2018 Trends in Business
Business Trends for 2018 which if you leave you behind, make you in danger zone
The Accelerated trends in the business compel all the business people to find a routine and settle due to the advance technologies which is beyond our expectations i.e., tens of thousands of times than our forerunners.
We are expected to be more updated with knowledge which makes all our processes more fast and economical. If we are not prepared, we will be struggling and become incompetent in the market.So we must know the current trends of business and operations, if we simply leave behind, we will do not even understand what is going on around us.
The trends can be different for different verticals and understand the changes, and adaptations of the trends are more tedious. All the pillars of the business are subjected to the ongoing changes and following adaptations, if not they can simply exit from the biz systems or they will be automatically thrown out, even they don’t understand the pace of the biz world.
Fortunately, you do not worry about how to understand the trends followed by the changes in the arena but following understanding and adapting the trends can help you find out for your easier movements along with others who are struggling to find out the ways and run, but there is a fact that running towards the survival or even towards the excellence is non-stoppable. If you stopped once, you will struggle even beyond the imaginations.
Trends for 2018 and further:
1. Augmented Intelligence is widely used in the field of Automotive
Augmented Intelligence which is widely used in the field of Automotive, which helped the faster and economical production which resulted in the drop in the cost, in turn, the affordability and accessibility for the consumers. In Airline field, IBM Watson AI system helps flight attendants with notifications to manage the passengers to predict the possible delay of the connecting flights and alternate methods to get around the delays and loss of the flight in a very effective way. In the field of Marketing, the Giant like
Amazon uses the Augment technologies to manage the worker’s productivity and by analyzing consumers spending habits, the item prioritizations also be automated to market more effectively to boost the profits. In the field of Warehousing, Amazon use AI for the Grocery distribution system developed by Symbiotic, the giant in Robotics which makes them easily manage the warehouses.
2. Dramatic Growth of Automation
Automation, driven by AI and advanced hardware, is set to disrupt work as we know it.
We’re automating traditional jobs out of existence daily.
- Pizza Hut replaced waiters with robots to take orders and process payments.
- Walmart used automation to replace 7,000 accounting and invoicing employees.
- iPhone maker Foxconn replaced 60,000 employees with robots.
- Wendy’s replaced their lowest paid employees with robots
White collar, blue collar, it really doesn’t matter.
As automation matures work will shift from Augmented Intelligence to true Artificial Intelligence. No one knows for sure when AI will reach that tipping point, but every industry will be impacted.Marketing is safe though. It’s not so routine that it can be duplicated by AI, right? Not so fast.HubSpot shared a list of creative, development and marketing roles threatened by AI. Sifting through data, making predictions and recommendations. Creating compelling headlines and email subject lines. Providing you analysis and reporting.
These advances are all happening now
3. Mainstreaming of Artificial Intelligence:
It is the era of convergence and Integration of AI internally and externally becomes an inevitable thing. The Companies like Google, Microsoft, Apache, Berkeley proclaims that Billions of the devices are integrated with AI or using AI applications in the devices. The research is going on over the decades and within a decade we cannot compromise without AI in our day to-day life. So be ready to be a part of AI and adapt to challenge the changes.
4. The end of quality, the rise of the experience economy
People want companies to provide a consistently wonderful experience from beginning to end. The good news is, if the experience and values are there, customers are willing to spend more and retain.
Here’s the amazing thing about Nike’s 2-minute Ad. It resonated with customers deeply. How do I know? Customers are searching for it, on YouTube, on their own. Nike’s ad hits all the right spots with their target audience.
This is what customers expect today. Does this mean quality doesn’t matter?Not at all. It means it’s the end of quality as a customer retention mechanism. It’s the beginning of authenticity. Customers are looking for companies that fit with who they are. They want to work with companies that support the values, causes and ideals they support.
Quality is a given.It’s not something you’re rewarded or recognized for. It’s expected, but it’s an afterthought.
5. The brick and mortar apocalypse
More than 40 major brick and mortar brands have shut down, closed many retail locations, or gone out of business completely. Half of the 1,200 malls in the US will close by 2023.
Our economy is growing. Consumer confidence is high, unemployment is at a historic low. Bricks and mortar retailers should be growing. Retailers instead are dying out.
Why?
Massive retail debt. The rise of Amazon and online shopping. The shrinking middle class and the experience economy. These are all contributors to the retail apocalypse. And, according to Bloomberg, it’s only going to get worse. These trends are accelerating as businesses struggle to adapt to the new paradigm
6. Values over the bottom line
The bottom line refers to the net income reported at the bottom of the income statement.
Most companies aim to improve their bottom lines through two simultaneous methods: growing revenues (i.e., generate top-line growth) and increasing efficiency (or cutting costs).
Patagonia promised to give 100 percent of their Black Friday sales to charity.
