Keep and change

Objectives and research questions

Entrepreneurs must constantly ask themselves whether the products and services of their own company are up to date. Managers must ask themselves whether the organization and productivity of their area of responsibility are the right answers to the challenges of the market and the needs of the employees. Employees must ask themeselves whether they have the right skills to meet the expectations of customers and of their managers and peers.

In other words, everyone in an organization is constantly confronted with the question of whether keep what they have or change is the the right strategy. And if change is the order of the day, how fast should it go and how do we manage it?

The research questions on the topic of “preserve or change” are:

  • What ideas from the competition are putting pressure on our own products and services? How do we want to respond to them?
  • What innovations do we need to produce to keep the competition at bay?
  • What changes must an organization and the people in it initiate in order to be useful to its customers?
  • Where does the impetus for change come from?
  • Who are the stakeholders for change?
  • How quickly do they need to respond?
  • Who is actually responsible for innovation?
  • Which of an organization’s experience provides longer-term value and which stands in the way of change?

The current state of research

The buzzwords of our days for finding the answer to “Keep or change?” include transformation, disruption, digital (r)evolution, change and agility.

The question of “keep or change” is relevant for processes, products and management practices in companies. The amount of academic literature is unmanageable. Publicly noticed consultants who think they know what to do create a confusing picture of directions companies should go.

For the purpose of this website we organize the contributions of the publicly visible discourse and process them into thought-provoking ideas in our workshops and public appearances.

Interesting publications on the topic of “Keep and change”

Johnson, Steven (2010) Wo gute Ideen herkommen. Eine kurze Geschichte der Innovation. Köln: Anaconda Verlag.

Oestereich, Bernd / Schröder, Claudia (2017) Das kollegial geführte Unternehmen. Ideen und Praktiken für die agile Organisation von morgen. München: Vahlen.

Strauß, Ralf E. (2019) Digitale Transformation. Strategie, Konzeption und Implementierung in der Unternehmenspraxis. Stuttgart: Schaeffer-Poeschel.

Our own contributions and offers

We have developed a course for digital transformation managers on the topic of transformation. We offer this as an in-house event in order to be able to take into account the individuality of the companies with regard to industry, business model, products and services.