What I Learned From 2023

2023 was a challenging year for business, with a rate of change that has been genuinely shocking – think back to the beginning of the year, the concerns and challenges that businesses faced, and think about where things are at now. It’s as if we packed a decade of events into just 12 months.

Nonetheless, there are several key lessons to take away from this year. In reflecting, these are the five that I think are worth keeping in mind when making strategic decisions in 2024 and beyond:

Don’t Let The Macroeconomic Economy Put Fear Into Your Strategy.

We started 2023 expecting a full-blown recession to flatten the nation. It’s certainly been a difficult year, in which we just scraped through at times, but the recession didn’t happen, meaning that we go into 2024 still expecting an impending recession to flatten the nation.

Just the fear of a recession caused Australians to do some strange things in preparation for hard times and the need for resilience. Investment in R&D fell, a massive number of Australian companies plan on reducing headcount, and ASX listings have plummeted.

Because of this, a lot of companies are now not in the position that they should be and will now need to recalibrate for the year ahead. Companies that thrived were those that allocated resources judiciously, focusing on innovation, market diversification, and seizing emergent opportunities.

Amazingly, companies didn’t learn this through the COVID-19 experience, because it was much the same, but nonetheless, history did indeed repeat. The lesson learned here is clear: businesses cannot afford to halt their growth strategies due to economic concerns; instead, they must pivot and invest wisely to ensure resilience and longevity.

AI's Rapid Journey through the Gartner Hype Cycle

Generative AI, such as ChatGPT, only really kicked off a year ago, and 2023 has been quite the rollercoaster for anyone involved in content production. Writers, PR professionals, marketers, lawyers, coders, and so on started the year “discovering” AI, and then panicking about it replacing their jobs. In many cases, the fear was well-founded, as less strategic companies saw the opportunity to slash jobs and have AI handle the productivity.

However, soon after the weaknesses of AI became clear and suddenly all these content professionals rediscovered their relevance. In many cases, they’ve had to retrain to make use of AI as a tool and use it to quickly generate quality content, but across most sectors an industries the importance of having humans monitoring AI content has become clear.

It’s a near-perfect example of the Gartner hype cycle in action, and as AI entered the trough of disillusionment, many companies that thought AI was worth doing all-in with experienced a sobering reminder that the allure of cutting-edge technology doesn't guarantee immediate business success.

With any luck in 2024 businesses will take a more measured approach to AI, and then we might see its real value start to emerge.

National Self-Reliance In The Face Of Resource Scarcity And Conflict Is Critical

We’ve had two major conflicts disrupt supply chains in 2023. The ongoing war in Ukraine continues to affect the world food supply, as Ukraine is a breadbasket to the world. Meanwhile, with the conflict between Israel and Palestine breaking out, Palestinian-allied units in Yemen are massively disrupting Israeli shipping across the one ocean corridor Israel relies on to supply the world with its products. Elsewhere, with the global reliance on batteries steadily escalating, the concentrated nature of Lithium and Cobalt resources within parts of the world that Australia has a challenging relationship with has become a national stability concern.

The shift towards national self-reliance with supply chains has become a strategic imperative, not just for at the national level, but among businesses, too. Businesses that want to run efficiently and avoid supply chain disruption need to find local suppliers where possible. Achieving business resilience in a world of increasing uncertainties demands a more localised, self-sufficient approach to resource management and strategic partnerships.

We’re Rediscovering The Value Of Human Interactions in an Increasingly Digital World

As a society, we’re marching towards digitalisation: whether people are working from home, or customers are interacting with companies through apps, it often seems we’re less directly connected than ever.

Yet 2023 saw a pushback against that. Companies that thrived understood that success in an increasingly digital world requires not just technological innovation but also a commitment to fostering meaningful human relationships. It wasn’t about forcing people back into offices or shifting the spending from SEO and LinkedIn marketing back to traditional sales methods. Success comes simply from finding the middle ground.

The technology that has been the most successful has been human-centric in design. That recognition that genuine human interactions contribute to organisational success has highlighted the need for businesses to not moderate the embrace of technology, but rather tune it in such a way that it supports the digital, rather than tries to replace it.

We Might Just Need To Make Collective Sacrifices To Achieve Sustainability

The most distressing statistic to come from 2023 is that, despite the efforts to move towards sustainable energy production and storage, overall carbon emissions actually increased this year, and substantially so.

There is essentially no time left to actually act on climate if we hope to keep the world within the “safe zone” where global temperatures won’t wash away entire nations, destroy total ecosystems and cause massive misery across all of humanity. It may well be time to acknowledge a simple reality: doing more than a surface-level minimum to combat climate change might require genuine sacrifices. As to what form those take, that is something that we as a community will need to agree on. And we should move quickly on it, else 2024 will be another story of global inaction.

Why 2024 Looks So Bright

Some of the challenges from 2023 will be brought forward to 2024. The economists are still talking about recessions, and there are some big tax cuts coming into effect that may boost inflation a little again. Sustainability will continue to be a source of tension.

But there’s so much for businesses to look forward to, as well. It’s easy to forget, when we’re caught in our media bubbles, but Australia remains one of the wealthiest nations in the world, second only to Luxembourg for wealth per capita. For all the cost of living challenges that are temporary, the foundations are strong to support a vibrant business culture.

AI is going to play a massive role in helping businesses, too. The sheer productivity benefits that it offers cannot be underestimated and as businesses become more familiar with AI and its applications we’re going to see real financial aid come out of those investments.

Most of all, however, Australians remain a resilient, hard-working, and positive group of people. Challenges change, but our industrious qualities means that we always emerge stronger.