can talk to
a computer now, using normal sentences, not menu commands.
We are constantly learning on this basis: questions which can­
not be clearly classified land under “Miscellaneous”. We can
then analyze what the customer actually wanted. The next time
a call about the issue comes in, it does not go to the “Miscella­
neous” box, but is routed appropriately – to “Payroll”, let’s say.
In the meantime, we have activated about 600 terms, and the
system is constantly learning new ones.
So in the middle term, this is clearly where we are headed. As
soon as we on our part have acquired comprehensive informa­
tion on how the customers speak and the customers on their
part have gained experience concerning the best way to interact
with us, this scenario will be implemented and used by many
companies.
Here in the corporation, we have decided to expand the shared
services at each of the individual functional levels, i.e., expan­
sion within finance, HR, procurement, and communication.
H
­ owever, I could well imagine taking this path of a merger
when a certain maturity level has been reached – but it will not
be driven by economies of scale, but with an eye on governance,
clear roles, and acting at peer level.
Joachim Bauß is CEO of HR
B
­ usiness Services, Deutsche Tele­
kom AG with 250,000 customers
and 1,600 associates. The holder of
a business degree previously held
v
­ arious positions at Deutsche Tele­
kom, Gruner & Jahr, and Booz Allen
& Hamilton.
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Detecon Management Report blue • 2013

25.
Integral Business Part 1
Re-think Business – Add Value!
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26.
We predict that in the future companies of all types and sizes will need
to transform themselves into “integral businesses” if we are to maintain
balance in our world and sustain long-term a livable environment. So the
question arises: What needs to be changed, and what does a truly “integral
business model” that can guarantee both a healthy economy and a healthy
environment look like?
lthough consumerism
rise steadily, customers
Ausers demand that morecontinues toproducts be produced in
and
and more
conformity with principles of sustainability and fairness. Beco­
ming integral has many advantages, short- as well as long-term,
which will potentially outweigh the costs. Creating a leaner and
more efficient organization by reducing waste and redundant
resources decreases costs and increases productivity in addition
to securing more sustainable product development. At the same
time, being green is sexy, and building a better brand image and
reputation is a significant help in gaining new customers and
segments.
The Integral Business
tential stakeholder. Even more, we propose the integration of all
of these different perspectives to co-create new solutions.
More and more customers value the chance to support the
d
­ evelopment and transformation of integral businesses by con­
suming “good” products with a positive impact on the environ­
ment and society. If demand grows and businesses continue to
respond, a “co-creative integral transformation process” deve­
lops in which businesses, customers, society, and the environ­
ment inspire and ultimately influence each other, resulting in
new business structures, processes, and cultures, new products
and services, new societal streaming, and ecological approaches.
Consequently, an “integral business model” seems to be the
most effective solution for recreating social harmony and ecolo­
gical balance for any firm. “Integral” means “complete”, “all-in­
clusive”, or “comprehensive” (Oxford Dictionary), a condition
achieved by integrating perspectives. An “integral model” is one
that emphasizes understanding every element within the con­
text of interior and exterior dimensions in both the individual
and collective realms.
Businesses have the true power and resources to re-think and
co-create sustainable change through the integration of the
perspectives of employees, customers, society, and the environ­
ment. Building an integral business is a challenge, but there are
already many examples of companies which have in one way
or another initiated a co-creative transformation process with
and for pertinent stakeholders and managed to re-think and co-­
create new and more integral approaches. As an example, Hen­
kel shows his integral business with this statement:
For a business, this means not only considering its impact on
the economy and emphasizing the importance of sales and
profit, but also thinking about its wider ecological and social
impact on consumers, employees, communities, suppliers and
every member of these groups who might be an existing or po­
“Commitment to leadership in sustainability is one of our core
corporate values. As sustainability leaders, we aim to pioneer
new solutions for sustainable development while continuing to
shape our business responsibly and increase our economic suc­
cess. This ambition encompasses all of our company’s activities –
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27.
along the entire value chain, and is the basis upon which we de­
veloped our sustainability strategy for 2030: We want to achieve
more with less and triple our efficiency in the next 20 years. In
view of the increasing demand on limited natural resources, we
must continue to improve. In moving ahead, we will focus on
involving our employees even more deeply in our sustainability
activities, intensifying our collaboration with our partners along
the value chain, and further improving our evaluation, steering
and communication tools.”, see www.henkel.com/sustainability.
