Nico Kerssens on Olsen Strategic Management Model

I attended on Nico Kerssens´ lecture on Olsen Stratetic Managent model on Monday in the 16^th of April. Kerssens is a lecturer in Saxion University in Holland. He is also the father of the Case Amsterdam. He is focused on strategic management. Olsen model predicts future events and will give competitive advantage to company if it success. Kerssens mentions as of an example the inventor of booking.com. He was thinking that booking was difficult back in the days so he invented the booking.com. Then there were other online- booking companies yet. Therefore he got the competitive advantage. As a result you have to have the right product in right time.

Kerssens explains that technology has developed fast but it will develop faster and faster. He also explains the term (D)estp which is demographic, economic, social, ecological and political analysis.

Kerssens tells something about history and inventories. According to him Russian Kondratieff has explained history as a long-term cycle. What I mean here is that there is always some invention which is important to that era. Industrial revolution was this something in 1780s and railways were new in 1850s.  The electricity had a major role in the 1900s and electric devises were invented in 1950s. In 1990s information technology was the greatest invention. After presenting all these inventions Kerrsens was thinking what the future will be. Will people live longer than they have used to, or not? Will there be natural resources left and what will be the solution when there are not anymore fossil fuels? What kind of holidays people will have? Will there be trips to Moon and space? How much they will cost in the future? Kerssens mention also Junglar model on economic cycle. Compared Kondratieff´s theory to Junglar´s theory the difference between these two is a time period. Junglar model is short-term and Kondratieff model is long-term. The cycles are from 7 to11 years on Junglar theory and from 40 to 70 years on Kondratieff theory. The cycles are formed of recessions, recoveries and peaks.

Kerssens makes clear of economic power. Mankind has seen rise and fall of many cultures like Ancient Greeks and Romans, United Kingdom and now it´s the USA. But what will be the future? Will the economic power be China and the rest of Asia? At the moment the Euro is weak but Us Dollar is strong. Kerssens enlighten that when the Euro was established it was meant to be equal to Us Dollar. European Union has suffered from economic crises.

Kerssens talks also about sustainability. He says that there are lots of problems concerning sustainability. First of all fossil fuels are running out which means that some new solutions have to be invented. Also climate has changed and greenhouse effect has become stronger. Winters may become warmer than they have used to be and summers may become colder. What´s more is that animals have to adapt themselves to new climate and they will have new enemies. The population of the world has risen a lot and therefore people need more water and food. This is a very big challenge for people.

To my mind Kerssens´s lecture made very good points concerning economy, sustainability and the future. Olsen model wasn´t familiar to me before and this lecture was just one part of the model. I am interested in what the rest of the model is all about. As Kerssens talked about the history, I think that it is important to remember what has happened in the past that people don´t do the same mistakes again. However, nobody knows what kinds of solutions have to be made when the fossil fuels or clean water will run out. People should live on more sustainable way and all eco actions should matter.