Future enterprises will be immersed in an even more digitised economy. Every individual in a company will have a bigger impact on business. Whether you are managing a team of two or five, you will have more influence in your company. Daily working conditions will be different and your day-to-day schedule would be affected by these, but tomorrow’s admin guy is going to learn to be much more versatile than somebody in his current profile. Regardless of job titles, everybody is going to have to throw themselves into the new environment.
More Complexities
Tomorrow’s enterprise is more complex. If you think that knowing fluent English and being able to talk to foreign clients is good enough, think again. In the future, more internationalisation will create a thin line between the global and the local. That means that businesses will need to know when local trends and culture cannot be overshadowed by a globalised view. Imagine starting company operations in a country where the people prefer to lead more traditional lives relying heaving on cultural norms but you try to force an American office environment on them. So sensitivity and the ability to simplify things will be important. If communication is a priority today, it will be the topmost feature distinguishing enterprises in the future. A good manager needs to integrate market strategies, activity and long-term policies with the shareholder expectations, customer aspiration and colleague mindset in focus.
New Profiles
Enterprises in the future will have to rely on their capacity to attract talents and on digital world skills. In other words, the human resources and information technology departments will be highlighted. New job profiles will be created; for example, data scientists – not a description that we are very familiar with. Individuals who are capable of predicting trends and tastes will be in demand because change will be so frequent and solutions so customised.
Leadership Qualities
A changing business environment has brought on a change in expectations of behaviour. The topmost person in an industry has always been known as someone who knows almost everything about everything in his or her field. This will become rare as enterprises start equating authority with attitudes, personalities, charisma, the capacity to make others adhere to ideas, and above all else, the talent to encourage others to work well in collaboration. The new leaders will be mobilisers and facilitators. You have certainly already seen things moving in this direction.
Vital Responsibilities
Digitisation brings with it new forms of competition and risk, so future company leaders will have to focus on corporate strategy and cost reduction. Decisions will be taken to comply with the need to differentiate a business from its competitors. You need divergent strategic plans to achieve this and cost reduction. The management will still have to continuously demonstrate to shareholders that the decisions taken are increasing the value of their assets. That happens today as well, but the future will see such decisions being made more frequently.
Training Needs
Costs for training associates will increase. Enterprises will want technically qualified employees who are fully operational on day one. Earlier, companies would spend a lot of time and effort on training new entrants, in hope of retaining them for a long duration.
Today, the global economy is volatile. Escalating costs, changing technologies, complex regulations, unpredictable markets and record deficits are affecting businesses around the world and have created new challenges in meeting expectations. Enterprises that possess the ability to anticipate needs, will adapt more easily to change. A business needs to be globally effective in terms of addressing various markets and running operations optimally. It also needs to be innovative, adaptive and ready to face certainty and uncertainty.
