Peter Fisk

• Download Peter Fisk’s keynote “Brands for a Better Life“.  
• More about brands, branding, and rebranding, from Peter Fisk

Incredible technologies and geopolitical shifts, complex markets and stagnating growth, demanding customers and disruptive entrepreneurs, environmental crisis and social distrust, unexpected shocks and uncertain futures.

How do you make sense of today’s rapidly changing world? How will you succeed in tomorrow’s world?

We explore how businesses can survive and thrive, and move forwards to create a better future.

How to reimagine business, to reinvent markets, to reengage people. We consider what it means to combine profit with more purpose, intelligent technologies with creative people, radical innovation with sustainable impact.

We learn from the innovative strategies of incredible companies – Alibaba and Amazon, Biontech and BlackRock, Narayana and Netflix, Patagonia and PingAn, Spotify and Supercell, and many more. We also take a look at what this means for insurance, and some of the most innovative companies in the field

Creating a better future

The old codes of business don’t work anymore. The most innovative companies – from Amazon and Bytedance, to Coupang and Deepmind – succeed with new codes. So what are the new ideas to win in a fast and dynamic world of Asian renaissance, entrepreneurial supremacy, social conscience and smarter machines? What can you learn from Jio’s revolution from petrochemicals to phones, and DBS’s transformation of banking? How can you be inspired by courageous leaders like 23andMe’s Anne Wojcicki, Haier’s Zhang Ruimin and Citigroup’s Jane Fraser?

• What can we learn the world’s most innovative companies right now
• Finding purpose, driving moonshots, and starting from the future back
• Exploring the radical innovations of companies like Orsted to PingAn
• Growth mindset, business models and business transformation
• Having the courage to lead a better future

Markets are more crowded, competition is intense, customer aspirations are constantly fuelled by new innovations and dreams. Technology disrupts every industry, from banking to construction, entertainment to healthcare. It drives new possibilities and solutions, but also speed and complexity, uncertainty and fear.

As digital and physical worlds fuse to augment how we live and work, AI and robotics enhance but also challenge our capabilities, whilst ubiquitous supercomputing, genetic editing and self-driving cars take us further.

Technologies with the power to help us leap forwards in unimaginable ways. To transform business, to solve our big problems, to drive radical innovation, to accelerate growth and achieve progress socially and environmentally too.

We are likely to see more change in the next 10 years than the last 250 years.

• Markets accelerate, 4 times faster than 20 years ago, based on the accelerating speed of innovation and diminishing lifecycles of products.
• People are more capable, 825 times more connected than 20 years ago, with access to education, unlimited knowledge, tools to create anything.
• Consumer attitudes change, 78% of young people choose brands that do good, they reject corporate jobs, and see the world with the lens of gamers.

However, change goes far beyond the technology.

Markets will transform, converge and evolve faster. From old town Ann Arbor to the rejuvenated Bilbao, today’s megacities like Chennai and the future Saudi tech city of Neom, economic power will continue to shift. China has risen to the top of the new global business order, whilst India and eventually Africa will follow.

Industrialisation challenges the natural equilibrium of our planet’s resources. Today’s climate crisis is the result of our progress, and our problem to solve. Globalisation challenges our old notions of nationhood and locality. Migration changes where we call home. Religious values compete with social values, economic priorities conflict with social priorities. Living standards improve but inequality grows.

Our current economic system is stretched to its limit. Global shocks, such as the global pandemic of 2020, exposes its fragility. We open our eyes to realise that we weren’t prepared for different futures, and that our drive for efficiency has left us unable to cope. Such crises will become more frequent, as change and disruption accelerate.

However, these shocks are more likely to accelerate change in business, rather than stifle it, to wake us up to the real impacts of our changing world – to the urgency of action, to the need to think and act more dramatically.

The old codes don’t work

Business is not fit for the future. Most organisations were designed for stable and predictable worlds, where the future evolves as planned, markets are definitive, and choices are clear.

The future isn’t like it used to be.

Dynamic markets are, by definition, turbulent. Whilst economic cycles have typically followed a pattern of peaks and troughs every 10-15 years, these will likely become more frequent.  Change is fast and exponential, uncertain and unpredictable, complex and ambiguous demanding new interpretation and imagination.

