One way to establish market differentiation is through the introduction of innovative new products. Establishing that differentiation is one thing, but maintaining it is quite another. Here we have put together a ten part series on how to generate higher returns from your innovation investments.

From our series of highly informational articles, companies will learn: how to treat innovation as a cross-functional business process, how to align innovation execution and business strategy; how to create sustainable innovation; how to train your senior executives to successfully execute innovation initiatives; how to effectively manage process and project management; how to measure performance of your processes; how to ensure broad stakeholder buy-in; how to understand the importance of product roadmaps; how to provide the tools necessary for successful product innovation; and finally, how to ensure that portfolio management coincides with process management.

Here is one of the ten practices that leading innovators use to increase the payback from innovation spending: Treating Innovation as a Cross-Functional Business Process.

Innovation as a Cross-Functional Business Process

While it is not uncommon for organizations to view innovation as a technical process, relegated to the realm of idea generation by research scientists and engineering staff, for innovation to be truly effective however, it should be treated as a business process that supports strategic decisions throughout the life of a product, from inception to retirement.

When you think about it, the various things companies must do to innovate successfully fall into the following categories: planning, investing, designing, manufacturing, supplying, or selling products. Most companies make substantial investments in systems to support the last four of these functional areas. However, when it comes to supporting the strategic planning and investment decision-making facets of innovation process management – points where organizations place huge bets to ensure their future success – many companies have no system in place!

Effective management of innovation processes requires close coordination of daily development activities and the synchronization of product planning information across a broad set of stakeholders. Representatives from principal functions of the organization must be able to contribute easily and thoughtfully to a long-term, business-centric view of market and product opportunities to ensure investments are made in the right projects at the right time.

Additionally, recent studies indicate that more than half of senior corporate executives are dissatisfied with the returns their organizations are generating from investments in innovation. 1 At the same time, some organizations are realizing as much as forty to sixty percent more revenue and profit from new products than their industry peers. What sets these companies apart?

For more information on the top practices that leading innovators use to increase their returns on innovation spending, look for the next article of this ten-part series: Aligning Innovation Execution and Business Strategy.

One way to establish market differentiation is through the introduction of innovative new products. Establishing that differentiation is one thing, but maintaining it is quite another. Here we have put together a ten part series on how to generate higher returns from your innovation investments.

From our series of highly informational articles, companies will learn: how to treat innovation as a cross-functional business process, how to align innovation execution and business strategy; how to create sustainable innovation; how to train your senior executives to successfully execute innovation initiatives; how to effectively manage process and project management; how to measure performance of your processes; how to ensure broad stakeholder buy-in; how to understand the importance of product roadmaps; how to provide the tools necessary for successful product innovation; and finally, how to ensure that portfolio management coincides with process management.

Here is one of the ten practices that leading innovators use to increase the payback from innovation spending: Training Your Senior Executives to Successfully Execute Innovation Initiatives.

Training Your Senior Executives to Successfully Execute Innovation Initiatives

It’s imperative that senior management comprehend and actively support the processes that govern and drive innovation within your organization. Unless your executives know the role they need to play in those processes, it’s unlikely that your organization will see anything more than incremental improvements in its return on innovation spending. Senior leaders need to understand:

1. The benefits of having a structured, automated innovation process.

By providing a common framework for executives and process owners to review and discuss project information, you will enable them to make better, more informed decisions. This provision will also help development teams execute more efficiently on product plans.

2. How to prepare for “go/kill” decision meetings about proposed new products.

If an executive has visibility to key projects in your development pipeline, and understands the impact (positive or negative) that those projects will have on the top and bottom line, he/she will make investment decisions more quickly and confidently.

3. The function and value of using specific, consistent scorecard criteria to evaluate new product ideas.

This practice dramatically heightens the probability that your organization will end up focusing on winning, high-value projects.

4. How to manage gate meetings to get the information needed for sound investment and resource allocation decisions.

It’s imperative that executives be willing to play an active role in facilitating project decision-making. Your organization can help them to be proactive rather than reactive by involving them in projects from the start.

For more information on the top practices that leading innovators use to increase their returns on innovation spending, look for the next article in our ten-part series: Effectively Managing Process and Project Management.

The present highly competittive world to sustain be successful ” Adopting to Change and innovate is the key mantra”. The statement is rather easy to said then adopted.

For most SME’s and entry level strugglying first level businesses / family businesses , it appears the proposed bail out for them is dead, at least for today,  as the resourses and other laking ability does not pave way to innovate. Also the process of innovation adoption is also not easy as communicated and emphasized. No matter where you weigh in on this bailout, there are no easy answers “Struggle for sustainance is the crux and those survive this stage with almost negligible profitability still struggle will remain till the time the strong business foundation is laid.The impact of the adversity however minute effects the ineffective and struggling the most and at times these are unable to cope with the same leading to vanishing.

Also due to few specific reason the companies cease to change and concentrate on what they are doing and establish a Niche for them in that specific category and create existence for them. These firm/ companies survives depending on the selected Niche as selected niche should be able to sustain the company and lead to growth they the demand for product/ services should keep on growing.e.g. Detroit  recognizing that it was just easier to dominant in the market demand for trucks and SUV’s by the American consumer rather than innovate and battle it out with the more efficient, better-built imports over cars and creating a mark was almost impossible.

Innovation. Easy word to say but hard to put into practice. Yet the failure to innovate pushed them to the brink of a precipice. A question we need to all be asking ourselves is this: how do we move forward towards innovation and change to create long-term sustainability and success is most important aspect.

We all need to consider how we’re going to innovate as we head into a new year that could well be far more opportunistic if we nnovate then the present. But if we truly can innovate and change, then the coming years may very well set the stage for enormous opportunities.

1) There are two kinds of companies – those in touch with the future and those operating in the past, which is already obsolete (Google vs. GM, as examples). The future is not only now, but also yesterday because as you sense the future just about to unfold tomorrow, then you need to be already looking towards the next future ready to be released after tomorrow.  What is your next future and what does it look like for you, your staff and your clients.

2) To afford innovation you have to have less to lose.  If you eliminate all possible overhead, you’ll more easily afford innovation. If you have high overhead then you’re married to past business practices. And even if these practices are generating profits now, it may not last because flexibility is the real security in today’s economic climate and a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality no longer cuts it.

3) Innovation – both small and large - is the new mantra for success; competition is the old currency. If you just compete in your industry, you’ll only be incrementally better. But if you innovate, you’ll set new standards and be the leader ahead of the curve.

3) Business knowledge is essential, but innovation and flexibility are real power. The new formula for success puts less emphasis on knowledge and more on innovation and flexibility, with a ratio that may look something like this: 20% critical knowledge/80% innovation and flexibility.

4) Learn from those  companies you see as innovative and created somtething outstanding which was not thought by other – “Out of Box thinking”.

5) Innovation and change is multi-level.  This means It probably won’t be enough to create innovation and change from the top down. Company leaders will need to involve their whole teams in the process. It’s not that innovation can’t happen in a conference-room vacuum but why limit brainstorming to just top-level executives and managers. Adopt the mandate that your company is about innovation and change and that every staff member has the opportunity to contribute to this innovation.

