Michael Levitt forecasted the slowing down of the spread of corona in February in China, giving hope to those affected by the lockdown. February 1 the Province of Hubei had 1.800 new cases a day. February 6 the number reached 4.700 new cases a day. February 7 the number of new infections started to drop linearly and did not stop. The reason for the slowdown is due to the fact that ‘exponential models’ assume that people with the virus will continue to infect others at a steady rate. In the early phase of Covid-19 the rate was 2.2 people a day on average.

Jack Welch was a white-collar revolutionary, championing radical change and smashing the complacency of the established order. He not only changed GE, but also changed USA corporate ethos, one that prizes nimbleness, speed and regeneration over older ideals like stability, loyalty and permanence.

Building a strategy without competitive intelligence is like planning a road trip without a map. Understanding competitive motivations and behaviors helps to shape product development, pricing, brand positioning, innovation, business development and beyond. Competitive landscapes become extremely dynamic and this makes it imperative for companies to get the higher-quality insights and especially foresight.

In the 1990s former CEO of GE Jack Welch quoted similar as the new CEO of Google and Alphabet: “We have met the enemy and he is us”. In 2013 former CEO John Chambers of Cisco quoted: “We understand the market, our competitors and most importantly how our competitors think. I have a pretty good idea what their next moves will be. When you compete against us, you will lose”. Two quotes of business leaders who made GE and Cisco great. Interesting to see how Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, looks at competition from within.

ASML has been working for almost two decades on the new and very advanced semiconductor’s technology ‘Extreme Ultra Violet’. This technology enables worldplayers as Intel, Samsung, TSMC and a few others to produce millions of chips for other worldplayers as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and others much faster.

In previous INTELs we described the financial situation of Germany’s Deutsche Bank as dramatic: losses of 6-8 billion euros in 2019, 18.000 layoffs in the 3rd quarter 2019 and they even cancelled the Christmas 2019 reception for retired employees. Deutsche Bank is dying and insiders see it as a ‘zombie bank’ that is stumbling along until someone finally puts it out of its misery.

Change in our business environment is influenced by Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity and it’s the core of our Strategic Intelligence best practices. It implies five key roles in leadership: Visionary(1), Strategic(2), People(3), Structural(4), and Process(5). Visionary Leadership is creating your company’s peripheral vison and meets Strategic Leadership aiming to monitor the changes in the environment, grabbing the opportunities and the ability to adapt to change. People Leadership is all about agility.