There were two pretty heavy-duty keynotes I did for companies in the financial sector last week. The second one involved a group of several hundred executives responsible for managing and overseeing the strategic infrastructure within their wealth management organizations.

I presented an overview of the trends occuring in the financial sector -- see the post immediately before this one which takes a look at the growth of sovereign wealth funds. I also outlined what I think were the key strategic concepts they should be relentlessly focused upon to ensure that they remain competitive in a very fast paced industry. These 7 points were:

• respect the competition
• prepare for the new analytics
• move faster
• stay ahead
• maintain brand relevance
• structure for skill set challenges
• think transformation, not just innovation

These are all themes that I've written on throughout this blog and in my book Ready, Set, Done, How to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast.

The key issue is that as business rapidity continues to pick up, organizations need to stay relentlessly focused on trying to stay one step ahead of the fast trends which will impact them.