The business model adopted for  doing business today a model for growth or a model for contraction?  If past and current business strategies point towards contraction then you must begin to innovate your products or services or potentially face the struggling situation with low profitability and ultimately the worst out of business situation might occur. The critical factor of innovation may very well determine just how well — or  poorly — your company rides out every hinderence created in the growth path by variety of the environmental factors, business environment, and market sentiments……………

Ultimately those survive the roadblocks just remain and enjoy fruits too………………………

By introducing innovative new products to market, a company can establish market differentiation. While a company can establish differentiation, maintaining that differentiation may prove more difficult. Here we have put together a ten part series of articles that provides insight to companies looking to generate higher returns from their innovation investments.

From our series of highly informational articles, companies will learn: how to treat innovation as a cross-functional business process, how to align innovation execution and business strategy; how to create sustainable innovation; how to train your senior executives to successfully execute innovation initiatives; how to effectively manage process and project management; how to measure performance of your processes; how to ensure broad stakeholder buy-in; how to understand the importance of product roadmaps; how to provide the tools necessary for successful product innovation; and finally, how to ensure that portfolio management coincides with process management.

Here is one of the ten practices that leading innovators use to increase the payback from innovation spending: Aligning Innovation Execution and Business Strategy.

Connecting the Dots: How to Align Innovation Execution and Business Strategy

To successfully manage innovation and garner significant improvements in your organization’s top and bottom line, the goals and activities of cross-functional innovation project teams and the business objectives and strategies defined by your senior executives must be tightly aligned. One way to ensure such alignment is to use scorecard criteria as benchmarks against which to evaluate new product ideas. Project teams should rate prospective products by analyzing the following:

• Anticipated capacity to leverage core technologies

• The likelihood that they will provide high-growth or new market opportunities

• Their ability to support the achievement of the company’s strategic objectives

With an understanding of how each prospective product will inevitably contribute to the company’s top and bottom line, aligning business objectives and strategies with overall goals become more evident. Should the prospective product not rate well according to the above criteria, then that particular product may be abandoned so that additional spending on innovation can be funneled into a more promising product. If the objectives for a particular product line up with the goals expected of that product, then innovation teams as well as senior executives may confidently pursue that product knowing that what is spent on innovation is well deserved.

Since a recent study indicated that more than half of senior corporate executives are not satisfied with their organizations returns from investments in innovation, it becomes even more apparent that higher returns on innovation spending is a crucial component in creating a successful business strategy. At the same time, some organizations are realizing as much as forty to sixty percent more revenue and profit from new products than their industry peers. So, how do businesses such as this latter example differ from those that are dissatisfied with their organizations returns from innovation investments?

For more information on the top practices that leading innovators use to increase their returns on innovation spending, look for the next part to our ten-part series: Creating Sustainable Innovation by Looking beyond the Financial Data.

It’s no secret, especially around these parts, that solar is more than a viable alternative to fossil fuels and a number of other energy sources. It’s one of the top renewable energies there is, as far as feasibility and accessibility go. And every day things are looking brighter for solar. But just as with anything or anyone who gets too close to the spotlight, solar power is being picked apart by some who go so far as to say that solar power systems are unsustainable in the long run, and even in the not-so-long run.

At an energy conference in London last week, speakers from IBM boasted that 2008 was the first year that silicon wafer production for solar cells overshadowed the production of silicon used for electronic devices. With all this talk about Silicon Valley being turned over to solar, the future is certainly looking bright for this green energy solution. And yet.

We know that silicon is naturally uber abundant; in fact, after oxygen, silicon is the the most abundant element in the Earth’s crust. The thing is, silicon makes for some rather inefficient solar cells, causing solar to remain in competition with fossil fuels, and it’s for this reason that more advanced solar technology doesn’t use the material. Instead, those high-tech solar solutions rely on indium, a rare metal, to create multi-composite solar cells that achieve higher efficiency. Currently, indium can be found in LCD screens, and its frequent usage has some analysts projecting that we only have another ten years before the precious metal runs out.

To me, this talk of non-renewable sources of materials and energy is an old one, and it’s only a matter of time before it becomes inapplicable. The rate at which scientists are discovering new ways to emulate resources imperative to life, like clean drinking water, is astonishing. I’m not saying we can all sit back and let the lab slaves do the work, but rather, that with a combination of creative innovation, open discussion, technological advancements, government policies and consumer acceptance, we will produce a source of energy that harnesses what we already have, like solar, with synthetic materials and processes to come up with a sustainable solution. So far, solar is still the leader in this race for sustainability.

Getting used to sustainable system design – the case of ship and ocean 2

2-26-07- Getting used to sustainable system design – the case of ship and ocean 2 magnify

6.2 Policies and procedures build-up – collision preventions and control -Although ships may spend 90 – 98 percent of their operational lives underway at sea speed in deep water, it is during the mandatory beginning and end of every voyage when the risk of collisions, and groundings are highest. Ensuring the ability to maintain complete and positive control of a ship’s movement during these segments of a voyage is absolutely vital if that risk of navigation safety and protection of the marine environment is to be reduced. According to INTERTANKO’s 1996 Port and putting bigger and bigger ships (and more of them) into the same old channel:

· The design limit for trim by the stern for a tanker is 0.015L in accordance with Regulation 13 of MARPOL 73/78, Annex I. This information, which is based on tests conducted in deepwater, includes a turning circle diagram as well as tables showing time and distance to stop the vessel from full and half-speed.

· IMO Resolution A601 (15), which was adopted in 1987, contains recommendations for ensuring maneuvering information is available on board ship.

· The 1995 Seafarers’ Training, Certification and Watch keeping Code, Section A-VIII/2 part 3-1, and article 49 require the master and pilot to “exchange information regarding navigation procedures, local conditions and the ship’s characteristics.”

· A Marine Board study assessed the use of numerical simulation technology to train mariners and concluded that while modeling accuracy is sufficient for deep-water operations; modeling requires refinement to provide the accuracy needed for shallow and restricted water operations.

6.3 Ship design policy build-up -In 1971, IMO adopted Resolution A.209 (VII) establishing recommendations regarding posting maneuvering 9 Regulation II-1/29.3.2 of SOLAS requires rudder movement from 35 degree on either side to 30o on the other to occur in 28 seconds or less.

IMO approved circular MSC/Circ.389 in 1985 establish interim guidelines for estimating the maneuverability -Rudder size and effectiveness, Ability to transit at slow forward speed, Propulsion and propeller characteristics, Number of available engine reversals, Adequate horsepower for control, Extra reserve rudder angle needed to allow for ship crabbing from wind forces or moored ship suction, Visibility from bridge and bridge arrangement, Hull form squat (trim and sink age) characteristics and effect of bank forces on moorings and passing ships, Air draft, Emergency anchoring ability, Amount of tow line leads and line access.

7.0 Current Ship design practice

Existing design tools cannot, at least with any degree of reliability, be used to design a vessel and ensure it will ensure environmental reliability and adequate maneuverability in shallow or restricted waters neither can it be use to satisfy demand need by clean ships . In part this is because of the extreme on-linearity of hull and propulsion characteristics under these conditions. In general, naval architects and marine engineers are educated and equipped with knowledge, skills, and design processes that permit continuous checking and balancing of constraints and design tradeoffs of vessel capabilities as the design progresses.