Yet too many business leaders hope that the strategies that made them successful in the past will continue to work in the future. They seek to keep stretching the old models in the hope that they will continue to see them through. Old business plans are tweaked each year, infrastructures are tested to breaking point, and people are asked to work harder.

In a way of dramatic, unpredictable change, this is not enough to survive, let alone thrive.

• Growth is harder. Global GDP growth has declined by more than a third in the past decade. As the west stagnates, Asia grows, albeit more slowly.
• Companies struggle, their average lifespan falling from 75 years in 1950 to 15 years today, 52% of the Fortune 500 in 2000 no longer exist in 2020.
• Leaders are under pressure. 44% of today’s business leaders have held their position for at least 5 years, compared to 77% half a century ago.

Profit is no longer enough; people expect business to achieve more. Business cannot exist in isolation from the world around them, pursuing customers without care for the consequence. The old single-minded obsession with profits is too limiting. Business depends more than ever on its resources – people, communities, nature, partners – and will need to find a better way to embrace them.

Technology is no longer enough; innovation needs to be more human. Technology will automate and interpret reality, but it won’t empathise and imagine new futures. Ubiquitous technology-driven innovation quickly becomes commoditised, available from anywhere in the world, so we need to add value in new ways. The future is human, creative, and intuitive. People will matter more to business, not less.

Sustaining the environment is not enough. 200 years of industrialisation has stripped the planet of its ability to renew itself, and ultimately to sustain life. Business therefore needs to give back more than it takes. As inequality and distrust have grown in every society, traditional jobs are threatened by automation and stagnation, meaning that social issues will matter even more, both globally and locally.

The new DNA of business

As business leaders, our opportunity is to create a better business, one that is fit for the future, that can act in more innovative and responsible ways.

How can we harness the potential of this relentless and disruptive change, harness the talents of people and the possibilities of technology? How can business, with all its power and resources, be a platform for change, and a force for good?

We need to find new codes to succeed. We need to find new ways to work, to recognise business as a system that be virtuous, where less can be more, and growth can go beyond the old limits. This demands that we make new connections:

• Profit + Purpose … to achieve more enlightened progress
• Technology + Humanity … to achieve more human ingenuity
• Innovation + Sustainability … to achieve more positive impact

We need to create a new framework for business, a better business – to reimagine why and redesign how we work, as well as reinvent what and refocus where we do business.

Imagine a future business that looks forwards not back, that rises up to shape the future on its own terms, making sense of change to find new possibilities, inspiring people with vision and optimism. Imagine a future that inspires progress, seeks new sources of growth, embraces networks and partners to go further, and enables people to achieve more.

Imagine too, a future business that creates new opportunity spaces, by connecting novel ideas and untapped needs, creatively responding to new customer agendas. Imagine a future business that disrupts the disruptors, where large companies have the vision and courage to reimagine themselves and compete as equals to fast and entrepreneurial start-ups.

Imagine a future business that embraces humanity, searches for better ideas, that fuse technology and people in more enlightened ways, to solve the big problems of society, and improve everyone’s lives. Imagine a future business that works collectively, self-organises to thrive without hierarchy, connects with partners in rich ecosystems, designs jobs around people, to do inspiring work.

Imagine also, a future business which is continually transforming, that thrives by learning better and faster, develops a rich portfolio of business ideas and innovations to sustain growth and progress. Imagine a future business that creates positive impact on the world, benefits all stakeholders with a circular model of value creation, that addresses negatives, and creates a net positive impact for society.

Creating a better business is an opportunity for every person who works inside or alongside it. It is not just a noble calling, to do something better for the world, but also a practical calling, a way to overcome the many limits of today, and attain future success for you and your business.You could call it the dawn of a new capitalism.