There are several fields of action where businesses can integrate
new approaches and change processes and resources in order to
become more integral. Those areas can be more internal (e.g.,
adapting the business culture and working environment to im­
prove employees’ lives or changing business processes to be more
environmentally friendly) or be more externally oriented (trans­
forming products and innovations for customers and society).
Integrate perspectives across organizational levels and units to
re-think and co-create a new kind of business culture.
It can be said that an integral business needs an “integral busi­
ness culture” which is practiced, understood, and communica­
ted from within. Every employee and manager must know what
the integral vision, mission, and value creation process of their
firm is if they are to communicate it credibly to all stakehol­
ders and base any decision on it. By setting up the “Sustainable
Living Plan”, Unilever has managed to create a company-wide
integral vision and actively involves employees in the creation of
an integral business. Sustainable, profitable growth can only be
achieved with the right people working in an organization that
is fit to win, with a culture in which performance is aligned with
values. Unilever integrates sustainability into existing training
programs and offers week-long workshops on topics like the
“sustainable marketing challenge” to support the mind shift of
The Integral Transformation Process
Integrate
Integral Transformation Process
Organizational Perspective
Clients & Customers Perspective
Societal Perspective
Environmental Perspective
• Re-think models, methods,
structures, processes and
culture
• Re-think products
and services
• Re-think societal
structures and solution
• Re-think ecological
approaches
A „Integral Business“ co-creating with and for Employees, Customers, Society(ies), and Environment.
Source: Detecon
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28.
their brand managers. Furthermore, sustainable business ideas
developed by employees are encouraged and financially rewar­
ded to make them happen at all levels. Clearly it can be said
that a “good” business starts and ends with an integral vision
and culture.
firmed that this activity was a large source of emissions, accoun­
ting for 56 percent of its total emissions. The results prompted
an incentive to plan store operations at more central locations
and with better public transportation availability to reduce
t
­ ravel and emissions in the future.
Integrate perspectives of customers, society, and the environment, and re-think and co-create new kinds of products and
innovations.
Integrate perspectives and be recognized for it – brand and
reputation.
Next, serving the steadily growing demand for “good” things
will require all products and services as well as new product de­
velopments and innovations to be integral in terms of raw ma­
terials, production, distribution, and usage. The goal should be
an integral business model as the foundation for every element
of the supply chain controlled by the firm, not just the final
product. An example of a highly coveted product with a short
life cycle and major environmental impact is the smartphone.
Smartphones contain many toxic chemicals and raw materials
such as tin which frequently come from sources utilizing unfair
production methods. Recently Apple greatly improved its iPho­
ne 5 by reducing the number of hazardous components, ma­
king it the most environmentally friendly of all mass-produced
smartphones. This is at least a step in the right direction.
It is also important to build a reputation as an integral business
leader because the public image of a company – specifically, an
integral business image – is equally relevant. No mistake – being
“integral” definitely includes making profits and increasing
sales. Especially in today’s world, an integral business model can
create a competitive advantage for firms who lead the way in
this movement and exploit their position to set themselves apart
from other enterprises. Employer branding is greatly enhanced
when potential applicants hear about the great reputation and
working environment – particularly important when there is a
shortage of skilled labor. One pioneer and standard-bearer in
the creation of ground-breaking campaigns to communicate
its green vision is The Body Shop, which has built its whole
image on more natural beauty brands produced in observance
of ­ thical principles.
e
Integrate perspectives of customers, society, and the environment to co-create new solutions for value creation.
It is worth re-thinking!
We are referring to supplier, customer, and all partner activities
along the entire length of the value chain. Only if all first-, se­
cond-, and third-tier relationships are aligned with an integral
transformation process can a truly integral product and usage
be developed. Additionally, indirect external factors such as en­
vironmental costs that are caused by the customer through the
usage or transportation of the product must be taken into ac­
count and reduced in order to create an integral value chain. A
great example comes from the famous home furnishings retailer
IKEA and its unique “Do it yourself ” concept. Recently IKEA
started to include the so-called “Scope 3 Emissions” in its GHG
inventory data analysis. These are emissions caused by customer
trips to and from stores which are indirectly attributable to the
products (www.ghgprotocol.org). IKEA’s GHG inventory con­
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29.