The intended result of the process is the best design given the basic requirements of speed, payload, and endurance nor where the waste is going. Focus is not placed on how the channels and waterways are designed. Perhaps even more importantly, there is a general lack of understanding of the operational scenario regarding piloting of vessels in constrained waterways. Only recently has there been a real attempt to fully integrate human operational practices with vessel design. The involvement of human beings onboard vessels both extends and restricts the inherent vessel maneuvering capabilities vastly complicating the necessary methodology for assuring safe and efficient operations. Taking waste issue and restricted waterway maneuverability as an important part of ship design spiral would seem a necessary step to enabling proper tradeoffs in vessel design. The reality is that maneuverability and pollution protection is still not an important consideration in ship design of many merchant ships. The result is that design decisions that can compromise environment and collision are decided in favor of other factors. Only with consideration of the full range of ship and channel design and human factors relationships affecting maneuverability will we be able to produce an efficient and safe environmental friendly marine transportation system. Now that the new issue of environment is around, then we have to squeeze in more stuff in the spiral.

Table 1 – parameters s demand and impact

Environmental parameters

Environmental Demand

Impact areas

Ship design,

Need for longer safe life cycle

New limit definition, Correct material selection, Material technology, Quality control of safety and environment

Construction

High worker safety standards, Low energy input

Improved hull hydrodynamic,

Emission

Minimum pollution and emission, Minimum Sox, Nox and green house gas-Zero discharge

Advance Close loop process on board,Waste recycling equipment, Improve training

Scrapping

Zero harmful emission

Beneficial disposal

Operations waste,

Efficient maneuverability

Improve maneuverability

Energy

Maximum fuel efficiency

Engine design, use of alternative energy

Antifouling

Harmless

Biocide free technology

Ballast water

Zero biological invasion or transfer of alien species

Segregated ballast tanks, Improved ballast water tank design, Ballast water treatment, Ballast water data base

Sea mammal

Interaction

Maneuverability capability

Safer ship structure design, Improve maneuvering capability, Navigation AID, misinformation, Exchange, Reeducation

Accident

Able officer, Ship structure, Integrity

New monitoring through port sate control

Fire

Harmless

Halon phase out

Wave wash of High speed

Marine craft

Zero inundation and spray ashore

Moderation of hydrodynamic force

8.0 Mitigation

8.1 Shipboard and waste emission outline –treatment and elimination – Pollution Prevention (P2) or Pollution Control-this is backbone of the thrust in achieving clean ship. Pollution Prevention Use fewer environmentally harmful substances and generate less waste on board. Pollution Control: Increase treatment, processing, or destruction of wastes on board.

The basic P2 principles follow:

Eliminating the use of environmentally harmful chemicals, such as ozone-depleting substance (ODSs), toxic antifoulant hull coatings, and other hazardous materials, may be the best approach for some potential problems.

Fig.2-Treatment and emission

Reducing the amount of waste we generate on board is often better that treating it on board: for example, reducing the amount of plastics and other packaging materials taken aboard may simplify solid and plastics-waste management? Similarly, reducing the volume of liquid wastes generated (such as graywater) may simplify onboard liquid-waste treatment.

1. For the wastes and hazardous materials that cannot be prevented, we must develop pollution-control strategies and technologies.

Other technical mitigation measures are:

Antifouling

* Toxic approach uses other metals such copper and zinc, or agrochemicals e.g. triazines

* Fouling release approach use physical properties of low surface energy coating cause the very weak attachment of fouling organisms. E.g. silicone based coating

* Fouling deterrence –marine organism not know for fouling like corals are use

* Mobile hull cleaning is also being use operationally

Ballast water discharge

* On board treatment – chemical (chlorination), physical treatment (Ultra violet light, heat treatment), filtration and cyclonic separation, shore base treatment is sometime being used but not common.

* Operational mitigation based on information of biological difference between coastal ocean water where ballast and ballasting is done accordingly.

Air emission

* Sulfur reduction in bunker fuel

* Nitrogen reduction to choice of propulsion system

* On board Cataleptics system like charlatanic converter, water injection, emulsion

* Operationally sped reduction and use of shore power connection has been implemented

8.2 Ship collision control and prevention outlines- Most accident are attributed to a flagrant controllability problem and the remain the classic impetus necessary to make improvements to safety and environmental protection, and we e need to do more to ensure adequate vessel maneuverability perhaps better matching of vessel, channel, and operational practices.

Ship maneuverability as major iterative element of design spiral-ship maneuverability is not considered particularly important during the design process, because Owners generally do not include maneuverability requirements as part of the design specification; Firm deep- and shallow/restricted-water maneuvering standards that can be applied during the design process should be established.

Modeling and simulation -Collection of data using dual frequency DGPS receivers and proper analysis needs to be supported to enable unlocking our understanding of restricted water operations.

9.0 Environmental technology

9.1 Recent development coalition control work -Environmental technology also become hot as issue of environment start burning, this might be a start of another evolution, as environmental technology product will start selling good.

9.1 Recent environmental performance

1. 1 Ozone safe substances- 200-Ton Air-Conditioning Plant Conversion Kit -The CG-47and DDG-51 plants have been successfully converted to the ozone-friendly refrigerant HFC-236fa conversion kit has been established by NSWCCD.

1. Solid waste – Solid-Waste Pulpers -The pulper (especially the large pulper) is the machine into which you dump tremendous quantities of paper, cardboard, or food waste. The waste mixes with seawater to form slurry, which is then discharged overboard. Studies show an immediate 100,000-to-1 dilution when discharged into the wake of a ship. Ships equipped with a pulper can dispose of their paper, cardboard, and food waste just about anywhere and at anytime—at sea including MARPOL areas.

1. Liquid waste – OWS and Bilge water Polishers: Many bilge cleaners the Navy uses today contain long-lasting emulsifying agents, which produce stable oil-in-water emulsions that shipboard OWSs cannot effectively process.

1. Shipboard Wastes and Emissions

To improve the reliability of sanitary waste system sewage transfer-pump suction and discharge gauges, naval research laboratory the ring-gauge isolator is adopting, Thermal Destruction and integrated liquid discharge system, the later is a concept where ultra filtration membrane systems would concentrate bilgewater, graywater, and sewage (as previously described); the clean effluents would be discharged; and the concentrates would be evaporated/incinerated in a thermal-destruction system.

9.2 Recent development coalition control work – A number of promising developments that exist today are:

1. Kutsuro Kijima showed a modeling approach that permitted analysis of passing situations that would help set procedural standards for safe passing.

2. IanDand reported on the development of models for ships squat that have shown very good accuracy over the years.

3. Larry Daggett described the advent of dual frequency DGPS receivers and their role in gathering full-scale ship trial data. In addition to the excellent horizontal accuracy of the normal DGPS receiver, these receivers provide vertical location with an accuracy measured in centimeters.

10.0 The future

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain of success than to take a lead in the introduction of a new order of things because the innovation has for enemies all those have done well under the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under new.