More from Peter Fisk linked to these sessions

• Next Agenda of best ideas and priorities for business
• Megatrends 2030 in a world accelerated by pandemic
• 49 Codes to help you develop a better business future
• 250 companies innovators shaking up the world
• 100 leaders with the courage to shape a better future
• Education that is innovative, issue-driven, action-driving
• Consulting that is collaborative, strategic and innovative
• Speaking that is inspiring, topical, engaging and actionable

Incredible technologies and geopolitical shifts, complex markets and stagnating growth, demanding customers and disruptive entrepreneurs, environmental crisis and social distrust, unexpected shocks and uncertain futures.

How do you make sense of today’s rapidly changing world? How will you succeed in tomorrow’s world?

We explore how businesses can survive and thrive, and move forwards to create a better future.

How to reimagine business, to reinvent markets, to reengage people. We consider what it means to combine profit with more purpose, intelligent technologies with creative people, radical innovation with sustainable impact.

We learn from the innovative strategies of incredible companies – Alibaba and Amazon, Biontech and BlackRock, Narayana and Netflix, Patagonia and PingAn, Spotify and Supercell, and many more. We also take a look at what this means for insurance, and some of the most innovative companies in the field.

Creating a better future

The old rules of business don’t work anymore. The most innovative companies – from Amazon and Bytedance, to Coupang and Deepmind – succeed with new rules. So what are the best new ideas to win in a fast and dynamic world of Asian renaissance, entrepreneurial supremacy, social conscience and smarter machines? What can you learn from Jio’s revolution from petrochemicals to phones, and DBS’s transformation of banking? How can you be inspired by courageous leaders like 23andMe’s Anne Wojcicki, Haier’s Zhang Ruimin and Citigroup’s Jane Fraser?

• What can we learn the world’s most innovative companies right now
• Finding purpose, driving moonshots, and starting from the future back
• Exploring the radical innovations of companies like Orsted to PingAn
• Growth mindset, business models and business transformation
• Having the courage to lead a better future

 

Markets are more crowded, competition is intense, customer aspirations are constantly fuelled by new innovations and dreams. Technology disrupts every industry, from banking to construction, entertainment to healthcare. It drives new possibilities and solutions, but also speed and complexity, uncertainty and fear.

As digital and physical worlds fuse to augment how we live and work, AI and robotics enhance but also challenge our capabilities, whilst ubiquitous supercomputing, genetic editing and self-driving cars take us further.

Technologies with the power to help us leap forwards in unimaginable ways. To transform business, to solve our big problems, to drive radical innovation, to accelerate growth and achieve progress socially and environmentally too.

We are likely to see more change in the next 10 years than the last 250 years.

• Markets accelerate, 4 times faster than 20 years ago, based on the accelerating speed of innovation and diminishing lifecycles of products.
• People are more capable, 825 times more connected than 20 years ago, with access to education, unlimited knowledge, tools to create anything.
• Consumer attitudes change, 78% of young people choose brands that do good, they reject corporate jobs, and see the world with the lens of gamers.

However, change goes far beyond the technology.

Markets will transform, converge and evolve faster. From old town Ann Arbor to the rejuvenated Bilbao, today’s megacities like Chennai and the future Saudi tech city of Neom, economic power will continue to shift. China has risen to the top of the new global business order, whilst India and eventually Africa will follow.

Industrialisation challenges the natural equilibrium of our planet’s resources. Today’s climate crisis is the result of our progress, and our problem to solve. Globalisation challenges our old notions of nationhood and locality. Migration changes where we call home. Religious values compete with social values, economic priorities conflict with social priorities. Living standards improve but inequality grows.

Our current economic system is stretched to its limit. Global shocks, such as the global pandemic of 2020, exposes its fragility. We open our eyes to realise that we weren’t prepared for different futures, and that our drive for efficiency has left us unable to cope. Such crises will become more frequent, as change and disruption accelerate.

However, these shocks are more likely to accelerate change in business, rather than stifle it, to wake us up to the real impacts of our changing world – to the urgency of action, to the need to think and act more dramatically.

The old codes don’t work

Business is not fit for the future. Most organisations were designed for stable and predictable worlds, where the future evolves as planned, markets are definitive, and choices are clear.

The future isn’t like it used to be.

