In an effort to ring in the New Year, I am sharing my Top Ten Predictions for trends I expect to see unfold in 2015. I have organized them simply by alphabetical order as that I did not want to imply any one prediction has more weight than any of the others.
(Please note that the predictions expressed in this blog are strictly the author’s and do not represent neither my parent company nor any clients associated with such. Please enjoy and send me your comments and your own predictions.)
1. 3-D printing will completely disrupt the supply chain. If you are member of an organization that is part of the supply chain and this is not obvious to you, it may be time to think about a career change.
2. Apple will disappoint the consumer for their lack of focus to bring new innovative products to the marketplace. Tablets, MP3 Players, Watches, TV’s and Mobile Phones are nothing new under the sun for many years now. Apple seems more focused on becoming a bank now-a-days, anyhow. For consumers, it’s all about the content. Why else did Disney buy the Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars franchises.
3. Business schools without strong STEM curriculums will struggle in finding relevant real world business cases of interest for their MBA programs.Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) program curriculums will be more relevant to business innovation and corporate leadership than financial market expertise. More post graduates will seek careers in engineering and data science with an eye on becoming CEOs to run the companies that matter in the age of the Internet of Things.
4. Companies that do not radically change how they currently measure their business models using their existing accounting spreadsheet modeling strategies are in for rough seas ahead. How can they hope to make the successful leap into the digital world when they are insist on viewing the future through outdated lenses to measure progress and change? This practice will foster decisions based on low-risk decisions due to the inability to see clearly and fear of failure. The term “that there safety in numbers” may take on a dire new meaning.
5. IDEO will become less relevant as the model organization to emulate for delivering innovation. Industrial design and digital customer experience will continue to rise in importance, but human designers will replaced by technology that designs future generations of itself, driven by Business Intelligence Technologies making data scientists the new rock stars.
6. Identity and information security will be more important than ever. The rise of the digital economy will beget the rise of the digital terrorist. Spending to protect ourselves and our nations will increase dramatically. Insurance companies will start to offer identity insurance to be bundled with your home and auto policies.
7. It will be cool to be a Farmer again. Essential commodity industries such as farming and healthcare that can successfully embrace new digital models will drive innovation and the new economy. The need is there and so is the investment and government backing for amazing breakthroughs to take place in the very near future. Expect the best and the brightest to make their names (and fortunes) in commodity industries that are ripe for innovation.
8. Revenge of the Empire…large, global companies, not garage shop start-ups, will be the leaders in building the $10 trillion economy of the Internet of Things. They alone have the resources, talent and power in a feasible working organization. They will be quickly enabled by new digital business models that can be activated through the acquisition of a few key leadership resources, the acquisition of a STEM educated workforce and investment in cloud enabled data intelligence technologies.
9. The emergence of the Chief Digital Officer (CDO) will become more prevalent within organizations. Though finding good candidates will be a challenge, it will be a fast-track career route to the C-Suite. Businesses must address digital to stay relevant, yet how many of us know of someone who has fulfilled this role for more than a few years?
10. The shine on Millennials will tarnish a bit. Hard work habits and real world experience are the components that make a real difference and I expect studies to reveal in a few years that this highly touted generation of new workers will produce the roughly the same number % wise of phenomenal successes and mediocre careers as have past generations entering the workforce post World War II.
