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Chapter 6 Van Oord: Dutch Marine Ingenuity

A great example of innovation through entrepreneurship, taking risks and seizing windows of opportunity, to grab opportunities when they occur. The company creates internal pressure to push innovation by accepting complex bids involving big risks. This company is an exceptionally smart operator, demonstrating operational excellence. There are many examples of in-company innovation, in equipment, logistics, and projects. The three-pillar approach (dredging, offshore wind, offshore oil, and gas), a result of strategic vision and policy, is the foundation of the company. The company constantly works on scenario planning to ensure it is well-positioned for the future. Leadership is extremely important. Continued management by the family and a focus on preparing the next generation for this is paramount.

Key human factors are: strong leadership, practical vision, window of opportunity, fostering entrepreneurial drive for innovation and a "can-do" mentality.

* Note: this case study is a typical example of an operational excellence organization that is strong in action. This is, however, not expressed in their daily vocabulary resulting in a lower awareness analysis. The assessment group does recognise the power of operational excellence, which explains the huge difference in the two analyses. The same applies to the concept. Van Oord is a hands-on organization in which strategic plans are implicitly integrated in the operational plans. It has many years of experience and accumulated expertise and clearly demonstrates this in its implementation.

* Note: iterative process scores lower in the awareness than in the impact analysis because of the software measuring specific topics that are intrinsically present but not extrinsically mentioned. The organization certainly acts according to the results of the impact analysis but does not use the specific topics of this generic factor in its vocabulary.