Dynamic markets are, by definition, turbulent. Whilst economic cycles have typically followed a pattern of peaks and troughs every 10-15 years, these will likely become more frequent.  Change is fast and exponential, uncertain and unpredictable, complex and ambiguous demanding new interpretation and imagination.

Yet too many business leaders hope that the strategies that made them successful in the past will continue to work in the future. They seek to keep stretching the old models in the hope that they will continue to see them through. Old business plans are tweaked each year, infrastructures are tested to breaking point, and people are asked to work harder.

In a way of dramatic, unpredictable change, this is not enough to survive, let alone thrive.

• Growth is harder. Global GDP growth has declined by more than a third in the past decade. As the west stagnates, Asia grows, albeit more slowly.
• Companies struggle, their average lifespan falling from 75 years in 1950 to 15 years today, 52% of the Fortune 500 in 2000 no longer exist in 2020.
• Leaders are under pressure. 44% of today’s business leaders have held their position for at least 5 years, compared to 77% half a century ago.

Profit is no longer enough; people expect business to achieve more. Business cannot exist in isolation from the world around them, pursuing customers without care for the consequence. The old single-minded obsession with profits is too limiting. Business depends more than ever on its resources – people, communities, nature, partners – and will need to find a better way to embrace them.

Technology is no longer enough; innovation needs to be more human. Technology will automate and interpret reality, but it won’t empathise and imagine new futures. Ubiquitous technology-driven innovation quickly becomes commoditised, available from anywhere in the world, so we need to add value in new ways. The future is human, creative, and intuitive. People will matter more to business, not less.

Sustaining the environment is not enough. 200 years of industrialisation has stripped the planet of its ability to renew itself, and ultimately to sustain life. Business therefore needs to give back more than it takes. As inequality and distrust have grown in every society, traditional jobs are threatened by automation and stagnation, meaning that social issues will matter even more, both globally and locally.

The new DNA of business

As business leaders, our opportunity is to create a better business, one that is fit for the future, that can act in more innovative and responsible ways.

How can we harness the potential of this relentless and disruptive change, harness the talents of people and the possibilities of technology? How can business, with all its power and resources, be a platform for change, and a force for good?

We need to find new codes to succeed. We need to find new ways to work, to recognise business as a system that be virtuous, where less can be more, and growth can go beyond the old limits. This demands that we make new connections:

• Profit + Purpose … to achieve more enlightened progress
• Technology + Humanity … to achieve more human ingenuity
• Innovation + Sustainability … to achieve more positive impact

We need to create a new framework for business, a better business – to reimagine why and redesign how we work, as well as reinvent what and refocus where we do business.

Imagine a future business that looks forwards not back, that rises up to shape the future on its own terms, making sense of change to find new possibilities, inspiring people with vision and optimism. Imagine a future that inspires progress, seeks new sources of growth, embraces networks and partners to go further, and enables people to achieve more.

Imagine too, a future business that creates new opportunity spaces, by connecting novel ideas and untapped needs, creatively responding to new customer agendas. Imagine a future business that disrupts the disruptors, where large companies have the vision and courage to reimagine themselves and compete as equals to fast and entrepreneurial start-ups.

Imagine a future business that embraces humanity, searches for better ideas, that fuse technology and people in more enlightened ways, to solve the big problems of society, and improve everyone’s lives. Imagine a future business that works collectively, self-organises to thrive without hierarchy, connects with partners in rich ecosystems, designs jobs around people, to do inspiring work.

Imagine also, a future business which is continually transforming, that thrives by learning better and faster, develops a rich portfolio of business ideas and innovations to sustain growth and progress. Imagine a future business that creates positive impact on the world, benefits all stakeholders with a circular model of value creation, that addresses negatives, and creates a net positive impact for society.

Creating a better business is an opportunity for every person who works inside or alongside it. It is not just a noble calling, to do something better for the world, but also a practical calling, a way to overcome the many limits of today, and attain future success for you and your business.You could call it the dawn of a new capitalism.