Machiavelli, the prince

Recent Safety and Environmental Strategic focus on developing metrics to measure and evaluate progress. The key issues and actions are incorporated in the clean ship concept. Ships owner and operators must understand the need to include wastes stream management in mission requirement in the design stages, with the goal of ships being in compliance. Ship designer must pursue technologies to reduce or eliminate waste streams. The metrics use to monitor progress towards achieving environmentally sound ships will focus on shipboard pollution control equipment installations, specifically the planned versus actual installations. Each waste stream or environmental pollutant, equipment installations, the percentage of total installations completed versus the planned percentage, will be used as a measure of progress for that waste stream. For waste streams and contaminants for which no equipment has been approved or anticipated, the metric will born many R&D for necessary findings . We must take a lead in effectively integrating pollution prevention and safety into the design and life cycle of our ships, systems, ordnance into the execution of our processes, and into the operation. Managing the whole process is another thing; environmental management can be optimizing by incorporating the following concept in our system:

1. Goal based , risk based and holistic design approach

2. Total cost minimization concept,

3. Innovative safety and environmental strategy management and integration,

Planning for uncertainty and risk, R(P1c) = R(E1) x W(E1,P1) + R(E2) x W(E2,P1) + R(E4) x W(E4,P1)

Where: R= rating, E= environmental factor, P= Policy factor

1. Probabilistic and stochastic validation

2. Education and training

11.0 Working better by working together

Amazingly, it seem that everything is need to be integrated in order for the world to function, this sounds ironical, even thus the environment has naturally integrated everything, the same apply to maritime on issue of safety and marine environmental impact control and protection, it is important to for the main players in design (pilots, regulators, channel designers, simulator experts and ship operators),and all concerned to share experience Regarding differences in rules and among regulators, about rules that are taken too light , sensitivity of area, degrees of hazard for various ship types ,Naval architects and ship handlers alike should take the importance of importance green house and green ship issue and (and difficulty) of the passing maneuver unrestricted waters .

Environmental issue has become so sensitive because it is more or less of evidence that nature has exercise enough patience, impact has reach flash point and those who are knowledgeable about the behavior of matter and environment could sense potential of contagious chain of reaction that can lead to heavy calamity destruction and lost. Treating the issue equally required hybridizations of all the methodology we have been using- objectives and subjective, reactive and proactive, and of course newly holistic institutionalized method that compare and consider trend analysis of every elements of what we are dealing with.

So now that you have your growth portfolio set up, you sit back, close your eyes and begin to envision the profits that your company will be enjoying. Shortly after the launch of your campaign, the figures come back to your desk and you realize that you have “missed the mark.” Your entire campaign, has failed to provide significant growth and profits and grumblings begin from below about all the unnecessary time spent on this portfolio.

How to Avoid Missing the Mark

Missing the mark can happen at a variety of points, from the IT Department to the Marketing Department. It is often easy to see that a product campaign has missed the mark, but identifying the location of the bottleneck can be a more difficult task. Determining where the bottleneck in innovation occurs is the first step in effective innovation management.

Ignorance is often the main factor behind a marketing campaign that has missed the mark. The target markets may have been inaccurately pin-pointed, the actual product might not be efficient or effective in the eyes of the target consumer, or a variety of other circumstances. It is important to get accurate data regarding the effectiveness of your campaign as soon as possible, so you can determine just how on target you were with your efforts.

While it may be difficult to change strategies mid campaign, you might be able to minimize losses and redirect efforts to more effective markets. Whether you change your target market, advertising focus, or marketing efforts on a different demographic, lower price to change your position on the value chain, or offer a different set of services to accompany your product, something must be done to increase your market presence and profit margins.

Missing the mark is a major problem, but one that can be remedied with prompt and accurate information regarding the effectiveness of the campaign. Next week we will delve into the proper management techniques to get the most out of your potential project’s ROI with the article Manage Your Rollouts Effectively.

How many of you know what makes an organization sustainably competitive? Some of you may think that a great product/service, great logo/brand, or a large bankroll makes for a sustainably competitive organization. Well, I would agree that all of the above can contribute to the creation and maintenance of sustainably competitive organizations, however, there is one key ingredient missing from this list that trumps everything on it. What’s that you may ask? Why, it’s the people of course. People meaning all of the stakeholders involved with the manufacturing, marketing, and selling of a given organization’s product or service. Stakeholders include customers, employees, suppliers, wholesalers, and retailers. All of an organization’s stakeholders must work in unison if it is to remain sustainably competitive (5-10 years of Tier 1 competition in its industry).

Now, who is responsible for making sure that an organization’s stakeholders work in unison? You got it. Starting from the CEO who espouses the organization’s culture, vision, and immediate goals, it is management’s responsibility to make sure that the human element of the organization is running in tip top shape. However, in many instances this is not occurring. In many of the American companies that I have studied, the management teams have been primarily focused on the product/service, logo/brand, and assets, paying little attention to the state of the organization’s stakeholders. And when they do turn their attention to the organization’s stakeholders, they often use coercive tactics to meet organizational objectives. This practice of using coercive tactics to meet organizational objectives may work in the short term, but not in the long term as it breaks down the relationships between management and their stakeholders.

Well, I am here to tell you that if American organizations intend to remain competitive in the world they must pay more attention to their stakeholders. The product/service, logo/brand, or assets are not enough to keep an organization sustainably competitive any more. Therefore, American organizations need to retrain their management workforce to better interact with their stakeholders. This retraining process must focus on maximizing the human element of the organizational process by implementing and/or improving positive two-way communicative processes between management and stakeholders.

By implementing and/or improving the communicative processes between management and stakeholders, a learning environment can be fostered and supported, allowing for increased cooperation throughout the organization. This process can open up dialogue that had been broken down because of management’s use of coercive tactics, allowing all involved with a given aspect of the organizational process to freely share their ideas. This sharing of ideas can lead to new and/or better organizational processes, increasing the organization’s ability to innovate and remain globally competitive.

Now, I know some of you might still be saying that it is the product/services, logo/brand, or assets of an organization that makes it sustainably competitive. I agree that in the short term those things may appear to matter most, however in the long term its the manner by which a given organization’s management team handles its stakeholders that determines its viability as well as its sustainability. I wont name names, but I am sure you can think of organizations/companies that were at the top of their industries years ago that no longer exist, or are now relegated to the bottom tier of their industries. Why did that occur? Their may be many reasons of course, but I would argue that how these organizations/companies’ management team handled its stakeholders played a significant role in deciding these organizations/companies’ fate.

To create and maintain a sustainably competitive organization, management has to properly address its stakeholders. Utilizing positive two-way communicative processes is one way of making sure that those that are involved in the process of providing or receiving a given product or service has a voice that is heard, acknowledged, and valued. This is the mark of an organization that plans on having sustainable success.

Neglect your stakeholders at your own peril.

There are three ways to react to an organizational crisis. One way is to turn your head to ignore the situation and hope that it will fix itself (best of luck!). Another way is to run around in a panic-induced cost-cutting frenzy that could seriously impair the organization’s long-term growth potential and future state. The third and, of course, smartest method is to recognize the impending threat to both your top and bottom line, and quickly adapt the organization’s strategic outlook and business model to the new environmental conditions. So, the question to answer is this: “what are the decision makers within your organization currently doing? Are they connecting the organization’s strategy with its innovative approach to meet a successful Future Picture?” But what if you, as the leader, are having a difficult struggle to influence others to your point of view and get them to rethinking and reinventing the organization’s strategy forward as circumstances and economics rapidly change. If you are experiencing this challenge, here’s some advice to help your people to win the battlefield of transition.

I have continued to state enthusiastically over the last few years that, in a world where the pace of change has gone hypercritical, today’s most important race is the race for transformational leadership and organizational renewal. It is the race to change as fast as the environment is changing around you; the race to influence positive organizational behaviors and the race to reinvent your strategy and your business model before they become obsolete. When the economy is in a state in flux, most organizations tend to postpone their professional development efforts and favor cost cutting as the strategy that will preserve the future. This is a grave mistake that will affect the future of the organization in ways that will likely kill the very spirit the leadership teams are hoping to preserve. Their efforts during the challenging times will only prolong the inevitable; ultimate demise once the current crisis is diminished. The lesson here is this; a successful business model will break almost overnight when the waves of the ocean start crashing against the pillars of the pier if leadership does not remain on a continuous, yet discontinuous approach to train the organization’s greatest asset – the people.

