20 sep 2022
Navigating an uncertain future
What we will cover
- Engaging business in hypothesis driven strategy (Challenge, Approach, Result).
- The tool (Growth Navigator, Intended capabilities and Intended functionality).
- Ortelius methodology.

What we will cover
The Head of Corporate development at a large manufacturing company had the assignment to support business in cross functional/divisional engagements. He was approached by the Industry Manager from Industrial Fermentation who said that they started seeing initiatives from customers which were traditionally in the Food and Agriculture industry but now were expanding their presence further in the value chain and were experimenting with bio-refinery technology on a small scale.
As 30% of the company’s revenue came from traditional oil & gas industry this was considered a threat to the company’s business unless addressed properly.
The Head of Corporate development is a strong advocate for Strategic Experimentation which means formulating hypothesis on future states and testing them with the people and data available in the organization.
Thus a hypothesis was formulated “Sometime in the future, we don’t know when, we don’t know how, fossil fuels will be replaced with renewable fuels as the main energy source of the world”.
The Head of Corporate development knew that for any initiative to be successful it’s crucial that you get key stakeholders in business engaged from the start. The challenge was to go from a written hypothesis to a shared visualization of what this would mean for the organization. At this point Ortelius was engaged to support them in Finding (what data and information was needed), Capturing (the know-how from key business stakeholders), Visualizing (data, information and know-how in a dynamic/exploratory environment) and (providing the data and information necessary to ) Align the stakeholders.
What data and information is needed?
What know-how do we need from key business stakeholders?
Show how data, information and know-how is connected in a dynamic/exploratory environment.
Providing the data and information necessary to align.
Through a set of working meetings a shared model of the current state of Petrochemicals and Bio-based fuels was built from a customer centric perspective. Creating the ability to continuously answer these questions:
Once this was in place stakeholders could visualize different scenarios based on the model created and create action plans.
Implemented capabilities
Part 1: Democratization of data requires a common language and shared definitions Deep within the labyrinthine corridors of a sprawling corporation, a battle was being waged. On one side, the Chief Data Officer, Sarah, armed with her knowledge of data [...]
In 2019, Emma walked towards the meeting room that she had booked for the entire day. She only had one point on the agenda: “There is a high risk that we spend the entire day just discussing and we won’t [...]
An information modeler’s challenge – how would you have done it? How is a Football World Championship really structured and what are the components required to make up the whole? Football associations, national teams, players, referees, coaches, equipment, assets such [...]