Business summary of 2023

The year 2023 has wrought another difficult 12 months for business. After two years of pandemonium and a year of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, business uncertainty amplified by inflation came to a head. At the turn of Q1 and Q2, the state of volatility reached its climax. Many business projects were put on hold or even closed. The period of uncertainty lasted for practically the entire summer holidays. The first glimmers of hope appeared in September, supported by optimistic signals from the political arena in Poland.

At Future Company, things were moving at a pace in line with the market situation. After a more difficult start to the year, we decided to modify our business model and put a firm focus on value-building services and providing expertise. We assumed that, especially in times of uncertainty, clients want to receive support from experienced experts, people with many years of experience and a broad market view. The kind of experts who, on the one hand, know the category very well, but, on the other hand, are able to bring to the table best practice from related industries, or who are worth learning from. And not just the theoretical ones, read in the depths of the internet, but necessarily the practical ones, resulting from personally implemented projects.

That is why, appreciating the need for expertise, we have set our sights on financial services in 2023, with particular emphasis on insurance, which, as a late player, has begun to catch up intensively with the digital transformation. Over the past 12 months, we have worked for three companies in this category, preparing, among other things, a new product for individual customers in six markets in Central Europe, advising a second company on building an omnichannel sales process and, in a third case, implementing the process of preparing concepts for new products in the area of assurbanking, again with a regional perspective.

The second key sector for observing, learning and developing best practice in digital transformation is TMT: the telecoms, media and technology sector. It seems that three is our lucky number, as we again worked for three clients in this sector. We carried out a smart TV app development project for a company offering a tripleplay service, participated in a training project for CEE executives organised by one of the so-called Big Tech companies / GAFAM and, at the very end of the year, we prepared an ultra-interesting research project (#customerintelligence) for a second Big Tech Four company.

Last but not least, we are not forgetting the historically closest consumer sector to us (#consumer). For one of the leaders in the diet catering industry, we had the pleasure of supporting management in the diagnosis and identification of possible quick wins, and helped carry out a comprehensive project to develop the telephone support team in light of changing consumer needs, but also the rapid growth of the organisation itself and therefore the needs of internal customers. Our second project, deals with an equally dynamic industry, which is undoubtedly parcel machines. We are witnessing incredible changes in the way parcels are delivered to the end customer. Our task was to properly diagnose needs and prepare a precise response at virtually all points of contact. Without revealing more, this is exactly what we did in our combined #ExperienceDesign and #CustomerIntelligence activities.

In earlier years, we also carried out projects for the manufacturing sector. These are very interesting experiences, often on the borderline between B2B and B2C business, often projects optimising internal processes. In 2023, the knowledge we gained previously from this category, allowed us to bring value to the consumer sector, where our clients have areas relating to this knowledge and our experience proved very useful.

What will 2024 bring? We plan to continue with projects for these 4 key categories. Our team has the right experience to be a mature partner to the client team. A partner who understands the nuances of the business. A partner that combines the expert perspective of #customerexperience with the specifics of the category. This mix produces the best results. On the other hand, we look at what is happening in other industries and trends and audiences in general. Because it is the end customer who dictates the terms of the game and their needs must be met. Whether it is an individual, an institutional or internal customer. You need to understand him well and read his needs and then translate them into a solution or a business response. We hope you agree with us on this.

We wish everyone a successful 2024! May your business challenges turn into mere successes and your customers always be satisfied. Regardless of which group they belong to.