Trend 3: The shifting talent pool and changing employee experience

“The way we work is evolving, with more younger people entering the workforce, more gig workers, and more remote workers. In their book The Human Cloud, Matthew Mottola and Matthew Coatney argue that traditional full-time employment will be a thing of the past, as organisations shift to hiring people on a contract basis – with those contractors working remotely.”

Trend 4: Flatter, more agile organisations

Traditionally, organisations have been hierarchical and rigid in their structures. But that is changing, as leaders recognise the need for flatter, more agile structures that allow the business to quickly reorganise teams and respond to change. It is also, in part, a response to the changing nature of work, particularly the proliferation of freelance and remote workers. This is the age of flatter organisational structures, which are more like flexible communities rather than a top-down pyramid structure.”

Trend 5: Authenticity

“Today’s consumers are seeking a more meaningful connection with brands. And this need for connection has given rise to authenticity as a business trend in its own right. Authenticity helps to foster human connections – because, as humans, we like to see brands (and business leaders) display important human qualities like honesty, reliability, empathy, compassion, humility, and maybe even a bit of vulnerability and fear. We want brands (and leaders) to care about issues and stand for more than just turning a profit.”

Trend 6: Purposeful business

“Linked to authenticity, this trend is all about ensuring your organisation exists to serve a meaningful purpose – and not just serve up profits to shareholders. Purpose defines why the organisation exists. (Not what the organisation is or what it does or for whom. Therefore, purpose is different to mission and vision.) Importantly, a strong purpose has the promise of transformation or striving for something better – be it a better world, a better way to do something, or whatever is important to your organisation.”

Trend 7: Co-opetition and integration

“We live in a time where pretty much anything can be achieved by outsourcing. The global business world has never been so integrated. And it’s a good job, because the need to work together to solve key business challenges (not to mention humanity’s biggest challenges) is great. Indeed, in the future, it will become increasingly difficult to succeed without close partnerships with other organisations. In practice, this means greater supply chain integration, more data integration and sharing of data between organisations, and even cooperation between competitors.”

I subscribe to this notion as I built my national retail company based on the principle of collaboration, instead of competition. In fact, for fifteen years, I had little idea as to who my competitors were, let alone what they were doing. Instead, we chose who we wanted to collaborate with and ignored the rest. It sounds counter intuitive. However, it freed us up to set our own agenda, and to innovate and collaborate as we saw fit. It enabled us to become an industry leader, not an industry follower. I have no doubt that my business grew to $25m annual sales and challenged so many industry norms as a result of focussing on our own customers, not those of others. Not viewing other industry players as competitors proved to be remarkably liberating.

Trend 8: New forms of funding

“The ways in which companies can generate finance is also changing. New platforms and mechanisms have sprung up to connect businesses with investors and donors – think crowd funding, initial coin offerings (ICOs), tokenisation and special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Many of these new methods are driven by the decentralised finance movement, in which financial services like borrowing and trading take place in a peer-to-peer network, via a public decentralised blockchain network.”

When I look back on my time as a national retailer, I clearly recall my mentor telling me that I would never understand the business unless I was financially literate. It was the best advice I ever got.

Knowledge informs action

“In addition to these eight trends from Bernard Marr, there will also be transformative technology trends in 2022 including artificial intelligence and increasing digitisation, which every company must be ready for. Read more about all these and other future trends in Bernard’s new book, Business Trends in Practice: The 25+ Trends That are Redefining Organizations. Packed with real-world examples, it cuts through the hype to present the key trends that will shape the businesses of the future.”