So what exactly is Strategic Organizational Renewal (SOR)? Organizations undergo change to enhance their productivity. Changes can be effected in several areas of the organization including culture, strategy, mission, teams and organizational structure. SOR is a framework that defines the role, responsibilities, and performance of human capital across the organization and the planning for it must only take place in the organizations “war room.”  To explain the war room concept, leadership appoints a specific room that will be specified as the location where the organizations strategy is planned. This location must remain under lock and key to ensure the organization’s intellectual capital offers an uncompromised agenda that influences positive outcomes. SOR is the resulting effect that is birthed from the war room. This is only possible when those appointed to the war room each understands the importance of establishing the organization’s “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) – the principles to achieve professional mastery. 

Establishing Principles to Achieve Personal Mastery – People First, then the Organization

You now have before you the opportunity to take the steps that achieve a high level of professional mastery that achieves organizational growth. It requires the adoption of a “code” as a living, breathing organism to each level of the organization. How can people build awareness, use their experiences to implement a new approach to deportment and develop a strategy, which includes resolve and ethical conduct? This is the task that lies before them.

It sounds like the normal work that we all know and do so well. But be cautioned, it is not! When individuals combine the code with rules and regulations, reporting and accountability to force conformity to standards, they will fail – to oppose change by way of fear is not what is required. Rather, achieving professional mastery is a continuous pursuit of ethical behavior that ultimately manifests into a quest of improving the human spirit; to pursue good, to do the right thing in across the workplace. The code says that who ever should adopt it into his/her life, will possess a level of courage – both physically and emotionally – to execute the necessary task that drives performance to exemplify the highest level of personal and professional conviction.

Why establish a code to live by? The answer is simple; establishing a code or set of principles ensures a level of conduct (code of conduct) that extends the life cycle of the organization. This code of conduct is what I have been referencing – the “Memorandum of Understanding.” As a code of conduct, the MOU provides a resource to assist people in their personal development, growth, guidance, and assessment in the leadership of self. The MOU establishes a strict perspective for instructing successful practices, theories, and beliefs that drives people to achieve a successful future (how you intend to conduct yourself into the future for others to emulate).

The Memorandum of Understanding is also designed for people to learn broadly; to inspire the service out of generosity for others; and to prepare them to lead systems courageously into the future. A MOU must encourage a perspective to become firmly grounded in the potential for successful growth using the following constructs:

§         The Cardinal Rules

§         The Guiding Precepts

§         The Forms of Disposition

§         The General Orders

§         The Strategy Forward – Establishing Professional Mastery

§         The Centers of Gravity

The Cardinal Rules. The Cardinal Rules are a set of guidelines that are invaluable for people and organizations to follow while planning and executing at the strategic or tactical level. These rules, once established by the individual(s) or teams are the rules that govern forward movement and must not change.

The Guiding Precepts. The Guiding Precepts are designed to inform people what they should and should not be doing in accordance with executing a well designed strategy to win. They also inform of the reasons “why” an action must occur and the repercussions should the individual and/or organization fail at meeting such a task.

The Forms of Disposition. The Forms of Disposition offer a substantive transformation in “thought” about how people achieve a perspective on things in life. It refers to an orchestrated, systemic and revolutionary new world-view resulting in a “change” of societies, cultures, and marketplaces due to behavioral perspective. This is today often called “systems theory,” which sees a web of relationships coalescing to become something greater than the parts. Individuals must be able to look at things from a perspective that they are always changing and evolving into new forms – thinking “out-of-the-box!” We are doomed to a slow death unless radical change occurs in the way we think. Change your way of thinking or die a slow death.

The General Orders. The General Orders are broad, community-wide “need statements,” designed to encompass a variety of related issues in a person’s life or within the life cycle of an organization. These related issues are referred to as “Guiding Objectives,” which are specific items that need to be addressed. The Guiding Strategies (developed to fit current and future circumstance) are the methods identified for addressing the Guiding Objectives, and the Guiding Policies are the specific action steps that are recommended to implement the Guiding Strategies. The General Orders, all eleven of them, offer the ability to explore implications in an open and reflective manner and reinforce each other in providing a coherency and wholeness often lacking in life cycles.

The Strategy Forward – Establishing Professional Mastery. The traditional values are the foundation of the modern day; that was yesterday. Tomorrow, you have an opportunity to create commitment and the needed momentum to establish, publish, share, and teach a different set of life’s code, values, and ethics to journey into the future. After much hard work, you are prepared to develop a strategy to move forward and plan the next steps to target critical successes for winning the Future Picture. What a legacy you will leave when executed with personal and professional bearing for others to follow. This is the way of the future. This is a new chapter!

The Centers of Gravity. Just as time changes, so does the internal and external influence in your life and in the life cycle of an organization. The Centers of Gravity are the dynamics within a process that offer the greatest impact on the overall system when change happens. They offer a high level of “value” and return on your energy “investment.” When combined with the concept of parallel deposits (creating energy from various perspectives in a short period of time), the Centers of Gravity make possible the seemingly impossible task of realizing success in changing paradigms. The Centers of Gravity places significant influence on the five established epicenters of any changing system to receive desired effects: Leadership, Processes, Infrastructure, Population, and Action Units.

In summary, I see the Memorandum of Understanding (once established for the organization), as an opportunity to free up the actions of people as servants, but develop them as encouraged opportunists. It is empowering, it is enabling, and it grounds people in a public way on the fundamentals that they all must share to benefit the organization. There is no ethical malaise. It is important to realize that the new is not a finding from what has been lost. Rather, it is like the journey of the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz in search of a brain (brain power in this context), the tin man in search of a heart, and the lion in search of courage. People’s value system is intact and in most cases, has been during the journey of personal growth. The MOU simply articulates and reaffirms the core value and behavioral perspective that already underlie their personal and professional appearance and conduct to achieve significant growth. And, all of this is stimulated from the affects of the war room; hence, the influences that lead to significant strategic organizational renewal in the end.

The Memorandum of Understanding is designed to help an organization answer four fundamental questions in order to develop and execute an effective strategy forward plan. These questions are:

§         Where does the organization want to be in the future?

§         What will the organization apply its resources against to achieve the Future Picture?

§         How will the organization apply those resources?

§         When and under what conditions will the organization exit from their current strategic plan?

It’s the act of dynamically adjusting business models and strategies to the deep changes at work in the external environment. Above all else, this requires innovation and the Memorandum of Understanding definitely offers an innovative perspective to most organizations. In a 2003 article in Harvard Business Review entitled “The Quest for Resilience,” Gary Hamel wrote, “Strategic renewal is creative reconstruction.” It’s all about dissecting the traditional business model and examining it for imaginative ways to reconstruct it to create significant intellectual and emotional thought space for value creation to positively influence the internal and external customers of the organization. This becomes all the more urgent in challenging times, when customer needs and market conditions swiftly and dramatically change.