More from Peter Fisk linked to these sessions

• Next Agenda of best ideas and priorities for business
• Megatrends 2030 in a world accelerated by pandemic
• 49 Codes to help you develop a better business future
• 250 companies innovators shaking up the world
• 100 leaders with the courage to shape a better future
• Education that is innovative, issue-driven, action-driving
• Consulting that is collaborative, strategic and innovative
• Speaking that is inspiring, topical, engaging and actionable

• Download Peter Fisk’s keynote “Pioneers and Transformers“.  
• Read more from Peter Fisk on “Corporate Pioneers“.

Airbus is a global pioneer in the aerospace industry, operating in the commercial aircraft, helicopters, defence and space sectors.

The Toulouse-based organisation has always been at the forefront of innovating new technologies, with a pioneering spirit that has redefined the aerospace industry. Airbus’ aircraft research and design “bring people closer together, helping them unite and progress”. It strives to “continually push the boundaries on what is possible to safeguard our world for future generations.”

Airbus is a leader in designing, manufacturing and delivering aerospace products, services and solutions to customers on a worldwide scale. With around 130,000 employees and as the largest aeronautics and space company in Europe and a worldwide leader, Airbus is at the forefront of the aviation industry.

It builds the most innovative commercial aircraft and consistently capture about half of all commercial airliner orders. This is built on a deep understanding of changing market needs, customer focus and technological innovation, to offer products that connect people and places via air and space.

Megatrends and Metaverses

Growth is shifting, innovation is relentless, disruption is accelerating, expectations are high, and social tensions are rising. Making sense, and making use, of these dramatic forces of change will help you to make better strategic choices, shape markets to your advantage, and create a brighter future.

The “megatrends” may not surprise you, the question is how will they influence your future – both as challenge, and opportunity – and how, within your strategies and innovations, will you embrace the most significant forces of change?

I spent some time comparing the many different approaches to tracking and articulating these patterns of change, to find out which trends are the most common, and the most significant.

Isn’t it obvious? Technology is shaping everything? Yes, but its the implications of that, which matter.

Trends guide your future choices. It’s the oldest adage in investing, and it applies to projecting future business performance too. McKinsey’s recent analysis shows that riding the right waves of change, created by industry and geographic trends, is the most important contributor tobusiness results … a company benefiting from such tailwinds is 4-8 times more likely to rise to the top of future performers.

Fashion used to be all about style, typically driven by luxury brands and premium designers. Fashion was a statement about who we are, or want to be. It was aspirational, desirable and largely superficial.

Today, its about much more. Products (and services) that can improve our lives.

Take Veja shoes for example, the fashion-essential white sneakers, made with sustainable Amazonian rubber, constructed in Brazil, by a French company. It’s good for the world, and it makes a statement about what we believe in ourselves.

Many brands still stand out for beautiful products, but also with an inspiring, innovative story too. Often, it is retail brands rather than product brands who can tell this story best, and also have more scope to innovate.

Consider Farfetch, founded in 2007 by the Portuguese entrepreneur Jose Neves, the luxury marketplace that partners with small boutiques around the world, poured its profits into sustainability initiatives, including acquiring the resale technology company Luxclusif to power its own secondhand business, Second Life, and launching an in-house eco-friendly label, There Was One, (created by Italy’s New Guards Group, exclusively for Farfetch) which creates durable basics.

Here are some of the most interesting reports:

• The State of Fashion 2023 by BOF and McKinsey
• Future of Fashion 2022 by CB Insights
• A New Textiles Economy by Ellen McArthur Foundation
• Smart Fabric Textiles by MDPI
• Trends Kaleidoscope 2023 by Peter Fisk
• 250 Companies to Inspire You by Peter Fisk

Sustainable and desirable

The average shopper now buys 60% more clothes than they did 50 years ago. And wears only 30% of of them, typically 5-6 times before disposal. The fashion industry has been a major contributor to climate change and biodiversity loss—which means the industry’s sustainability efforts are critical to our planet’s health. The fashion industry produces almost 20% of the world’s wastewater and is responsible for 2-8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations.

On, the Swiss sportswear business, born in Switzerland seven years ago, has become the fastest growing global running brand. Ithas launched a 100% recyclable, bio-based performance running shoe.  Some claimed it was impossible. But we chose to Dream On. The Cloudneo is now available via subscription to our Cyclon™ circularity program. Run. Recycle. Repeat.

