Business: The Shape of Things to Come
Futurist Dr. James Bellini offers a few scenarios on what’s next for the world of business
Scenario 2: Harnessing the ‘Worldwide Conversation’
The connected world is changing the way we create wealth, how we interact and increasingly how business will function. The networked information economy is replacing the industrial information economy. Instead of the theme of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations [about the specialisation of labour] we now need to speak of the ‘Wealth of Networks’ – the economic potential of a totally connected society. Instead of specialisation of labour we now see increasing collaboration through online relationships. As a result the aggregate effect of individual actions creates a new and rich virtual information universe. Innovation, marketing and customer relations will increasingly be driven by ‘the wisdom of crowds’.
The successful company of 2025 may have no HQ and no CEO, will own no IT and will have one-tenth the fixed assets it has today.
This worldwide conversation is increasingly being harnessed by the business community to connect with its customer base through fast-growing online communities of interest. Proctor & Gamble, for instance, use vocalpoint.com to reach out to young mums and assess their views and needs; Tremor.com is another P&G online community aimed at bringing teens into their business intelligence process. Innocentive.com has been created to drive research in the pharmaceutical industry by linking thousands of specialists online. There are many others.
Scenario 3: The Future Company and the Connected World
Let us start with a proposition: The successful company of 2025 may well have no HQ and no CEO, will own no IT and will have one-tenth the fixed assets it has today. It will be shaped by enterprise mobility technology, collegiate management and networked business ecosystems.
The connected world will change the ways companies and other organisations function. The old industrial model, shaped by the manufacturing practices of Henry Ford and dating from the railway age, is still applied today, even in the non-industrial service sector that dominates most developed economies. But this outdated model will steadily give way to new forms of organisation made possible by the sinews of the connected, networked world.
As a result, firms will increasingly become virtual ‘eco-systems’ comprised of numerous inter-linked specialisms. In many business areas the idea of ‘size’ will become irrelevant. Old-style 9-to-5 fixed-place offices, already a declining concept, will give way to mobile, flexible, virtual ways of working. We will work in a 5-to-9 culture, anywhere we please. The very definition of ‘the company’ will need to be revisited – and radically revised.
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