Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
Interviewer: Ekrem Dupanović
Translated in English by: Johannah Maurer
Today we are publishing the third and final section of our interview with Miša Lukić, the CEO of New Startegy.
You can read the first two parts at the following links: PART 1 and PART 2
Media Marketing: You are considered a pioneer of business design. You started talking about it in 2013. It still doesn’t have its own Wikipedia article, but people are increasingly talking about it. Do you have your own definition of business design?
Miša Lukić: It sounds almost impossible that an important discipline, like business design, still hasn’t been defined on Wikipedia. On the other hand, this brings me joy because it means that New Startegy is doing something that is globally still in its infancy. We can, therefore, influence and shape this new discipline, which will become one of the most important branches of the creative industry in a couple of years.
Since there is no official definition, I am free to give my own: business design is an original approach to tackling business challenges and creating new business opportunities by means of a synergy of analytical (business) and creative (design) thinking.
When explaining business design, I often draw a parallel between it and architecture. Business design will soon represent for business what architecture represents for the construction industry. Business design combines business and design, the same way architecture combines science (math, physics, statics) and art. It is interesting that both architecture and business design are based around people and people’s needs, rather than buildings and businesses. Because of these similarities and parallels, we can say that business design at its core is business architecture, and business designers are in fact business architects.
It is not immodest to say that New Startegy is one of the pioneers of business design, not just in the region but in the world. Besides the fact that we started creating our business design methodology more than a decade ago, we are also in possession of almost all the internet domains related to business design, like: business.design, businessdesign.consulting, businessdesign.solutions, businessdesign.entreprises, businessdesign.industries, businessdesign.info, businessdesign.exchange, businessdesign.online, businessdesigncompany.com, businessdesigncoaching.com, businessdesign.app, businessdesign.mobi… The only domain we were not able to buy in time was businessdesign.com. It is not currently active, but its value on the domain market is around 550,000 euro.
Media Marketing: What is new in the world of business design? Give us some examples.
Miša Lukić: I think that the most interesting development in terms of business design over the last two years has been the distinguishing of “business model innovation” as a major factor in creating competitive advantage in the business world, a world that is always changing and transforming.
In terms of practice, but also academic research, we have come to the definite conclusion that innovations in the business models themselves have in many cases been more important than any type of individual particular innovation, even technological ones.
The fastest growing companies of the 21st Century, like Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple, Alibaba, Uber, Netflix, Airbnb, haven’t become what they are today because of incredible revolutionary technological innovations that their competition lacked. Their success has been based on creating original business models that changed the rules of the game.
However, a company doesn’t always need to radically change its business model to progress. Usually it is quite enough to adapt quickly to changes in the business environment.
A really good example of a new business model that represents an evolution, but not a radical innovation, is the transition from the so-called production model to a service-based model of business. To maintain growth and ensure competitive advantage, companies are transitioning from selling products to providing services that add new value to their products and provide an all-encompassing solution for users whose needs are better met, strengthening their attachment.
Media Marketing: The next CEO forum, to be organised by the Mokra Gora School of Management, is basing its entire program on your Business Sapiens concept.
Miša Lukić: Yes, I am incredibly happy that the Vivaldi CEO Forum, which in my opinion is one of the most important events in the business community in Serbia, will be basing their program on the Business Sapiens concept.
In addition to creating innovation that contributes to the evolution of business transformation in the new age, New Startegy’s goal is to help create Business Sapiens organisations all over the world, because we believe that unless we humanise business it cannot be sustainable and we cannot have a better life for everyone on the planet.
Business is so important in people’s lives that no matter how hard we all try to work on ourselves as individuals and create an mini-environment with the people closest to us where we can all feel contented and happy, we cannot succeed if we are unhappy in our job.
To make a Business Sapiens company, leaders must, above all else, understand the concept of the four dimensions of people and organisations, and they need to have the tools to ease application of the concept in their organisations. This significant paradigm shift in understanding business is past necessary now when all around the world business, as an institution, is at a turning point. The easiest way to achieve this is by using it on themselves first.
This year at the CEO forum at the Mokra Gora School, which is traditionally held at Mećavnik, we will be presenting the Business Sapiens leadership model for the first time. The model states that an effective CEO must, above all else, be a rounded person. We have gathered an amazing group of speakers in the fields of business, psychology, philanthropy, entrepreneurship… and we are of the opinion that it will be the event of the year for the progressive business community in Serbia.
Media Marketing: You give lectures on the topic of business design in which you talk about creative and innovative ways to approach problems and change existing business models. Recently one of your lectures gained a lot of traction and you have been invited to present the Business Sapiens model at MIT by the largest global community of entrepreneurs, the Entrepreneurs’ Organization. Can you tell us more about the organisation, a chapter of which you are planning to open in Serbia?
Miša Lukić: Near the end of last year I had the great pleasure and honour of being one of the key note speakers at the SEE GROWTH SUMMIT in Sofia. It was a regional event for entrepreneurs who want to develop and achieve fast and stable growth. It was organised by a global community of entrepreneurs, the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation (EO).