As in the case of the New Covenant Church of Philadelphia organization, where the senior pastor and Chief Executive Officer Bishop C. Milton Grannum, set aside a specific room on the same floor of the building as his office for directing the organization’s strategic organizational renewal efforts. The organization’s new “war room” had the same critical importance as Winston Churchill’s cabinet war room in London, used to direct military strategy during World War II. Bishop Grannum’s Innovation War Room was a simple, but highly effective device that guided the New Covenant Church of Philadelphia’s appointed leadership team to focus on establishing the strategy forward to reinvent the business model and find bold, new growth opportunities. And, its impact on the organization’s strategies – and, ultimately, its performance – is still being felt today.

Late in the month of November 2008, even in the face of formidable pressures and economic challenges, New Covenant Church of Philadelphia braved the climate and made the decision to bring in yet another trainer, speaker and author Dr. David Ireland from the region only to learn that they were on the right path to extend the organization’s life cycle. The New Covenant Church of Philadelphia continues to be one of the most progressive thinking faith-based organizations in the region. The reason; the CEO fully understands that the time to input integrated talent management to boost the organization’s human capital is when most organizations are calling on “cost cutting” as its strategy in the face of adverse conditions.

Very few organizations, for-profit and not-for-profit, can claim to have a specific innovation war room somewhere on location. But, what every organization can and should do – right now! – is organize a serious, high-level strategy forum (at least call it the “Innovation War Room” where innovation intersects strategy) to begin exercising transformative thinking and rethinking their business from the customer backward. One of the fundamental questions the leadership team must ask is this: “how do we get the people to buy-into the organization’s new perspective of transformational thinking to experience upward movement in a market where people no longer have financial resources?” And, in a nutshell, it is my perspective that in answering the question, these people should take a look at the slogan of Royal Bank of Scotland: “Less Talk!” “Start engaging the necessary requirements to strategically execute flawlessly to influence the organizations Future Picture.” Innovation powers us out of everything and must be taken seriously as a strategy that wins.

The absolute worst thing any organization can do during the greatest of challenging times is to assume they can go on with “business as usual – and to go along with the status quo.” Instead, they must conduct themselves as great leaders do and get busy working to understand how organizational clients’ (internal and external) priorities may have changed and quickly realign the organizational business model to address their new needs. Reading through a past edition of the Wall Street Journal, most of the advertisements (for luxury watches, exorbitant real estate, and fabulous vacation resorts) looked embarrassingly inappropriate in view of the ongoing national economic crisis that the United States of America has been facing in the past few years and the next years to come.

One ad, from NOKIA, stood out in contrast. The headline: “Can anyone provide cost cutting solutions that work now? My answer is YES. Now, there’s an organization that seems to get it. But wait a minute. Didn’t that headline sound more than a little like Barack Obama? NOKIA seems to have understood the lesson from the past month’s U.S. election between President Elect Barack Obama and Senator John McCain: Whether you’re overcoming organizational politics or training people to remain on top in their careers, the winners will be those who recognize that the game has changed, and that “same old stuff” just does not cut it any longer. The world’s processes have changed in ways that the world looks much different than it did a year ago (unemployment is up 47% from 2007 – 2008, home ownership is down 26% and the statistics continue to get grim). The way to make effective decisions require innovative thought and those who miss the opportunity to change will be left behind. The best quote that I teach from fits great here: “If people seek to achieve what they have never had, they MUST be prepared to do what they have never done.”

As a U.S. Marine turned business professional, responsible for leading a dynamic team of specialist into the lion’s belly when the team engages a client who is seeking to overcome business and process challenges, innovation takes precedent as our strategic starting point. Our team defines the importance of the war room, helps to identify its location and then the work begins – in the newly organized Innovation War Room. Without this component added to the mix, there’s no need to start because without it, the potential for failure rises incredibly. As we establish these critical strategy rooms, we teach companies to unpack their business model into five Centers of Gravity: Leadership, Infrastructure, Processes, Populations and Action Units. These five are used to influence positive organizational behavior from the leadership who is responsible for making the decisions to drive momentum: who they serve, what service they provide how they provide it, how they generate revenue and how they differentiate and sustain a strategic advantage.

Then we demonstrate how the Centers of Gravity are used to radically rethink each component using the “Six Lenses of Innovation” – the cutting-edge military-style ideation and methodology, “Battleplan for Preemptive Strike,” outlined in my latest book “Business WARFIGHTING For GREAT Teams.” So, we get the strategy teams to (1) Establish Achievable Aims; challenge deeply-held orthodoxies about who their customers are, how they interact with them, how they define their products or services, how they configure the value chain, and so on; (2) Identify Means; harness emergent trends and discontinuities to substantially change the way things are done in their industry; (3) Ensure Intelligence; leverage core competencies and strategic assets in novel ways to generate new growth; (4) Enforce Security; understand and address deep customer needs that are currently going unmet; (5) Engage the Strike; a deliberate Battleplan used by a strategic and numerically inferior power to head off a situation in which ultimate defeat would be inevitable; and lastly, (6) Flawlessly Execute the Exit Strategy; just as everything has a beginning, all things have an end. Leaders are instructed how-to establish exit points using 32 solution-centric precepts to face fierce challenges in short time frames using the process.

We believe that as organizations begin to reshape their cultures; it’s not hard to recognize how the principles found within the military-style ideation and methodology of the Battleplan for Preemptive Strike apply to the many burning platforms organizations are facing today. Isn’t it time you subjected your own business model to some “creative reconstruction,” aimed at making it better suited to today’s shifting customer needs and new economic realities?

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Dr. Ashok Kumar Panigrahi & Dr. Nirakar Jena,

Department of Zoology, F.M.Autonomous College, Balasore, Orissa, India.

Sustainable development is defined as the process of development that meets the need of the present generation without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their need.

The idea of sustainable development emerged from the Brundtland report of            1987 titled “Our Common Future”, through which it was recognized that the natural resources are exhaustible. Consequently there was a global change in approach towards the developmental processes. The shift in the developmental paradigm led to a paradigm shift in ecological science. Human beings which thus far were not included in the ecosystem functioning were seen as an important constituent and the process of impact assessment was initiated. There was broad consensus for living in harmony with the nature because the traditional societies living close to nature and natural resources were found to be better integrated than the industrialized societies. The role of biodiversity as a natural resource was realised. This was more so in ecological point of view. The paradigm shift in ecological studies emphasizing the role of biodiversity led to the concept of sustainable development. Thus, ecology and development became synonymous and together they led to formulation of strategies for natural resource management whereby ecology was linked up with social processes.

The Brundtland Report or the report of the world commission on Environment and Development emphasized the following three points, which according Kofi Annan, are pillars of sustainable development. They are-

i.                     Economic growth

ii.                   Social progress

iii.                  Protection of the Environment together with the natural resources.

The report was time appropriate in view of the global change which includes the following facts.

i.                     Climate change- arising out of material development and without impact assessment, climate change is directly responsible for enhanced global disasters like polar ice cap melting, magnitude of sea born disasters etc.

ii.                   Biological invasions- technologies directed at altering the basics of biodiversity and nullifying the species barriers through the transgenic which fail the desired results.

iii.                  Biodiversity loss- owing to lack of understanding the importance of biodiversity, from food through health and ecological consequences to biological inter-relationships are very often forgotten.

iv.                 Land use- owing to lack of proper vision and far sight there is nothing called land use plan consequent up on which the quantum of arable land is diminishing when the population and hunger is rising.