Integral Business (Part 2)
Practical Steps
for Organizations
Building a comprehensive sustainable business model that is closely related
­
to the core competencies of the business is an important thing. We will
outline some exemplary “hands-on” approaches to managing the integral
­transformation process.
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30.
in both public
sector may
­
L eadersimportance of and private businesses have understood
well the
managing
more integrally.
proposition, infrastructure, customers, and finances. The Busi­
ness Model Canvas is a helpful tool that assists firms in aligning
their activities by showing potential trade-offs and inconsisten­
cies, thus leading to a more consistent outcome.
There are many public discussions, articles, ­ ocumentaries, or
d
organizations dealing with the trend and related challenges of
becoming more sustainable. However, we assume that the im­
plementation of rather superficial and PR-oriented measures is
still the dominant approach, and most firms are far from buil­
ding a comprehensive sustainable business model that is closely
­
related to the core competencies of the business. We have deli­
berately focused on well-known and established tools and deve­
loped them further by adding more perspectives to make their
output more integral.
Performance of an “integral business model” analysis can be
b
­ ased on the original model once the latter has been simply
adapted by the addition of new criteria to define an integral
business in terms of the eight elements. Evaluation of the ove­
rall value proposition of the firm identifies a potential integral
core of the business. Starting the analysis involves asking certain
questions such as these: “Do we deliver sustainable value from
an environmental, economic and social perspective?”, “What
sustainability needs are we are currently able to satisfy?”, “Are
our products and services overall sustainable?”.
Business Model Evaluation
The very first step toward making a business more integral is
the assessment of its status quo in terms of any integral busi­
ness elements which already exist. One helpful tool might be
an adapted version of the “Business Model Canvas” (Alexander
O
­ sterwalder). Generally speaking, a business model describes
the logical strategy of an enterprise’s operation and by what
specific means it creates value. The “Business Model Canvas” is
more specific: a management template for mapping a business
model in a more strategic and visually appealing way. It is illus­
trated by a chart with eight elements describing a firm‘s value
Business Model Classification
After the status quo of the firm or planned business has been
evaluated and gaps in the integral business model canvas have
first been revealed, the company can be categorized as one of the
following sustainability groups: social business, green business,
employee-friendly business, or a combination of these types –
or, in the worst case, none of them.
Figure 1: Integral Business Model Classification
Social
A business may be described strictly
as a “social company” if it demons­
trates a sense of responsibility for
society and social justice by regularly
supporting social projects, donating
money, or organizing initiatives for
communities.
Employee-friendly
A business may be described
as an “employee-friendly
company” if it takes care
of its human resources and
has a wide range of services
and flexible working models
to support employees in all
phases of their lives.
Integral
Business
„Green“
A business may be regarded
as a “green company” because
of its environmental focus on
sustainable products and services
or its internal programs for energy
conservation, waste management,
or recycling.
Source: Detecon
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31.
However, if it is to achieve the status of an “integral business”, a
company must embody the elements of all three groups; unfor­
tunately, this is rarely the case in today’s world.
Business Model Transformation
After any gaps have been revealed and opportunities for im­
provement have been determined, an action plan that ideally
includes several fields of activity needs to be developed. As a
minimum, the transformation process should encompass two
areas: a) the business should be transformed internally in the
sense of developing an integral business culture and working
environment, and b) external elements should be adapted. The
measures can be sequential, parallel, or iterative.
The first field of action shown in Figure 2 illustrates that an inte­
gral business culture needs to be in place as a means of generating
­
commitment and ensuring that every decision is a fit with the
integral business philosophy. The company should ­ evelop gui­
d
ding principles that communicate the integral business vision
and mission. The use of innovative formats can ­ reate a high le­
c
vel of acceptance for these principles. One example is the work­
shop method known as “World Café” (Brown and Isaacs). It is
a simple, effective, and flexible format for hosting a dialogue
with large groups and can be modified to meet highly diverse
requirements in terms of context, number of participants, loca­
tion, and other factors. The basic concept involves creating the
atmosphere of a café: small tables seating only a few people so
that they feel relaxed and encouraged to freely talk and discuss
topics. Moreover, building an “integral business community”
out of the most committed participants from many different
divisions supports the dissemination and implementation of
principles and further initiatives.
“Greening” the business internally and making it more environ­
mentally friendly might be the next step. This entails analyzing
all of the internal processes in terms of their environmental im­
pact. A starting point is to look at activities with high consump­
tion of energy and other fossil resources and to find opportu­
nities to replace materials, components, or activities with more
sustainable ones, e.g., recycling paper or introducing car sharing
as a new mobility concept among employees. This can also be
strongly linked to the trend of digitalization.