The primary goal of my presentation, entitled KNOW-WOW IS THE NEW KNOW-HOW, was to show that the ways we do business today will not continue to function in the future and that if we want to survive and improve our business in the 21st Century we have to alter how we work and think significantly.
I am very proud that my presentation was received so well, not just by the three thousand entrepreneurs in the audience, but by the organisers and the other speakers, who are themselves very successful entrepreneurs from the USA, UK, Germany, Malaysia, Turkey…
What pleased me most was that right after my presentation I was invited to be a speaker at one of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization’s main events of the year, which is scheduled for this October and being held at MIT in Boston. It is an event attended by business leaders from around the world and tickets are sold out within 24 hours of being released. Maybe this spectacular event will be postponed because of the pandemic, but this doesn’t lessen my pleasure, because whenever it happens it will be the biggest acknowledgment and chance for Business Sapiens and New Startegy on the world scene.
The Entrepreneurs’ Organisation is a global network whose members are exclusively entrepreneurs. It includes over 14,000 influential business owners and they have 195 chapters in over 60 countries. It was founded in 1987 and its mission is engagement and exchanging experiences with leading entrepreneurs in the world who want to continue to grow, develop, and pass on their knowledge to younger entrepreneurs.
Especially interesting are the EO Global events that combine exceptional educational programs with the most successful entrepreneurs across the globe, as their major promoters at unique social gatherings and events.
I’ll list only some of the exclusive advantages of EO membership:
* Global and local insights and contacts
* The help of the most experienced entrepreneurs in the world
* Access to one of the best mentorship programmes in the world
* Adapted teaching programs from the world’s best business schools
*Access to professional networking opportunities at popular global EO events
* Access to the world best healthcare through the Health Network foundation.
I became I member of the EO this January, and right after joining I became the Membership Director for Serbia.
In collaboration with the South-Eastern European branch and a few of the already existing members of the EO, we are planning to make a Serbian forum and then open a Serbian branch, so that as a country we join one of the most dynamic business networks around today.
All successful entrepreneurs with an annual income of more than a million euro and who satisfy the other general EO conditions are welcome to join us.
Media Marketing: We are being hit by two crises: the Coronavirus pandemic and an economic crisis. What is their impact on business design as a new category?
Miša Lukić: After COVID-19 we will be hit by an even more dangerous virus, the economic virus. I have symbolically named it the eCOVID-20. Unlike a biological virus, you can’t fight an economic virus through distancing and waiting for it to pass. An economic virus can only be bested by doing the opposite: being proactive and maintaining as much contact as you can with all the stakeholders of your business ecosystem.
This is a time when the values that companies have written on their walls will have to be proven in their actions towards clients, employees, partners, suppliers, and the local and wider communities that they do business with.
This is a time when people who live their values will rise to the top, people who strive to accomplish a mission and not just hit profit goals, whose integrity is more important than their petty interests, who understand that to survive they need to help the people their business depends on survive too.
Creativity and innovation in business will be the best ways for an organisation to get immunity and create antibodies, natural defences against negative external influence.
This crisis is an opportunity that shouldn’t be missed, and business design, as a concept, was created for situations where large businesses have to turn problems into business opportunities.
Business designer is the profession of the future, and business design is the discipline of the future. It will be much more than marketing, even in its widest sense, was in the 20th Century.
Media Marketing: To conclude, I would like to ask what you are personally most proud of and if there hasn’t been something you wanted to accomplish and were sure would happen during these last two years but didn’t?
Miša Lukić: There have been many things I thought would happen more quickly than they did in the last two years. Taking everything that we have accomplished into account, however, that is more of a reflection of my great ambitions than a setback in terms of realistic plans.
On the other hand, I am proud of many things. Above all I am proud that in 2009 I predicted whati is now happening with the communications industry, when I publicly set out my beliefs to the European Association of Communication Agencies (EACA) in Vienna.
Even though the theme of that conference was the global economic crisis and its effects on the communication industry, I was already directing people’s attention to the fact that the economic crisis would come and go but the industry had much bigger problems in terms of needing to transform but not being ready to. The name of my presentation was Shift Happens and it predicted everything that would happen in the industry over the following five to ten years.
Already at that point, I was tackling the topic of how to create major opportunities out of potentially major problems by using the communications agencies’ creativity to solve business problems and create innovation in the upcoming digital age, as traditional advertising is losing influence. This is the engine of business in the future.
I am very proud of having created the Business Sapiens model almost a decade ago with my partner Dejan Bojović Bojket. The model was a precursor to everything the most developed companies and the smartest people in the business world are discussing today. We have received acknowledgments from many members of the global academic and professional community for having created something extremely valuable and how incredible it is that this kind of thinking is coming from the Balkans.
I am proud that there has been so much talk in our region and recently on the pages of Media Marketing too, of how to harness the creativity of agencies to create business innovations and new business models, something I was writing about six or seven years ago.
To top it all off, I am very proud that I have been recognised as a pioneer of business design in our region and that every day more and more people and companies see in business design the same thing that I saw all those years ago.
