Predicted trends for the future of business are exciting and full of hope

What are the key trends facing business today? What are the topics business leaders should focus on?

There have been many analyses done on this in the business press and by the large strategy consultancies. And the results paint an exciting and encouraging picture of how business will evolve. Because, basically, the vast majority of the current and upcoming changes are things to do with ‘releasing humanity’. In other words they are about freeing off people to be fully themselves and equipping them to achieve their potential. Both individually and together, at work and at home.

The business trends, common to almost all business, group into 8 areas. Specifically, these are sustainability; purpose centricity; value co-creation; agile partnerships; adaptive organisation; digital empowerment;  insight engineering; and human cloud. And all of these trends are potentially good news. Good news for your people (including yourselves), your relationships, and the lives we all can lead.

Let’s explore each one of them in a bit more detail. And with an emphasis on how they might be doing that. Please note, there is no significance to the order in which they are covered.  Rather, they are ordered to illustrate the flow between them. Their overall order of importance will depend largely upon your industry and your situation within it.

Sustainability reflects both a global component in terms of our ecological imperatives, and also a local component in terms of our resilience in mastering disruption. The first will continue to broaden people’s understanding for our connectedness. And thereby our responsibility for each other and the fragility of our context. The second will help people to better appreciate their own part in polarised opinions. And thereby help develop new attitudes and vocabulary to reach across perspectives. People’s appreciation of ‘humanity’ will grow. And, as a result, this will stimulate a greater search for meaning and purpose in people’s lives and work.

Related business concepts: ESG; Carbon footprint;

How we can help: Strategy engagement; meaningful conversation; culture shaping;

Purpose centricity reflects business’s response to the search for meaning. This trend can be seen in the growth of businesses which see profit as a means to serve, rather than service as a means to profit. And in the shift toward recruits who seek meaningful roles over highly-remunerated ones. The result of this increased focus on ‘why?’ will lead to new value chains. Consequently creating business opportunities which inspire people within the organisation. Inspiring a sense of pride, loyalty and belonging in those who work for it. The fruit of this growth in meaning will be mental wellbeing. As a result of increased creativity, greater autonomy and efficiency, and closer customer relationships.

Related business concepts: Vision; mission; values; B-Corp;

How we can help: Visualising adventure; maturity models; cultural heuristics;

Value co-creation reflects the fruit of closer, more empowered customer relationships. The best of which will continue to evolve from the purely contractual and transactional to a shared partnership for customer success. Advances in technology and digitalisation will enable better, more creative, customer engagement. And supplier staff will increasingly become allies in jointly understanding new opportunities for adding value, and in developing solutions that utilise the resources of both parties to best effect.  This creates new possibilities for everybody involved.

Related business concepts: Customer success management;

How we can help: Customer success management; design tools; design sprint; inspiring interactions;

Agile partnerships will be part of this growth in co-creation, as traditional supplier and customer roles continuously adapt and partner to better serve the consumer (or the next step in their supply chain). Success in this endeavour will be fueled by increased authenticity and trust. And even the vulnerability necessary for fast-forming relationships which support the agility required. Furthermore, the shift in working practices will spawn many who step outside employment to lead an entrepreneurial wave of innovative options which will create shifts and new opportunities in supply chain partnerships.

Related business concepts: Partner strategy engagement; outsourcing; core focus;

How we can help: Strategic partner planning workshops; maturity models;

Adaptive organisations will be key to maximising the opportunity and benefit from these fast evolving relationships. Flatter, more agile, structures are required to readily present and empower the best of the organisation’s capabilities to meet rapidly emerging opportunities and challenges. And this presents tremendous opportunity for people to grow unconstrained by traditional hierarchies and role inertia. As people work on the challenges, the challenges work on the people, lifting their potential and accelerating their growth. This enables rapid innovation and change, and releasing people into the best that they might be.

Related business concepts: OD; SAFe; Scrum; Standup; Obeya;

How we can help: Strategic engagement matrix; design sprint; facilitative leadership;

Digital Empowerment is a key part of innovation and change. In essence it is about optimising the  fast-evolving relationship between human and machine intelligences. Developing each for what they do best. Adapting them to better utilise and empower each other’s potential. For the machine, it is about using AI and code to deliver consistency and routine, and to provide new tools and capabilities to people. For the people, it is about being freed from machine-like drudgery to be creative, build relationships, inspire, dream, care, love, bless. And to stretch and configure the machines in pursuit of this.

Related business concepts: Digital transformation; no-code apps;

How we can help: Design sprint; decision tools; maturity models;

Insight Engineering will be a big part of the emerging human-machine relationship. Firing insight through the provision of the right information at the right time in the right context. Unlike most of what we access currently, this will not be restricted to numerical, factual and historic data. Instead it will balance this with emotional, even spiritual, stimuli connected with past present and future. A source of hope, narrative, imagery, inspiration, belief, identity, belonging – all that helps us recall the complex (even fuzzy) facets which reflect who we are and where our purpose lies.

Related business concepts: CRM; Intranet; knowledge management;

How we can help: Insight landscaping;

Human cloud is a term which reflects the changing nature of employment: Increasingly people are no longer constrained by set windows of time or location in their work. At the commodity end, it sadly represents abusive human consumption, even economic slavery. But in the context of the above, it can represent greater freedom of choice to better integrate work into lifestyle, rather than vice versa. For the individual this can be a more empowering, and humanising, employee experience. And for the organisation, it can provide better, more flexible and timely, access to talent, diversity, insight, resources, ideas, perspectives.

Related business concepts: Alumni Groups; Outsource web-markets

How we can help: Strategic engagement; facilitation skills;

It is easy to imagine that these business trends will only apply to the most advanced organisations, but this is not true. The next generation have different values and are looking for business to change to reflect these. The business trends listed above will advance to different stages in different industries and situations, but they will occur to some extent in all.

And wherever they occur, they will thrive, and they will raise the competitive game, and the expectations of those involved.

We will either adventure into this exciting new future, or we will fall victim to it.

To explore these topics further, feel free to contact us. We find our own thinking is continually sharpened and enriched by the questions people ask. And by the discussions that emerge from it.