 

Designer Tracy Reese took the radical step of moving her HQ from New York to Detroit as part of her mission to transform the city into a hub of ethical fashion manufacturing. Johannesburg-based designer Thebe Magugu used his collections to narrate stories about politics and history; for his 2021 collection, he interviewed South African women who worked as spies during apartheid, creating outfits that spoke to issues of gender and colonialism.

Some brands focused on creatively responding to consumers’ unmet needs. Myya, for instance, created a luxurious lingerie shopping experience for breast cancer patients, who historically have been forced to buy prosthetics and specialized bras at medical supply stores. Figs designed tasteful and comfortable scrubs for medical professionals, cultivating a loyal following of 1.7 million customers who appreciate the care that has gone into these outfits.

Denim brand Good American recognized that women’s bodies fluctuate in size 31 times over the course of their lives, forcing them to buy new clothes. The brand launched its Always Fits jeans and swimwear collections, which are designed to span four sizes, ensuring they look flattering even as customers’ bodies change.

Shoe brand Hoka developed by two former Salomon executives in Annoy, France, has paid close attention to runners’ needs, developing new foams and carbon-fibre plates that give them extra propulsion, without sacrificing comfort. While the industry sought minimalist designs, it went for a maximalist (lots of cushioning!) approach.

Direct and realtime

Lets talk about Shein. Forget fast fashion, this is realtime. In fact most items are not even made when ordered, but then made and shipped within 24 hours, direct to your door. The $100 billion Chinese brand produces ultra-cheap clothes at ultra-fast speed, creating an ultra-big hype on social media. The Haul. TikTok on steroids. There’s waste, and human rights, and more. But there also some insights to learn from – AI predictive, on demand, social influence.

Gymshark is now 10 years old, but Ben Francis’ business continues to thrive, built on an online platform selling direct to consumers, fuelled by social media, and is now extending into physical stores. In 2020, the company was valued at over £1 billion.

Virtual and metaverse

While Zuckerberg’s Meta vision resulted in a 70% fall in his company’s share price, the web3-enabled world is taking shape with brands like Ledger and The Dematerialised. Nike acquired RTFKT to merge physical and virtual worlds. The latest evolution of the Nike Adapt platform features auto-lacing, haptic feedback, enhanced lighting, gesture control, walk detection, wireless charging, NFC link, App connectivity, AI/ML algo, and Move to Earn.

Dress X became the world’s largest digital fashion store targeting Gen Z awho seek digital, sustainable, and affordable fashion – even if it’s virtual. The company was named one of the finalists of LVMH Innovation Award 2022 in the category 3D/Virtual Product Experience & Metaverse.

 

Retailers as brands

Farfetch stocks goods from various boutiques big and small in over 50 different countries. It is stepping out with its very own in-house fashion brand. Dubbed ‘ There Was One ‘ the line takes inspiration from elevated classics and includes tailored blazers, soft slip dresses, denim jackets, and zippered leggings, and draws from the platform’s data-driven insights on what customers are actively searching for on Farfetch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-8XTsvBrRU

 

Brands beyond products

Brands are becoming increasingly independent of products, and more about consumers and communities. Take gaming brands for example. They define a lifestyle, culture, value set. Take 100 Thieves. The gaming brand collaborates with Gucci – including a limited-edition backpack from the Gucci Off The Grid collection—made from recycled and sustainably sourced materials— in a new shade of bright red featuring a distinctive circular patch with the 100 Thieves logo.

Brands with stories

ISKO, a brand of Turkey’s Sanko Group, is the world’s largest producer of denim fabric, with 250 million meters of fabric a year. It says it “creates the soul of jeans, the essence of the most popular fashion style that has become universal.” It is a great example of building an ingredient brand, in a way that the premium ingredient enhances the core brand. Read more.

Outerknown seeks to make clothing differently. Created by world champion surfer Kelly Slater in 2015, with the goal of creating high-quality, sustainable fashion that would stand up to any conditions—including those you’ll find in the water. The brand’s clothing is made using eco-conscious materials like organic cotton and hemp fibres, as well as recycled polyester derived from recycled plastic bottles.  Their jeans are made at the world’s cleanest denim facility, using less water, fewer chemicals, and organic cotton. They guarantee S.E.A. JEANS for life. Now your most comfortable jeans are also your most sustainable.

