January 2022
The bottomline challenge... "the challenges we exist to address"
When we looked around in the infrastructure sector in recent times, the main question we're asking is: What does the current global momentum on sustainability, decarbonization, and resilience mean for my business? And the bottomline challenge appears to be the same: Trying to figure out how to execute on the necessary transition of their businesses; and the task is as complex as you can imagine.
But this bottomline challenge is in fact really about the… well, bottomline. While we would be forgiven in the past for being cynical about companies with such initiatives just doing it for the positive optics, what we see today is that most companies are trying to figure out how to align such initiatives to actual long term profitability. A very different proposition and a complex challenge that we’re excited to help solve!
Solve for X... "how we will unlock the answers"
Despite having all the technologies and solutions available, we are still moving really slowly in terms of adoption and assimilation into business-as-usual. So if the technologies and solutions are already good at solving so many critical problems, what else do we need to solve for to accelerate adoption?! We devote our energy to "Solve for X"... eXecution, to be exact. We now need to think about a dedicated practice that focuses on the complexities of piecing together the whole puzzle, rather than supply more or better individual pieces to the puzzle.
There is immense value in focusing on coordinating the whole system, drawing in the critical stakeholders and injecting leadership into the collaboration process itself. To execute and to achieve adoption, we're convinced that this is what it will take. This will be key to finally delivering the benefits and value that both clients and innovators want.
Development to Delivery... "where we do our work"
We’ve worked in the delivery of water, cleantech and infrastructure for more than 20 years. Of the different challenges we had to overcome, not knowing which are the good solutions tend not to be one of them. Figuring out how to select & make solutions right for the project, the organization and the people… tends to be the common thread across our toughest challenges.
Our work is to take our partners & clients from an inside view of having great solutions or designs, to an outside view of seeing how they fit into a variety of operational conditions and stakeholder needs. We focus on infrastructure that requires complex delivery, strategic development of market-ready solution sets and hands-on development of market opportunities and ecosystem partners.
Leadership of Systems... "why our approach works"
When faced with an infrastructure project with complex requirements, where performance resilience is the bottomline… When faced with the task of operationalizing a novel solution or approach, where success hinges on solving multi-faceted execution challenges… When the time comes for neat solutions & beautiful designs to move out of the development zone and dive into the hard work of delivery… These are times when the thing we need most isn’t another option or another feature. The one thing we need in these times is the Leadership of Systems.
This is a practice in its own right, with approaches and tools that dramatically transforms and uplifts convention task-oriented project management competencies. Systems leadership asks that we become more sensitive to the external system influences than the immediate tasks. It asks that we redefine success through a broader set of stakeholders. It asks that we inject a new brand of leadership that drives outcomes by enabling these stakeholders.
Ecosystem-centric... "what we are doing for partners & clients"
Leading systems is by definition something that requires both deep as well as broad collaborations. It requires a rich understanding of our partners' various jobs to be done, and we have to be conversant with the interests of partners across the value chain, to be able to orchestrate and deliver outcomes that work in the context of the ecosystem. We need to be ecosystem-centric.
This is the Upconverge approach when partnering with our clients to develop complex solutions for end-customers like PUB and JTC. This is our approach when working with technology companies both regionally and globally to develop deployment opportunities and market access. Our ecosystem-centric approach delivers bottomline, execution & delivery success to our partners' complex infrastructure and innovation challenges.
We make systems work. We turn complex into practical.