The Need for New World Demand Drivers
An Interview with Glenn Llopis

Companies often lose the vision of what they should be, by focusing on the "narrow-minded" urgencies of what customers demand, or what the competition is doing today. These are "old world demand drivers" that inhibit their ability to identify trends that are capable of delivering longer term visions and profit sustainability.

Rather than focusing on short-term "old world demand drivers," Glenn Llopis' approach is to identify "new world demand drivers" that will shape how corporations and entrepreneurs will need to work in the future. He is a catalyst to bring management teams to become "global thinkers" by broadening existing business intelligence to identify new products and services for the future.

"Marketplace uncertainties are creating demand for investment in new ideas for both corporations and entrepreneurs," says Llopis. Entrepreneurs face uncertainty in supporting capital requirements and rebounding from an occasional poor decision. Corporations face the unwillingness and lack of management resources to embrace and support change effectively.

Today most new products, innovations and lifestyles are influenced by short-term public perceptions formed by the media. Changes in law and regulations make it more difficult and expensive to grow and compete. Even publicly traded companies are often reprimanded by Wall Street and its shareholders for not attaining forecasted results. This has led both entrepreneurs and corporations to pursue a "short-term approach" with a narrow-minded focus on "the now" and not on the future. As a result, they weaken their long term viability. This leads to organizational fragmentation that disrupts management confidence to explore new ideas. At this point companies become fiscally unclear and hesitate to seek new ventures and strategic alliance opportunities.

According to Llopis, "corporate uncertainty must be replaced with greater understanding of "new world demand drivers" (see table below). New world demand drivers are derived from global economic factors across industries. New world demand drivers must filter into the design of products and services that have the capacity to grow into new lines of business and attract broader markets.

"Old world demand drivers" are perpetuated by change resistant management teams that focus on the success factors of the past. These old work demand drivers create forced strategies that are derived from status quo decision making patterns. Lack of big picture perspective has led these "old world thinkers" to believe that they can achieve their desired results by utilizing the same "old world" approach to what has now become a "new world" problem.

An example of this thinking is nicely articulated by Albertsons CEO Larry Johnston at a recent grocery industry forum: "clinically speaking, we are in a state of denial. We conned ourselves into believing that, as grocery experts, we had a track record for doing things right for generations and that we would bounce back once things returned to normal. Well the fact is things aren't going to return to normal." Soon thereafter, Albertsons announced the sale of its grocery and pharmacy divisions that involved three investor groups!

Glenn Llopis' understanding of the new world demand drivers is essential to building long term and sustainable business models. Mr. Llopis presents them as business opportunities; employing innovative methods and human motivation to engage organizations in creating visions for new ventures & strategic alliances. He partners with organizations to design products & services that capture the emerging global market and its diverse customer base. He identifies these new world demand drivers and then integrates them through the organization to create new venture platforms. In short, he brings the future to today's meeting room.