Partner Article

Meet Professor Eddie Obeng of Pentacle The Virtual Business School

Synopsis of area of expertise

Business Educator, Motivational Speaker, Presenter, Author, Researcher and Inventor. Executive education and business training at Pentacle. Author of 10 books on business .

Inventor of many popular business management tools e.g. StickySteps_TM_ (a planning method that allows you to plan in detail to do things that are novel or unclearly specified), IDQB_TM_ (how to influence and convince anyone about anything, overcoming resistance to change) , 4types_TM_ of Change (a programme and project management approach for dealing with ambiguity and uncertainty) and the GapLeap_TM_ (a15 minute business case creator).

External affiliations: Professor at the School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Henley Business School at the University of Reading, former Board member, Design Council UK, Global Associate, Duke Corporate Education.

What key challenges has your company recently faced?

The ease of selling and the profitability of different countries we operate in has become markedly different. It is a real challenge to work out whether to focus the School’s leadership support on the more profitable business areas and use any profits on the others or vice versa

What is your biggest achievement over the past 12 months?

We have been working hard, spurred on by the recessionary environment, the cuts and generally volatile business mood to invest in research and inventing. So far we have managed to develop EsP__TM - a way to run projects, a methodologythat just about guarantees 100% success and value-based sales process, which extracts the most value from any buyer/seller situation so that the buyer even in these cash strapped times, is happy to buy and the seller also feels it’s worth their while.

By far the most challenging task and our most visible achievement over the past 12 months has been to breath life into the use of three dimensional environments for business education.

Second Life and The Sims blinded many people the business world to the potential of three dimensional virtual environments. Business people expect them to be hard to navigate (unless you’re twelve), confusing and probably pointless, unless you just want to play.

We have developed QUBE. QUBE allows you to work together as if you were physically shoulder to shoulder – you can see each other speak to each other, work on documents together and view ‘powerpoints’. From a teaching angle sitting together in the sound-zones means that breakouts are simple and effective

QUBE means that people can learn or work – effectively - together anywhere in the world. The cost of training is significantly cut, both in terms of time, travel and accommodation. We have set ourselves a target of using it to reduce carbon emissions by 5555 tonnes over the next year. In addition, the convenience of people, groups and learning coming to you on your computer means that the teaching staff,methods and coaching advice that previously could only be afforded by ‘typical’ business school clients, global corporations and FTSE500 businesses , can now be extended to engines of recovery, SMEs and start-ups. It means that the most dynamic organisations and those with the most growth potential can now afford the education, mentoring and skills to realise that potential.

What is your biggest focus for the coming year?

We will be using the Pentacle QUBE to run a series of virtual conferences on the topics that seem to be of most interest to our clients. The series themed ‘Without Boundaries’ is intended to bring breakthrough new, practical ideas to people whereever they are in the world and whatever their scale of business. The topics we have selected areinnovation– transforming ideas into money,leadership– having the skills and courage to get others to step into the unknown,projects– making things happen and delivering results andorganising–getting past the hierarchy to be agile and flexible.

If you had to choose one top piece of advice for someone just starting out in business, or is currently operating within your industry sector, what would it be?

People often start out in business hoping to ‘work for themselves’. This is a mistake: the only one you should work for is the customer! And always remember a pound of revenue today always trumps two pounds of revenue next month because by then you will probably have run out of cash. So be very focused – but refocus frequently.

Can you share with us your view of the current landscape of business, in this region or generally and where your organisation sits within it?

For the foreseeable future most business will be operating in a world where things change faster that their ability to learn and understand them. So, re-using old experience will be of less value, whilst agility speed and creative conversion of possibilities into opportunities to exploit will win.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Eddie Obeng .