Hosts Jim Love, CIO for ITWC, and Doug Sparkes, a lecturer at the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business, keep things lively in this 20-minute podcast devoted to the importance of understanding which events in the business environment are inevitable and which are uncertain. According to Pierre Wack (see episode 2), identifying the inevitable, or as he put it, the “predetermined elements”, is the foundation of decision scenarios.
Using the example of 3D printing, Love and Sparkes apply a framework called “pestle” (political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental) as a way to analyze the forces at play when it comes to speeding up the design, develop, and launch cycle for new products. In a discussion that ranges from protectionist politics and supply chain resilience to the reliability of broadband Internet and the power of consumers, they shed new light on the logistics required for realizing the maximum benefit from additive manufacturing.
Two-thirds of the way through the podcast, sponsored by Wipro Canada, Amit Majithia, Vice President and Country Head for Wipro, joins the discussion with examples of companies that have not only survived but have actually thrived in the face of devastating challenges. By chronicling the Greater Toronto Airports Authority’s (GTAA) response to COVID-19, he emphasizes the critical importance of innovation and technology, both from an operational excellence and a passenger experience perspective. The GTAA may not have been planning for a global pandemic, but they prepared for one by pursuing digital transformation as a means of responding to an uncertain future.