The business of the future will be markedly different from the business of the past.
It will be an evolutionary hybrid of economic socialism and idealistic capitalism.
The business of the future will combine new technologies with humanness and spirituality, almost making it look like a sacred pursuit, which actually it is.This is already happening.
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I’m just bringing some bit of attention to the aspiring innovator and entrepreneur and also to the government of the day to help them redesign their strategies and policies.
From time immemorial, work has always been the major defining factor of a man’s sense of worth and wellbeing. Where else do people seek and find self-esteem, self value, regard, sense of fulfillment except in their work?
How else are people’s values measured except by what they do?
As we advance into a higher universal consciousness fired by individual awakening and the advent and deepening of innovations in communication and transportation technology, coupled with knowledge-economy, changes in how we do business are sweeping across the world and affecting most areas of human life, including our concept of social culture and governance.
Africa cannot risk being left behind.
Nations are beginning to look less like geographical entities and more like apps that are upgrade-able and if they refuse to upgrade, one day they might stop working!
Same for businesses too!
Below are a few of my thoughts about the future of business and the business of the future:
- The business of the future will not see workforce as employees but as strategic partners.
- It will not see market as customers but as community.
- It will not see other businesses as competitors but as strategic co-creators and coaches in the journey to business success and innovation.
- The business of the future will seek to empower partners and communities not through salaries and corporate social responsibilities but through sharing and collaborations.
The Sharing economy will come into a balance with a new Caring economy and people will corporately and professionally seek the objective good of their local, immediate, and larger partnerships and communities, not just to provide market platforms for the sharing economy.
Let us just say we might begin to see an objective combination of Sharing economy and Caring economy in businesses to give us what we might coin as a SCharing Economy!
Already the new technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, block chain technology, cyber security, quantum computing, internet of things, nano-factories, etc are giving possibilities to a world that seemed impossible until now.
The concept of financial prosperity has been shifting with every radical innovation that comes on the scene. We have seen company growth trajectory drastically reducing in time due to these technological innovations and innovations in social and business practices.
The growth level that usually took companies 10 to 20 years to arrive at in the past is now taking less than five years to happen.
Well, on the downside, the failure speed also increased!
We are coming to the end of the concept of scarcity and poverty with each new discovery and innovation.
Cryptocurrency might not have fully matured yet, but the possibilities inherent in the innovation can single handedly change the idea of creating money as a means of exchange by lifting it out of the hands of the governments and cartels of this world, into the hands of every individual!
We might be returning to the future day of everyone being his own goldsmith!
Innovators such as Alex Machinksy, CEO Celsius Network, one of the developers of VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) technology have already begun daunting projects of using cryptocurrency to disrupt the conservative and sartorial banking industry and open the way for technology (not government) to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor.
He plans to achieve this by harnessing the decentralization feature of the blockchain technology in cryptocurrencies to free up capital and get monetary power out of the hands of those at the ‘top’.
We are in the age of possibilities raised to the power of infinity with technology and mind-power as the only limiting factors!
Government cannot afford to remain stolid, stuck in the old model and continue with how they run, especially the governments of Africa.
Each waking day more people have interactions in their virtual internet communities than with their immediate and geographical environment.
From business to social activities, software is taking over territories in the minds of people and we know the power of mental psychology with regard to this cyber warfare.
These are strange concepts whose time might seem unripe for many in African countries but they are worth paying serious attention to.
The fact is that the world is entering or has entered a new phase of human consciousness. That phase is such that the intrinsic human qualities such as care, empathy, intuition, sense of limitlessness, sense of brotherhood, value for life, etc are heightened and are seeking expressions in the daily lives of people.
People desire that their individuality be recognized. They no longer want to be identified with the nondescript crowd. Rather they want to be felt, regarded, treated as an individual and given a bit of autonomy to perform and be appraised.
The workplace organizational system is agitating for a change from hierarchical to relational-functional structures. Structures that will give much room for exponential productivity and win-win reward systems.
While resistance from the old and established circle is strong, change is the only constant thing in the world of man.
The age has shifted.
It is an age of rich and diverse creativity in human activities including entrepreneurship, investment, ownership and interaction.
Cost of education is getting far cheaper everyday with many MOOC (massive open online course) platforms springing up daily, billions of downloads go on nearly each day of free information.
Business designed only to get people to pay for just a service rendered are fast losing their competitive advantage. People are asking communities that give them social value first.
With many innovators, creators, producers and entrepreneurs giving away for free their informational products and services, the model for business revenue and profit is being revisited.
With companies such as Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone maker, making product innovations possible through crowdsourcing by leveraging its community of about 100 million fans, the game of business is decidedly transformed as we write.
What many aspiring creators should be doing is to be playing catch-ups.If you must survive it, you have to flow with it.Learn to think sharing, caring, connecting and collaborating from new perspectives as the radical business concepts that might help you in the coming economy.
In summary, the future of business and the business of the future is being shaped by new technologies and techniques on one side, and a new level of awakened human consciousness signified by heightened sense of self worthiness, and connectedness with others and the global environment.
Therefore governments, policy makers and entrepreneurs especially in Nigeria and Africa should borrow a lesson from the dinosaur which went extinct because it refused to change.
Things will never remain the same for all times.
The last word is: go-with-the-flow or go extinct!
The future is here and now.