Does the speed of change blur or sharpen your focus?

Peggy Johnson has been given the nickname Microsoft’s “dealmaker-in-chief”, having led the $26b purchase of LinkedIn as well as more than 40 other acquisitions for the corporation.

She shares her thoughts on some of the key elements necessary for innovation and growth in today’s rapidly changing context, including embedding a growth mindset throughout the company, building diverse teams, choosing M&A targets and managing their integration, and balancing the need to embrace new technologies while creating safeguards to protect against the perils of implementing them too quickly.

Annette Kimmitt shares how middle market companies around the world are prioritizing for growth according to the EY Global Growth Barometer 2018, and highlights how quickly those priorities are changing based on the survey’s year on year results.

Learning outcomes

• By embedding a growth mindset throughout an organization and building diverse teams where everyone can be their best selves, companies can encourage constant learning and enable innovation.
• Companies should continually monitor external signals to identify early stage trends that might be new products in the future.
• Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) should be undertaken to solve a specific problem, but cultural fit will often determine success or failure.
• A set of principles should guide the adoption of new technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics Process Automation (RPA), to protect against potential downsides.

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