Consequent to the above facts the following impacts were recognized.-

i.                     Scarcity of water, fresh water and especially drinking water true to its definition.

ii.                   Land and soil- especially arable land at a time of increasing urbanization and decreasing agricultural land  owing to population explosion; over exploited soil due to green revolution practices.

iii.                  Energy- depleting energy resources like fossil fuels of petroleum crude and coal and limited availability from alternative sources like solar and wind etc.

iv.                 Pollutions- due to non sustainable industrialization, green revolution and implementation of non sustainable developmental practices, all habitats of life like air, water, land and food today stand highly polluted.

v.                   Population explosion- unchecked and unplanned population growth is taking place which by itself exerting tremendous pressure on planets life support systems.

vi.                 Poverty- more than 70% of the population in the developing countries today are living below the poverty line; a great majority of them do not own a house and a source of regular income, no land of their own to grow food and feed themselves.

Poverty is rampant in the slums of the cities and towns and far away villages in the country sides in all developing countries. These are the pockets where the population is growing at faster rates. In addition to this, high human activities which do not conform to the basic ecological necessities have been found to be the causes of various types of avoidable environmental pollutions. Besides, uncontrolled and unregulated human activities in search of employments to earn their daily breads, through the society in disarray and disorder. As a consequence, the original master plans drawn for all cities and towns in most developing countries like India are either undergoing frequent changes or are n ever really implemented.

The various types of human activities may be identified as-

Land clearing, grazing, urbanization, agriculture, forestry, fishery, aquaculture, water diversion, fuel consumption, industrialization and recreation.

The intentions are, however, aimed at improving the quality of life such as-

Shelter generation, food and fiber production, water supply and irrigation, consumer goods production, knowledge and enjoyment.

But the actual and unintended results together with the environmental costs thus achieved are enormous and they may be summed up as under-

Deforestation and habitat destruction, soil degradation and desertification, acid prepitation, eutrophication, ozone depletion, loss of biodiversity and climate change.

Thus, the current trends of development without assessing the consequential environmental impacts may be labeled as ‘non sustainable’. Consequential to such types of development the stocks of vital important and limiting resources like fresh water, fuel, timber, fodder, biodiversity and healthy food are fast depleting in most developing countries like India. It is, therefore of paramount necessity that these basic amenities of life must be sustainably harvested without further delay through sustainable development using indigenous technology where ever available.

The ways of sustainable development, some examples

1. Water harvest and aquifer recharge.

There was a news flash in the ToI,. 6 March 2003 that India stood at the

bottom of the heap on water quality and availability. Taking excerpts from then just published world water development report of United Nations, the paper reported that India ranked a poor 120 in a list of 122 countries for its water quality and in terms of water availability India ranked 133 in a list of 180 countries where the survey was undertaken. As compared to India, its neighbours like Bangladesh, Srilanka, Nepal and Pakistan stood at 40, 64, 78 and 80 respectively in the same list. The top five water rich countries of world were identified to be Greenland, Alaska, French Guyana, Iceland and Guyana in that order. Similarly the top seven countries identified in terms of water quality were Finland, Canada, New Zealand, U.K., Japan, Norway and Russian Federation.

It is an established fact that global weather patterns and precipitation rates are highly influenced by ENSO ( EL Nino- La Nina Southern Oscillation) in the pacific besides other episodic events as forest fire and a few other independent factors such as microclimatic changes and mean temperatures etc. With references to India it is known that states like Tamilnadu received much less rainfall consequitively for last several years where as states like Kerala and Karnataka were identified to be the wettest regions

As regards to water precipitation, it is widely known that India receives much more rainfall than Europe. But compared to India, Europe never faces water scarcity. It may be because; the 80% of the total amount of rainfall that India receives annually comes in just about 100 hours. In such a situation, harvestation of rain water is of paramount importance in India. However, there are no organized governmental efforts to this aspect yet anywhere in India.

In Delhi, the capital city of India, the under ground water table has been in decline, going deeper and deeper with increase in population. In some regions of Delhi, the water table has crossed 200 feet. To meet the ever increasing water need of Delhi, dams like the one in Tehri has been constructed with a huge capital investment. But Tehri being in the seismic zone is unsafe. Therefore, the problem has to be solved locally. Few retired persons in different areas of Delhi went on a mission of water harvesting and aquifer recharge in the last couple of years and achieved encouraging results which as summed up in the survey report of th Centre for Science and Environment and published in the ToI sometime back employing simpler technology as shown below-

RESULTS:

Execution                                        Under ground water availability depth

Area                                               Before                                      After

1.         Panchsheel park                                   > 92 feet                                  87 feet

2.         Jamia Hamdard University.                   >148 feet                                 132 feet

3.         Rajinder Nagar                         118 feet                                    73 feet

4.         Vasant Vihar                                        119 feet                                    115 feet

5.         Tughlaqabad defence colony             drawing                            drawing                                                                    10,000 liters                           20,000 liters

Similar methods can be successfully employed in all water stress areas in India including Chennai taking examples from countries like Germany where by law it is mandatory for every household to harvest rain water. In Germany, the government levies a tax on those who do not harvest rain water in order to raise funds to build and maintain structures to harvest the same, especially storm water.

Besides, rain water harvesting has achieved tremendous results in Rajasthan which led to Rajinder Singh being awarded with the prestigious Magasasay Awaards and revived native vegetation in Asola-Bhatti, a large patch of barren land near Delhi scarred with pits from which red sand had been dugout over a long period.

2. Sustainable agriculture and real green revolution:

Scars left by the imported technology used during the so called green revolution in India in the late sixties are difficult to fill up. By the impact of that green revolution, the soil now stands degraded with reference to plant nutrition availability

and water retaining capacity. The food today contains excess of hazardous chemicals like nitrate, pesticides residues and lacks important constituents like carotene and vitamin C and is deficient in food mineral contents like copper and zinc. Besides, by volatilization, nitrogenous fertilizers contribute to acid precipitation and ozone depletion. Free use and applications of pesticides increased the resistance in the

desired species like the crop pests, eliminated beneficial insects like honey bees, an array birds like the scavenging vultures and pest feeding insectivorous birds and ended up in appearing in bottled waters and soft drinks in dangerous proportions.

Pests are creations of the nature. Nature has its own methods to contain them. We have a huge biodiversity at our disposal to keep the pests in check, like the Azadirachtin of Neem and other such botanicals; the predators like the Spiders, Mantis, Dragon flies, the parasitoids like the Bracon and Trichogramma. In such a situation why apply the pesticides and put the human lives in danger? Pearson (1985) has opined that pesticides related deaths in developing countries account for about 10 thousand per year and many more suffer.

Earthworms have been known to be friends of farmers even to school children but there has been no comprehensive effort to employ these creatures to agricultural advantage in a large way except for some NGOS like the Navdanya Trust of New Delhi which are doing exemplary work in that line to change non sustainable chemical agriculture to sustainable organic agriculture.

Awareness creation through facts and figures:

Results obtained from the just concluded UGC funded Major Research Project on Organic farming conducted by the authors are glaring examples to show that only organic farming is sustainable. Growing HYV  paddy (Lalat) in Rabi with Azolla culture and Pongam oilcake for providing plant nutrition and using pheromone traps and Trichocards to keep the pests in check, yielded 1.5 quintals of paddy per acre over and above the quantity produced using agrochemicals and that too with less cost.

As far as NPK parameters of the soil to provide nutrition to crop plants are concerned, the following data were obtained through organic applications which may seriously be viewed.

Soil fertility status in transplanted HYV kharif paddy

N(in kg/ha)

Before        30days

after

P2O5(in kg/ha)

Before 30days

after

K2O(in kg/ha)

Before 30days

after

1.

