Weekend Musings: Future-proofing Businesses

We’re all aware that the consumer landscape is ever-changing. This makes it all the more important to make businesses, not just future-ready but also future-proof. Earlier this week I had an engaging interaction with Anurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, Businessworld at the BW Business World Marketing Whitebook Summit 2019, on how defining a bigger purpose is crucial for making businesses future-proof.

In my opinion, it is imperative to define and clarify the purpose of existence of any business. For many, it might mean creating value for employees or customer; for others, it might be about making a social impact or driving innovation. But whatever be the direction, developing a sense of purpose is crucial and must be baked into the very core of the business. I personally have been very inspired by the founder of Panasonic, Konosuke Matsushita and his business philosophy. He believed that technology should be like tap water, available in abundance at an affordable cost. This thought laid the foundation of Panasonic. The fundamental idea was how to solve the problems of the society and as the organization grew the thought process went in the direction that as we entrust resources from the society, it is our duty to give it back to the society. And since then, currently, in its 101 year, this has reflected in every aspect of the organization. Another important thing is to remind ourselves of this purpose, as in this ever-changing world there will be times when we need to get into different priorities. Reminding ourselves of these basic business philosophies and principles will help us lay the foundation for the organization to sustain the next 100 years.

Another important aspect for businesses to be future-proof is how to convert this philosophy into actionable items. For me, this can be achieved with a combination of two aspects. First is trend and data analysis which can be translated into actionable insights. Studying the market and data plays a mammoth role in delivering personalized and unique experiences, something that has become the want of the hour. With varying consumer preferences, personalization has become one of the top priorities of every business as it leads to establishing long-term relationships. The second aspect is an intelligent gut feeling. In the interest to move fast in terms of making decisions and enabling those factors for preparing for a sustainable future, intelligent gut feeling plays an important role for leaders. Hence for staying future-ready, focus on monitoring data and trends in an objective manner and using it to structure processes and people very quickly is the key.

As we head into 2020 and beyond, one needs to be ready to adapt and move with the times to prosper in the future.