Figure 2: Integral Business Transformation Plan
Sustainability Groups
Green
Social
Employeefriendly
Fair capacity planning, job sharing,
flextime, home office, leisure time
New company name/logo/slogan,
support social initiatives, public events
CO² Management, Green IT, paper
recycling, car sharing
Balanced Scorecard
Change & Transition Management
Source: Detecon
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Production Innovations
Office equipment & medical checkups, free fruit & water
Image
Costs
&
Revenues
KPIs
Value &
Supply
Chain
Culture
USP
Guiding principles, team events,
“World Café”
Work Place
Integral Business Model Canvas
Inside-Out & Outside-In Transformation
TWM
Internal Business Transformation
Greening
Evaluation & Classification
Green products & services, address
emerging markets
Supplier check, insourcing/
near-sourcing

32.
What gets measured, gets managed!
Finally, keeping track of the execution of activities and moni­
toring the consequences of these actions requires a structured
and organized process based on defined performance indicators.
The balanced scorecard (Kaplan and Norton), a widely known
strategy performance management and measurement tool, can
be used for this purpose. It can shed light on the company‘s
“integral vision and mission” and is ultimately about choosing
measures and defining targets for their realization. The balan­
ced scorecard is an effective model of performance in that “it
articulates the links between leading inputs as human and phy­
sical resources, processes, and lagging outcomes and focuses on
the importance of managing these components to achieve the
organization‘s strategic priorities” (Abernethy et al., 2005).
Practically speaking, this means that the vision is translated into
operational goals and must subsequently be linked to individual
performance goals which are constantly monitored and adap­
ted to any changes in strategy. Designing a balanced scorecard
m
­ eans identifying a small number of financial and non-financial
measures and setting targets for them so that it is possible to
d
­etermine whether current performance meets expectations
when they are reviewed. Managers are constantly encouraged to
focus on weaknesses and stimulate performance. In conclusion,
we can say that a strategy-based balanced scorecard aligned with
the principles of an “integral business” offers a way to ­ chieve
a
social and environmental goals while integrating them fully
with economic performance and competitive advantage.
Start Now!
This article outlines some step-by-step “hands-on” approaches
that support the integral transformation process. Many other
established tools and approaches could be further developed by
integrating more perspectives. We are looking forward to con­
tinuing our work with our clients and to initiating and guiding
integral transformation processes on many scales and a broad
span of scope. We constantly receive confirmation that this is
a good way to increase value for individuals, the organization,
society, and the environment. What could be more important as
we face the challenges of the 21st century?
Figure 3: The Balanced Scorecard
Initiatives
Targets
KPIs/Measures
“To succeed financially, how
should we appear to our
shareholders?”
Objectives
Financial
Owners
Initiatives
Targets
KPIs/Measures
Vision and Strategy
Owners
Objectives
Initiatives
“To satisfy our shareholders
and customers, what business
processes must we excel at?”
Targets
“To achieve our vision, how
should we appear to our
customers?”
KPIs/Measures
Internal Business Process
Owners
Initiatives
Targets
“To achieve our vision, how
will we sustain our ability to
change and improve?”
KPIs/Measures
Learning und Growth
Objectives
Objectives
Customer
Owners
Source: www.smartkpis.com
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33.
Interview with Dr. Ignacio Campino, Director of the DESERTEC Foundation
Transformation in the Face of
Climate Change and Further
Global Challenges
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34.
Transformation management is often seen from a strictly organizational perspective.
But it also potentially comprises aspects of societal and ecological transformation.
Businesses have to re-think and integrate the societal and ecological perspectives
in their innovation and transformation processes.
DMR: Ignacio, you are an internationally recognized and wellconnected expert on climate change. You are now Director of
the DESERTEC Foundation. Before you worked for Deutsche
Telekom, where you were most recently Representative of the
Board of Management for Sustainability and Climate Protec­
tion. As a very young man, you studied agricultural sciences in
Chile, and a major focus of your PhD was on ecology. Viewed
against this background, what does “transformation” mean to
you? And what do you think are the most pressing issues we
have to tackle in the 21st century?
