[MUSIC] If we believe our company fundamentally will fail or can go into a totally new situation, can we calculate on that? [MUSIC] Copying from this situation into that situation by definition means change. And one of the most common tools when we do changes in an industry or a company is actually that we do investments. So we need to do an investment to get from here to here, no matter if it's an ICT project or a competence development project. Then what happens when we suggest an investment? Well, we normally are asked to make a calculation. And here it becomes a little bit tricky. One of the typical calculations that a lot of us are used to is to make an ROI calculation, a Return on Investment. That's the kind of calculation we do in order to for instance increase productivity. We want to buy a couple of servers or utilize a couple of ICT consultants, put a project into something and then the process in the end will be more efficient or cheaper, for instance, in the end. And then we make a payoff calculation on that. How much does it cost, how much could we gain, how fast could we get the money back? That's one kind of calculation that we do, but we mainly do it in productivity situations. Then there is another kind of calculation that we normally call business case. That's the kind of calculation we do when we, instead of increasing productivity we're going for increasing our business. We want to sell a new product. We want to go for a new market. But the problem with that kind of calculation is actually to estimate how much can we earn from it? Will customer buy it? And then the calculation it doesn't become just as precise because we don't control the situation. We have to make an estimation, an estimation of what we believe that customers will do. And that's why we call it a business case. We make a story of it. But then we have a third kind of calculation and I call it a calculation based on beliefs. That's when we're going from this situation into that situation, like going from one world into another world. How to calculate on that, how to make a pay of calculation? Well, the thing is, we cannot make a payoff calculation on that and neither we actually can make a business case on that. Still we have to believe it is important to do. It's nearly like, if we believe our company fundamentally will fail or can go into a totally new situation, can we calculate on that? How much would it cost, how fast would they get their money back? I think it's like when Titanic is really close to the iceberg. If somebody would say I need a calculation, a payoff calculation in order to decide if we're going to change the direction for the ship, it's the wrong kind of question. The right kind of question is either we believe in it and then we do it, or we don't believe in it, and then we don't do it. So that is a kind of calculation where actually numbers is not the thing, but the big thing is our belief. Do we believe in this new world evolving or do we not? And if we do, we should go for it. Now, you can't make big decisions, big investments decisions purely based on belief right? It's nearly like throwing a die, somebody would say. But the thing is, all managers daily and in all life have actually acted on belief. Every kind of decision is actually a belief. If we assume life to stay the same in the industry that we're working in, it's not about to change in the future. It's also based on belief, no one really knows. So it's actually fundamentally impossible to make any kind of decision, any kind of investment without a belief. So in that case, it's actually not radical to say that we just should make it purely on belief because a belief is something more. Everyone, actually, that has a belief, like a religious belief for instance, know that there is more into it than just throwing a dice. But you're right, it comes down to believing this world to be evolving or not. And that's why we need to do the kind of analysis. Actually the kind of analysis we're discussing here is a calculation, and either we believe in it, we trust in it, or we don't. [MUSIC]