They made their announcement then almost immediately, they were flooded with sales. Patagonia brought in 10 million by the end of the day. Five times more than they expected. They donated all the money as promised, to grassroots environmental groups. What’s driving this behaviour?
Shared values.
Shared values create relationships and loyalty. Okay, what is a shared value?
“A shared value is a belief that both the brand and consumer have about a brand’s higher purpose or broad philosophy.”Shared values have always been important to customers. The expectation and demand for these values continue to grow. Customers expect you to understand what matters most to them. Then, they expect you to use that data to capture their attention and improve their well being.
It’s a trend that will only continue to grow.
The Meaningful Brands study, conducted by the Havas Group, interviewed 300,000 people worldwide. They analyzed 1,500 brands in 15 industries, across 33 countries.
Here’s what they found.
- Values are a significant driver of business
- People wouldn’t care if 74 percent of the brands they use just disappeared
- 84 percent of consumers expect brands to provide content.
- 60 percent of content produced by brands is declared as poor, irrelevant or failing to deliver
- 75 percent of us expect brands to make more of a contribution to our well-being and quality of life, yet only 40 percent believe brands are doing so
- Less than 27 percent of the brands we use notably improve our quality of life and well- being.
- Meaningful Brands have outperformed the stock market by a staggering 206 percent over a ten-year period between 2006 and 2016
- Meaningfulness in brand marketing can increase share of wallet by up to nine times
7. The frightful 5 monopolies
We’re addicted to the frightful five – Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. Aren’t we? But we’re stuck.
In fact, everyone hates Facebook, but we can’t seem to leave. Most of us love Amazon but we can’t seem to get away from them either. Apple customers proudly proclaim themselves as addicts.
Why?
They’ve created an ecosystem that’s filled with your friends, family and favorites. They’ve created a business model around two specific ingredients.
There are two types of customer relationships.
1. Constrained relationships = I must stay in this relationship
2. Dedicated relationships = I want to stay in this relationship
Constrained relationships use pain to keep us connected. Regret avoidance, loss aversion and a desire for control keep us locked in.Dedicated relationships rely on shared values, benevolence, integrity and competence. The intangible details motivate us to stay.
Look for the frightful five to embed themselves deeper with these cues.
• Acquiring new companies and talent (e.g. Amazon’s Whole Foods purchase)
• Creating new products and services (e.g. iPhone X, Google Home Mini)
• Product updates (e.g. Microsoft Teams)
Why is this important?
Organizations that are positioned well, will benefit from these changes. Successful marketers will look to build on the growth of the big five, using their success to fuel their own.
What if this doesn’t happen?
It’s not a question of if it will happen, it’s a question of how fast. As we’ve seen, these changes are already happening. Customers are showing us what they want. Competitors are adapting rapidly. The AI/automation disruption has already started.
8. Blockchain Technologies
The blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value.
Blockchain as Google Docs
The traditional way of sharing documents with collaboration is to send a Microsoft Word document to another recipient and ask them to revise it. The problem with that scenario
is that you need to wait until receiving a return copy before you can see or make other changes because you are locked out of editing it until the other person is done with it. That’s how databases work today. Two owners can’t be messing with the same record at once. That’s how banks maintain money balances and transfers; they briefly lock access (or decrease the balance) while they make a transfer, then update the other side, then re-open access (or update again). With Google Docs (or Google Sheets), both parties have access to the same document at the same time, and the single version of that document is always visible to both. It is like a shared ledger, but it is a shared document. The distributed part comes into play when sharing involves several people.
Imagine the number of legal documents that should be used that way. Instead of passing them to each other, losing track of versions, and not being in sync with the other version, why can’t all business documents become shared instead of transferred back and forth? So many types of legal contracts would be ideal for that kind of workflow. You don’t need a blockchain to share documents, but the shared documents analogy is a powerful one
Durability and robustness
As revolutionary as it sounds, Blockchain truly is a mechanism to bring everyone to the highest degree of accountability. No more missed transactions, human or machine errors, or even an exchange that was not done with the consent of the parties involved. Above anything else, the most critical area where Blockchain helps is to guarantee the validity of a transaction by recording it not only on a main register but a connected distributed system of registers, all of which are connected through a secure validation mechanism.
It’s all about preparation. There’s still time to prepare if you accept what’s coming.
Most people will be left behind. They’ve found a routine that works. They’ve settled in. They don’t realize these trends are accelerating. They can’t see that we’re moving forward at a faster rate than we were last year.
So, they’ll try to carry things on their own.
We’ll all be expected to accomplish more than our predecessors. If you’re unprepared the (wrong) answer is work harder. If you’re prepared for what’s coming, you’ll realize the right answer is to augment your work.
You’re ahead of the pack.
Want to turn out higher quality work in less time using fewer resources? Focus on the right trends. Take the time to prepare and you’ll accomplish more than your predecessors, no danger necessary.
4Biz International is branding and digital marketing agency based in Dubai. We enable businesses to build brand value and to reach their customers through digital means.
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