Ignacio: We –the global society – are heading toward a new,
unknown, and uncertain future. Sometimes people flirt with
the uncertainty of the future and quote smart and famous per­
sonalities. But the uncertainty of the future is relative. Science
allows us today to predict some developments quite precisely. I
sometimes have the impression that in this case flirting with the
uncertainty of the future is a self-defense mechanism protecting
us from what we know, but do not want to accept, because the
signals are clear and the consequences of business as usual could
be disastrous for many people in the world.
I‘m quite concerned about our future, but not pessimistic.
Being a pessimist means being without hope. I‘m anything but
that. Many ecologists, sociologists, and politicians as well as
business leaders are aware that our society needs transforma­
tion to prepare itself for the future. The challenge is how to
merge and direct all of our current efforts in one direction. This
­
is the crucial point. Getting everyone to push and pull in the
same ­ irection means that society has to find a common under­
d
standing of the direction it should take. But that has not been
a
­ccomplished. We can read and hear that our society should
be more sustainable. But what is this? We do not have a widely
accepted definition for sustainability.
DMR: So far, we have not found a best practice or a good tool
to transform our planet and find answers for the most pressing
issues which are oftentimes overlooked in the course of everyday
life. Sustainability is hard to define, and there are thousands of
definitions around us. Vandana Shiva used a great definition of
sustainability in the World Future Council: “In my culture […]
we have always thought of all our actions in terms of the impact
they are going to have on the seventh generation. If they are
going to harm the seventh generation, then you do not take that
action. If it is going to benefit them, then you go ahead. This
is the real test of sustainability.” What do you think about this?
Ignacio: I had the good fortune of meeting Vandana Shiva per­
sonally two years ago. It was very impressive to meet a person
who radiates such friendliness, but at the same time presents
such solid arguments.
I’m not a Hindu, so it is sometimes not easy to understand what
it means to consider the consequences of our actions down to
the seventh generation. In the Bible there is a passage talking
about God’s punishment down to the third and fourth genera­
tions. Our ancestors apparently gave more thought to the conse­
quences of their actions on mankind and environment than we
do today with our short-term thinking.
Probably the supposed benefits of modern technology have
c
­ reated a sense of security that we have to recognize today as
false. Scientists have developed computer simulation programs
modeling possible climate changes, especially those changes
which are the consequences of the accumulation of greenhouse
gases. All of them are very serious, and we cannot ignore these
results.
DMR: DESERTEC Foundation relies on a social innovation
business case, using high-end technology in the world’s deserts
to convert sunlight and wind into electricity. Technically, ways
and means of exploiting the almost inexhaustible resources of
the sun have been at hand for decades. From the technical in­
novation point of view, we have thousands of clever solutions.
But, as you have already implied, we as a human society have
not been able to guarantee that we will not harm future genera­
tions – or more accurately, we know that we are harming future
generations. We need social, not just technical, transformations
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35.
that will bring together the many different peoples, cultures,
and disciplines into a cohesive force that will secure the health
and happiness of future generations. What can we do, what are
you doing, what should every individual do?
Ignacio: For my part, climate change and its consequences are
very real. That is probably the main reason why I’m now with
the DESERTEC Foundation. If we use the renewables from the
deserts, we will produce positive effects down to the seventh
generation. We are now developing some very concrete ideas
on how to promote renewables in different parts of the world.
We need to convince a huge number of people – from decision-­
makers to the general public – that renewables are a highly
s
­uitable alternative and in the future the only real option for a
clean and secure energy supply.
The technology is available today, but in some cases we need a
technological leap to reduce prices. The very low prices for PV
are positive, but the downside is that they hinder market oppor­
tunities for CSP (concentrating solar power) technology. This
technology is very interesting because it is able to deliver energy
at night when the sun is not shining.
DMR: Triggering a global social transformation towards a
sustainable society when we cannot really imagine what it
­
should look like is a massive undertaking. So many dimensions
come into play – intellectual, emotional, organizational. Diffe­
rent cultures and countries have different starting points, and
we have always agreed that there is no one big plan for the whole
world. We have to try to put together incremental packages,
step by step, which are practical and realizable. This is a huge
task. So where do we start?
specific elements of a strategy may have better chances of suc­
cess. Another possibility would be a strategy that is realized bit
by bit! For my part, I’m coming from the perspective of climate
change, but I don’t think it is enough to look only at climate
protection. It is not enough to look at one burning issue; we
have to integrate so many perspectives in order to find sustain­
able solutions. So here are my “bits”.