Cool and conscious

18 years ago, VEJA‘s founders decided to travel to the Amazon rainforest and meet the producers of wild rubber in person, the same rubber we use in every one of our VEJA soles.​ ​ Those producers protect the forest and live in harmony with it. This rubber, extracted from forest trees, is a completely ecological raw material.​ Last year, a team of VEJA members traveled to the Amazon rainforest to discover the Chico Mendes reserve.​ One of the many reserves that VEJA works to keep the Amazon rainforest alive.​ These families of rubber producers we work with are paid 4 times more than the market price.​

Vestiaire Collective is banning fast fashion from being bought, sold or listed on the platform. “We say no to a system that supports overconsumption, poor quality and over production. Its mission is to drive change from within the fashion industry. We aim, over the next 3 years, to become a fast fashion-free platform that celebrates quality, craftsmanship and sustainability.”

Fabrics and production

Swiss innovator HeiQ creates some of the most high performance textile technologies in the market today. Founded in 2005 as a spin-off of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Two examples: HeiQ Smart Temp provides textiles with the ability to dynamically respond to body heat, keeping you cool and dry when you are hot, and retaining body heat when you get chilly. This keeps you comfortable at all times. HeiQ Clean Tech makes processing of textiles more ecological, improves productivity and efficiency of textile manufacturing, and helps to significantly lower CO2 emission. In many cases by more than 30%. HeiQ AeoniQ makes yarn from cellulosic raw materials in a process that captures five tons of carbon for each ton of yarn. It operates a pilot plant with a capacity of 100 tons per year and plans a giga-factory for 2025

Swedish company Renewcell recently opened the world’s first commercial-scale textile recycling plant, turning old clothes that would have gone to landfill into a new sustainable material called circulose. The factory process, which also saves some 90 billion liters of fresh water a year, is based on a raft of custom-made ABB technologies.

MAS is one of the world’s leading textile creators and manufacturers, promoting unconventional idea-generation to inspire the world’s fashion and retail brands. Innovation and sustainability are key. MAS is globally recognised as a pioneer of women’s empowerment in the global apparel industry through the award winning programme – Women Go Beyond, improving and sustaining employee livelihoods, nurturing communities, whilst working aggressively to identify and minimise the environmental impact of our operations and products. MAS owns the world’s first purpose built eco-manufacturing plant – Thurulie. Their lean driven, empowered and people-centric culture facilitates innovation throughout the value chain. The strategic investment portfolio of businesses includes raw materials, brands and private industrial parks, with an active presence across Asia, Middle East, North America and Africa.

Infinited Fiber is a Finnish biotech with the technology to turn old clothes into new, super versatile, high-quality textile fibres that look and feel like cotton –  regenerating cotton into Infinna (TM).  “It’s like some kind of magical Willy Wonka machine. Throw in your old clothes, or used cardboard boxes, and they magically become my new T-shirt or jeans” 

Vegea was founded in 2016 in Milan, Italy, creating an alternative to leather .For every 2 bottles of wine produced there is a bottle of waste. Vegea takes the waste from winemaking, and turns the dried grape marc into an eco-composite alternative to leather … now used in Bentley interiors and Gucci shoes

Fashion used to be all about style, typically driven by luxury brands and premium designers. Fashion was a statement about who we are, or want to be. It was aspirational, desirable and largely superficial.

Today, its about much more. Products (and services) that can improve our lives.

Take Veja shoes for example, the fashion-essential white sneakers, made with sustainable Amazonian rubber, constructed in Brazil, by a French company. It’s good for the world, and it makes a statement about what we believe in ourselves.

Many brands still stand out for beautiful products, but also with an inspiring, innovative story too. Often, it is retail brands rather than product brands who can tell this story best, and also have more scope to innovate.

