Rise of The Collaborative and Shared Economy

Those that refused to believe in the concept of a collaborative and shared economy that will change the business landscape forever are starting to shift uncomfortably in their leather chairs as modifications to our traditional ways of doing things are evolving at a pace much faster than anyone had ever thought possible.

We seldom stop to comprehend how the Hilton hotel group needed 93 years to build just over 610,000 rooms whereas Airbnb got there in less than four. As consumers we purchase items from the likes of Amazon, eBay, and Etsy but we also know how to sell a few of our own personal items on these same platforms as part of our private ventures. Tom Goodwin, Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at Havas Media says:

"Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening"

The seeds of our digital future were first planted with the rise of social media that allowed people from all over the world to connect in a way that we have never thought possible.

Fast forward a few years and those people that have built their online community now have the ability to reasonably bypass the larger corporations and their process shackles that slow things down or force things to move a certain way.

The brave new world allows both businesses and individuals to connect directly to whichever service they require to help complete an important project or even assist them with something in their increasingly busy lifestyle.

These new ways of working in the shared economy are rapidly revolutionizing the way we do business. However, this fundamental change also alters every aspect of our lives at work, home and how we interact with each other.

Critics of the person-to-person commerce model where people obtain what they need -directly from each other rather than from an organization will declare this utopian shift in attitude of a future where we all work together as nothing but idealistic fantasy, but those that think this way are part of the problem rather than the solution.

The most enlightening aspect of this new era of trust is how old regulations and licensing have been cast aside with wild abandon in favor of just trusting each other, which illustrates how we have progressed both as a society and as a human race.

The growing number of freelancers and solopreneurs is also contributing to the increase in demand for collaborative workspaces where individuals or small teams can pay to share office space or work resources that further illustrates how the traditional 9-5 grind is changing right before our eyes.

Collaboration is not a silver bullet for every task, and it’s important not to throw all your eggs into the one basket. We need to understand that it's not always appropriate to use this approach, but equally, there is no substitute when sharing insight, expertise and development of ideas to ensure that the projects excel.

The rapid rise of the collaborative economy is a wake-up call for established organizations that must learn how their marketplace is changing and adjust their business models accordingly to avoid a disconnect with their customers’ preferences that are no longer what they used to be.

Technology has most definitely become the enabler that we all hoped, and business leaders would be incredibly short sighted to bury their heads in the sand until this latest fad passes by. Widespread adoption from users creating the world that plays by their rules suggests that this movement will only continue to rise in 2016.

The only remaining question is how will your business adapt to the change?

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