No society can be sustainable without respect for human rights
as set forth in The Universal Declaration of the Human Rights.
The first sentence of the first article of the declaration states: “All
human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
This is the fundamental prerequisite for a free life of self-deter­
mination and for fairness in people’s actions toward one ano­
ther. These principles are not negotiable, yet de facto seriously
endangered today because there is not a single place in the world
where they are respected without exception. I’m convinced that
observance of human rights will boost the development of a su­
stainable society. In the current discussion about sustainability,
the following factors are given the greatest consideration:
Responsible economy: A responsible economy is based on a fair
tax system and companies acting responsibly, offering products
and services appropriate for the development of a sustainable
society, paying taxes to the state and providing jobs and income
for citizens. The corresponding role of the state is to use taxes
and other revenues for the development of social systems. Both
the state and the business community bear responsibility for the
evolvement of a sustainable society.
Ignacio: We have to identify the most important elements of
a sustainable society – or a society which does not harm future
generations – and determine the level of social acceptance; then
we can push for action in those fields where the least resistance
can be expected.
Jobs and income: Important factors for securing income and
jobs include the market situation, legislation, and government
and corporate policies. Low-income countries have an opportu­
nity to increase their competitiveness for a while because other
countries will jump onto the market and try to attract investors
with a cheaper workforce. This is a vicious circle that is hard to
break. Sustainable jobs could be created by a combination of
innovation, education, and training of the employees.
We may determine quite different results in different parts of
the world, and so the actions we take will vary greatly as well.
This could be helpful for a while although the transformation
process of the globe must ultimately converge more or less into a
common global objective. The challenge of reaching agreement
on such a global objective may seem overwhelming, so realizing
Health care: The development of a public health care system is
crucial for a sustainable society. There are two preconditions:
1) The state passes the appropriate laws, has adequate reve­
nues from taxes, and is able to support and control the ­ ystem;
s
2) the citizens have sufficient income to contribute to the
s
­ystem. ­ lthough the necessity of a public health care system
A
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37.
is ­generally accepted, there are many countries which have only
the bare ­ inimum or no system at all. The reason may be that
m
e
­ ither funding is not available for implementing a system or the
s
­ ociety is not sufficiently aware of its necessity.
Education: We will find no one in Europe who alleges that
e
­ ducation is not needed. But we do not need to travel very far to
find claims that girls should not go to school because they will
have difficulty in their later lives to follow traditions and to serve
husband and family. Addressing this problem demands a lot of
effort with the aim of creating a new mindset about education
and the role of women in society. The UN Decade of Education
for Sustainable Development is a good example for a long-term
activity promoting education in a sustainable environment.
Food and housing: Healthy nutrition is an impossibility unless
food is sold at affordable prices, people have a minimum level of
knowledge about nutrition, and their income is adequate to buy
food. It is a mistake to believe that starvation and malnutrition
are mainly consequences of food scarcity. With the exception
of regions suffering war or armed conflicts, the most important
cause of starvation is the low income of the people. The situati­
on is very much the same for housing.
Pension scheme: A logical consequence of better jobs and
i
­ncreasing incomes is, or should be, the creation of pension
schemes. Governments and companies should cooperate on this
issue.
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Energy supply and climate stability: The development of a stra­
tegy for the systematic use of renewables may generate low to
moderate resistance in many countries. Pushing ahead with the
use of renewables is a worthwhile activity and includes the stabi­
lization of climate. The DESERTEC Foundation offers concrete
solutions.
Water: The water situation in some regions of the world is
a
­ lready quite critical today, and serious conflicts are ­ ppearing.
a
D
­ esalination could be a solution in many regions. The
D
­ ESERTEC Foundation includes desalination and water
s
­ upply in the DESERTEC Concept.
­
Healthy environment: A healthy environment is crucial for a
sustainable society. However, in many cases the scope of this
factor is exaggerated. Environmental protection is critical in se­
veral respects: 1) conservation of limited resources for coming
generations; 2) care of the habitable environment for humans
and other species; 3) avoidance of damage human health and
that of other inhabitants of the planet.
Efforts to protect the environment have grown significantly in
the last decade, but the activities are not adequate to meet the
magnitude of the challenge. Many companies already have ef­
fective programs for environmental protection in place, but it
is necessary to expand the scope of this work. Joint efforts in­
volving companies and governments have to be implemented.