The Year Ahead for Business Leaders: From Transformation to Alignment

For another year, we spoke to business leaders across media and ecommerce, and the most common topic of discussion was transformation. Executives continue to seek more effectiveness from their teams. However, in 2024, we noticed a marked shift in the root problems leaders were mitigating.

In the past, transformations were mainly technological - shift to the cloud, remote working, continuous deployment, etc. Today's root problems are mainly organizational - a misalignment between talent and business needs.

We believe 2025 will be the year of alignment for business leaders seeking to keep up with new technologies and competitors.

The traditional company lifecycle of build, innovate, and mature is being disrupted by rapid technological advancement, particularly AI, which enables startups to challenge established companies with lower cost structures. Companies must now simultaneously maintain current operations while innovating, requiring a careful balance of rigid and flexible organizational structures.

The key challenge identified is talent misalignment, where companies often lack the right skills in the right positions. At Ooblek, we advise our clients on pursuing a two-pronged approach: developing short-term plans to address immediate skill gaps while working toward an optimal organizational structure for the medium term. This realignment process can improve both team morale and business outcomes.

Note: This is an AI-generated summary of an article published on Ooblek's blog. Read more here.

About Ooblek

Ooblek Partners is a team of practitioners with leadership experience driving innovation and transformative change in some of today's most successful media and e-commerce companies. We specialize in tech strategy, data / AI, cyber security and large-scale platform migrations.