Circle of Competence

‘Circle of Competence’ is a concept I have borrowed, with gratitude, from Warren Buffet. This suggests that the best strategy for an investor is to focus on a specific area where he knows more than the average investor.

Replace that investor with, as in my case, advising businesses and organisations active in advertising and media. I have over 17 years experience in providing tailored advice in the area of media, ICT, the internet and the various combinations and derivates of the same.

An important criteria for the evaluation of plans is usually not only the strength of an idea, but above all else the feasibility : ‘ only 3 things matter; execution, execution and last, but not least, execution’. The world around us is changing so quickly that basing the assessment of a plan on ‘we tried that before and it didn’t work then’ is not sufficient. Every situation is new once again.

‘Spectators see more than players’. We’re talking here about spectators with experience, who are not watching their first game – have been players themselves at some stage and now from a distance can see how the changes have developed.

A ‘Circle of Competence’ is multidisciplinary, the limitation lies not so much in the specialisation (IT, business development, organisation etc.) but rather in the combination and in the areas in which I advise; advertising and media.  Within that area I operate as a spectator, with a watchful eye on the possibilities from the ‘work floor’.   And so, in one case the emphasis will be on IT and in another on organisation, for example in an opinion about the establishment and format of a Shared Service Centre of Business Development when developing a business model for digital publishing.

The advantage of this concept is above all, that I can operate company-wide and keep in mind the interests of each division from a variety of perspectives.  With an eye on the sometimes divergent interests and in the assumption that a broad knowledge of the environment will lead to a better end product.