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1. Emotional tension as a catalyst for digital innovation

   Avoid tension, strive for consensus, get everyone facing in the same direction... That’s the secret to a successful organisation. Or is it? “Not if you want to make big bold bets like the Amazons and Googles of this world - radical digital innovations or disruptions, goods or services you never thought were possible”, Willem Standaert, lecturer at Vlerick, tells us. So how should you do it then? He joined forces with Sirkka Jarvenpaa, Professor at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas in Austin, to analyse Formula E, Formula 1’s little electric-powered brother, and find an answer to that question.

2. Local Speed Factories: when the need for speed is vital

   In the 1990s, Adidas moved its entire production to low-wage countries in Asia, but in 2015 it re-opened highly automated Speed Factories in Germany and recently also in the US. These factories are only responsible for a few per cent of Adidas’ total yearly production, but they guarantee extra short delivery times. Why are Adidas and other companies moving a small share of their manufacturing activities back home? Professor Robert Boute and some of his colleagues developed a unique algorithm to answer this question.