LinKS blog

I visited Ducati in Bologna to hear about their LEAN production methods at the factory in Bologna and the TRIBE of Ducati.

Coming into Bologna you have to realize that Bologna IS Ducati. You will see test bikes roaring the terrain and sometime going through the streets of Bologna. A great sight!

Admitted, I don’t know how to ride a bike - unless on the back seat counts. I knew where to turn to for my preparation though: The Grey Oil in Copenhagen. A motorcycle Club for “grey” (I think this refers to the hair colour) executives. Among the members are Søren B Henriksen, Dansk Erhverv and Sven Blomberg, BRF Kredit. I ended up with an invitation for the Grey Oil to visit Ducati - say when?

I was prepared to the teeth with challenging questions about brand positioning, choice of drivers and competitive bikes to beat! Well, nothing beats the sound and the special valves of a Ducati as well as their unbeatable website community and the real CEO blogging. Well done!

Program director for ISTUD Business School top execetive development and full professor at Polytechnico Milano, Antonio Roversi was leading the meeting and he knows his stuff in this area. Spending his life with some of the best Italian companies on supply chain and strategy, Antonio is also one of the true global thinkers of Italy and the key inventor of the impressive MENU for global Leadership development. www.istud.it

Ducati was simply impressive. Think about being an OPEN, inclusive TRIBE instead of closed. That is not easy, but that is what Ducati has done, branding wise and contentwise.

An interesting business development is happening for Ducati as happened to Ferrari and other great Italian brands. They are now into strategic consulting, meaning that Ducati consultants work for companies in shaping their business according to the Lean principles and other focused areas of their experience.

Somehow we where only 2 women at this visit but that was no problem - being surrounded by Italian gentlemen executives and incredible Italian bikes is really fine for me!

I had a special task of delivering a hand carried invitation for Sheihka Mouza, the beautiful and bright wife of the Emir who put design on the agenda of Doha, Qatar. The invitation was about INDEX: Design to improve life and her Highness’ participation in the top Summit in CPH in August. Index: is focusing on User Centered design this year and the world’s leading experts will be gathering in Copenhagen from August 24. Check out the INDEX: project on www.indexaward.dk it happens to be the world’s largest design price.

Delivering the invitation I met with Khaled from the Royal office. We had breakfast together and a great talk - I got a good insight in the Qatari culture. We also touched upon Ducati motorcycles whom I visited in Bologna with Italian ISTUD Business School the week before – I will tell you more about that tomorrow.

Tectonic Geopolitical movements are happening right on front of our eyes. I cornered senior editor at Forbes, Robyn Meredith, from Hong Kong and peeped into her new amazing book:

The Elephant and the Dragon: The rise of India and China and what it means for All of us.

In the 14th century China became the cornerstone of most international trade by moving goods along the silk road, across the Arab world and on to Europe. Today the silk road is renewed and the power nations of China and India is moving forward at a pace that is almost not understandable and only compares to the rise of the USA, 100 years ago.

With the brisk growth that the global economy has enjoyed since 2002, this should be the best of all times. There are many BUTs though. One of the greater ones is the battle on energy ressources that is tightening up and is an element in turning the 21st century into one of instability. New power landscapes are arising with China as the factory of the world and India as the Knowledge Center.We see the outlines of a power landscape where the US, China and India are the players.

DO NOT MISS THIS BOOK – it is about the present status of geopolitics and tells us a lot about the globalized future we have to prepare ourselves for.

I believe the book must soon be available on Amazon. And here is your chance to meet Robyn Meredith, who is an enourmous source of knowledge on Asia…..robyn.mp3

As usual this Forum was an extraordinary experience, businesswise, culturally and by networking opportunities.Steve Forbes and his team was in the usual top shape to set the scene for discussing the business opportunities in the Middle East, the new Silk Road across from Asia and the energy situation as a whole.

The host was the Emir of Qatar and the Foreign Minister bid us welcome in this extraordinary country. Small, like a city-state with about 850t inhabitants, maybe only 200.000 Qataris. Richest in the Middle East and the business life booming as never before. And this s not only about oil. The strategies are diversified and the future Energy City of Qatar hosts science within many energy solutions. On behalf of a questions of mine on the scope of sustainable energy ambitions, the Danish Oil and Natural Gas – DONG - immediately got a special invitation from the Energy City to participate in the development – I will take that home to DONG.

My impression of the Qatari business delegates that I met was top-professional extremely well educated and all perfectly fluent in Engligsh. I decided to do business here and I already started. I will tell you all about that in a special blog edition later.

One of the great moderators and leading editors of Forbes is Bruce Upin who is an expert within Innovation and has followed the energy industry in this perspective. Bruce is always a joy to be with and we had a coffee and a chat on the energy challenges of the world as well as innovation in general. bruce.mp3