These eight key trends offer an overview of how business practices are changing to fit our quickly transforming reality.
Organizations need help with rapid transformation in many industries. The world is changing quickly. And businesses need to learn how to change as necessary.
These eight key trends offer an overview of how business practices are changing to fit our quickly transforming reality.
Trend 1: Sustainable, resilient operations
Every organization needs to work to lower or eliminate its environmental costs. Although decarbonizing the supply chain is an excellent place to start, forward-thinking companies are aiming to increase sustainability throughout all corporate processes. Sustainability and resilience go hand in hand since resilience refers to long-term survival and adaptation capacity. In this era of conscientious consumption, it is unlikely that any company would succeed if it ignores sustainability.
Trend 2: The balance between human workers and intelligent robots
The ability of robots and artificial intelligence (AI) systems to do tasks traditionally performed by humans is improving. Employers are now faced with several significant problems, such as how to strike a balance between artificial intelligence and human intelligence. What functions should be transferred to machines? Which jobs are most suitable for people? Every industry will undoubtedly be impacted by automation. Therefore company leaders need to get their teams ready for the new demands of the workforce.
Trend 3: The shifting talent pool
With more young people joining the workforce, more gig workers, and more remote workers, the way we work is changing. According to Matthew Mottola and Matthew Coatney’s book The Human Cloud, regular full-time employment will become obsolete as businesses turn to contract hire, where employees work remotely.
Trend 4: More agile organizations
Organizations have typically had strict, highly hierarchical structures. The requirement for flatter, more agile structures that enable the company to reorganise teams and respond to change quickly has caused this to shift. It is also, in part, a reaction to how work is evolving, notably with the rise of independent and remote employees.
These days, organizational structures are flatter and more akin to flexible communities than top-down pyramids.
Trend 5: Authenticity
Consumers today are looking for brands with whom they can connect more deeply. Authenticity has emerged as a distinct corporate style due to this demand for connection. Because consumers prefer to see brands (and business leaders) exhibit critical human traits like honesty, dependability, empathy, compassion, humility, and perhaps even a little vulnerability and fear, authenticity aids in developing human relationships. We want companies (and executives) to care about problems and support causes other than making money.
Trends 6: Purposeful business
This trend, which is related to authenticity, is about ensuring that your company serves a meaningful purpose rather than just maximizing profits for shareholders. The organization’s purpose explains why it exists. (Not the organization’s purpose, activities, or target audience. Consequently, purpose and mission, and vision are distinct.) The promise of transformation or striving for something better, whether it be a better world, a better way to do things, or whatever is significant to your business, is a crucial aspect of having a strong mission.
Trends 7: Co-opetition and integration
In the modern world, outsourcing may be used to do just about everything. Never before has the global business community been so integrated. It’s also a good thing because there is a significant need for collaboration to address humanity’s largest issues and important commercial concerns. Achieving success in the future will be more and more challenging without really close collaborations with other businesses. This entails a more integrated supply chain, increased data sharing and integration between firms, and even competitor cooperation.
Trends 8: Alternative funding sources
The techniques by which businesses might raise money are also evolving. New platforms and methods have emerged to connect businesses with contributors and investors. Consider crowdfunding, initial coin offerings (ICOs), tokenization, and particular purpose acquisition firms (SPACs). The decentralized finance movement, which enables financial activities like borrowing and trading to take place in a peer-to-peer network via a public decentralized blockchain network, is the driving force behind many new techniques.
In addition to these eight themes, revolutionary technology trends such as artificial intelligence and an increase in digitization will also emerge, for which every business must be prepared.