Sesbania                    application

289.7       350.2

20.6       21.7

189.2     200.1

2.

Sesbania + Pongam oil cake (@ 375kg/ha)

283.7       458.2

42.6       45.8

188.3     273.6

3.

Vermi compost

in soil

–        250.88

–        60.29

–          151

4.

worm cast in lateritic soil

–          740

–         46.7

–          251.36

5.

Worm cast in  saline    soil

–          498.62

–         24.95

–          123.64

6.

Compost + Earthworm

1 month after worm inoculation

–           573.8

–          70.65

–          825.8

7.

Compost + Earthworm with vegetable plants in fruiting state

–           689.92

–         90.36

–         161

8.

Worm cast of a geophagous

Worm species

–           740

–         46.7

–         251.36

Contribution of Earthworms to Soil fertility in form of Worm casts (in kg./ ha.)

Nitrogen (N)

Phosphorus (P)

Potash (K)

General soil sample

340.2

40.8

380.7

Worm cast of Metaphire posthuma

(Giant tropical earth worms of Orissa)

610.2

46.7

781.0

Initial soil sample

269.7

52.2

561.25

Worm casts of mixed species of native worms

573.88

70.65

825.8

-do- Perionyx excavatus

558.2

61.9

611.52

-do-   Eisenia foetida

698.92

90.36

861

Contributions of Biodiversity to soil fertility under 20 % soil incorporations (kg./ha)

Soil nutrients

(kg./ ha.)

Initial state

(kg./ ha.)

Moringa leaf

Eichornea leaf

Cassia leaf

Pongamia leaf

Sesbania leaf

Nitrogen(N)

269.7

310.46

299.48

294.48

303.36

265.97

Phosphorus (P)

52.2

62.5

62

62.7

63

31.37

Potash (K)

561.25

598.1

608.83

596.73

594.04

540.0

Biodiversity                            N %                            P2O5 %                        K2O%

Casuarinas leaf ash                  trace                             1.4%                            14.0%

Pongam (dry leaves)                 3.7%                            2.41%                          2.42%

Bone and blood meal                10-12%                       3-3.5%                                    0.5-0.7%

Poultry litter (fresh)                   3%                               2-6%                           14%

Cow urine (fresh)                      0.083 ppm                   9.73 ppm                     387.5ppm

Neem oil seed cake                  5.2 %                           1%                               1.4%

Til (sesamum) oil cake  6.25%                          2.05%                          1.25%

Sesbania (whole plant) 3%                               1.2%                            2.2%

Eucalyptus leaf ash                  trace                             5.9%                            24.0%

Major Nutrient Removal by different crops:

Unit – kg. per quintal of product

Crops               Crop parts                    Nitrogen            Phosphorus             Potash

Paddy              grain/straw                    1.34/0.61            0.54/0.37               0.27/3.70

Groundnut        Pod/calm                      3.02/0.4              074/0.14                0.52/0.7

Potato              Tuber                           0.74                    0.28                       1.4

Gram                Grain                            5.25                    1.65                       4

3. Reclaiming waste arid land through biodiversity service:-

Land degradation is a threat being faced World Wide. There are several factors responsible but open cast mining is the chief is the principle cause. Presently about 2 billion hectares of land world wide lie degraded. Of this about 3.5 consists of dead ecosystems that can not be revived and restored back to normally. Sustained efforts and planned executions can reactivate the rest 96.5 percent of degraded land.

Asola Bhatti near Delhi was one such degraded land which bore the precious red sand that was exploited since the Moghul era and through the British period for constructions of monuments in and around Delhi. Centuries of exploitation left Asola Bhatti a dead ecosystem. There was not a single blade of grass growing any where in the vast expanse of Asola Bhatti until 1994. Delhi University scientists led by Professor CR Babu established the Centre of Management of Degraded Ecosystems and worked overtime using simple cost effective technology in an area of 1.5 hectares of Asola Bhatti. Encapsulated seeds of some local varieties of plants in microbial gel blocks were released in the dry and hot environment of Asola Bhatti. Microbe diversity used was direct and associated nitrogen fixers, phosphate solublisers (both bacterial and fungal) and plant growth promoters. The seeds used belonged to plant diversity such as Acacia (a leguminous plant) and various grass species in line with those found in the Aravalis in the first phase. Miraculously, these encapsulated seeds germinated with the scanty rainfall that the region received during the monsoon. Encouraged by this development, Delhi forest department constructed several check dams in the area for harvesting rain water. In the second phase, seeds of other plant diversities like the ‘dhak’ and ‘junglee jalebee’ were released. Over a period of six years, the topography of the degraded Asola Bhatti ecosystem changed dramatically with many native flora and flora reappearing of their own. Today there is a forest in the region of Asola Bhatti which once lay barren for centuries.

4. Saline Land Reclamation through Agnihotra

Dr. Ramashray Mishra, Professor of Plant Genetics at Chandrashekhar Azad Agriculture University in Kanpur has been experimenting with Agnihotra farming for the past 25 years, both under laboratory and field conditions. Among his many achievements the successful reclamation of saline waste land in Kanpur within 10 years through Agnihotra is a unique achievement. After reclamation of the said land, a residential colony that came up on a part of it was named Agnihotra Nagar. The rest of the reclaimed land is lush greenery and is covered by luxuriant vegetation. The topography of the area changed dramatically within a period of 10 years. Similarly the Homa Therapy Association of North America reclaimed a 17 acre patch waste land and turned it to its own farm in Alabama (USA) through Agnihotra in a short period of 2 years, whereas left to the mercy of nature, the said land would have taken about 100 years to rebuild its top soil. It is for this and other agriculturally advantageous reasons that many developed and developing countries like USA, Germany, Japan, Peru and Chile have officially accepted Agnihotra as the principal method of organic farming. The Latin America states like Peru and Chile have accepted Agnihotra as their State agricultural policies principally due to its cost effectiveness, superior crop yields and simultaneous conservation of top productivity soil and water resources.

5. Reclamation of Indian waste (usar) land

India has landmass of approximately 329 millions hectares; out of which more than half i.e., 175 millions hectares is categorized as waste land. These lands are on the steep slopes, saline affected, alkaline affected and subjected to excessive erosion, soil toxicity and lack of soil fertility. These soils are often referred to as ‘problem soil’. Saline and alkaline soils cover nearly 7 millions hectares land in our country. These soils are inhospitable for crop production due to high pH, high concentration of soluble salts and exchangeable sodium. These are called usar land or degraded land. The soils are deficient in nitrogen and phosphorous and do not support any plant growth. There are vast tracts of usar land in and around the ancient historical townships like Ayodhya, Mathura, Varanasi and Delhi etc.The banks of river Yamuna has only degraded land.  In addition to the usar land, vast stretches of water logged land have added to the total degraded land in India and such land are in the increase in every passing year. Special planning strategies and systematic executions are essential in reclaiming such degraded land for agricultural purposes if we are to increase our food production.

Conclusion:

The resources and the environment are getting depleted and degraded mainly due to human interference under the disguise of development. It is time appropriate to have a fresh look to the entire process of development globally without which life will not sustain for long in this planet. Approach to other resources like the wet lands, forests and above all, the biodiversity must be made globally and in a sustainable manner by which they become substantially productive and support the life system of the planet, Earth. This is of paramount importance now.

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P.S. The authors invite innovative ideas on this issue from the readers of this article.