Growth Accelerator in Istanbul

Aster Textile is one of Turkey’s leading textile businesses, founded by the Kocali family, and working with premium brands around the world to design and produce innovative fashion. It is inspired by a purpose to create “thoughtful fashion”.

I started working with the board and management team 5 years ago, and over the coming weeks we continue to work together in developing the strategies and innovations that will take the business forwards drive growth internationally over the coming years. In a highly collaborative process, we will be working fast and focused on agreeing the right strategy for future success.

As a family business founded in 1993 in Istanbul, Turkey, Aster has grown to be one of the world’s leading textile companies with its product range. Aster Textile has maintained its market leadership position by embracing its core values. Currently, Aster ranks among Turkey’s top 10 exporters in the textile and ready-made garment industry.

Aster Textile has achieved sustainable growth by investing internationally, with operations in Turkey, the United Kingdom, Serbia, and Bangladesh. With its highly experienced design and business development teams in Istanbul and London, Aster Textile anticipates its customers’ needs, developing and delivering in-demand products and solutions accordingly. All Aster business processes, from initial design to final delivery of products to client stores, are managed meticulously by the in-house teams.

Headquartered in Istanbul, Aster Textile provides creative, innovative and high-quality products with a flexible service approach. Aster serves its global customers in various countries with Business Development Centres in Istanbul and London, as well as production facilities and business partners in the Far East. Aster Textile closely follows world fashion trends and innovations in a range of product groups with a global and visionary perspective. Aster’s highly experienced design and business development teams in Istanbul and London are working in the centre of global fashion culture.

Changing world of fashion

Here are some of the most interesting reports:

• The State of Fashion 2023 by BOF and McKinsey
• Future of Fashion 2022 by CB Insights
• A New Textiles Economy by Ellen McArthur Foundation
• Smart Fabric Textiles by MDPI
• Trends Kaleidoscope 2023 by Peter Fisk
• 250 Companies to Inspire You by Peter Fisk

Sustainable and desirable

The average shopper now buys 60% more clothes than they did 50 years ago. And wears only 30% of of them, typically 5-6 times before disposal. The fashion industry has been a major contributor to climate change and biodiversity loss—which means the industry’s sustainability efforts are critical to our planet’s health. The fashion industry produces almost 20% of the world’s wastewater and is responsible for 2-8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations.

On, the Swiss sportswear business, born in Switzerland seven years ago, has become the fastest growing global running brand. Ithas launched a 100% recyclable, bio-based performance running shoe.  Some claimed it was impossible. But we chose to Dream On. The Cloudneo is now available via subscription to our Cyclon™ circularity program. Run. Recycle. Repeat.

Designer Tracy Reese took the radical step of moving her HQ from New York to Detroit as part of her mission to transform the city into a hub of ethical fashion manufacturing. Johannesburg-based designer Thebe Magugu used his collections to narrate stories about politics and history; for his 2021 collection, he interviewed South African women who worked as spies during apartheid, creating outfits that spoke to issues of gender and colonialism.

Some brands focused on creatively responding to consumers’ unmet needs. Myya, for instance, created a luxurious lingerie shopping experience for breast cancer patients, who historically have been forced to buy prosthetics and specialized bras at medical supply stores. Figs designed tasteful and comfortable scrubs for medical professionals, cultivating a loyal following of 1.7 million customers who appreciate the care that has gone into these outfits.

Denim brand Good American recognized that women’s bodies fluctuate in size 31 times over the course of their lives, forcing them to buy new clothes. The brand launched its Always Fits jeans and swimwear collections, which are designed to span four sizes, ensuring they look flattering even as customers’ bodies change.

Shoe brand Hoka developed by two former Salomon executives in Annoy, France, has paid close attention to runners’ needs, developing new foams and carbon-fibre plates that give them extra propulsion, without sacrificing comfort. While the industry sought minimalist designs, it went for a maximalist (lots of cushioning!) approach.

Direct and realtime

Lets talk about Shein. Forget fast fashion, this is realtime. In fact most items are not even made when ordered, but then made and shipped within 24 hours, direct to your door. The $100 billion Chinese brand produces ultra-cheap clothes at ultra-fast speed, creating an ultra-big hype on social media. The Haul. TikTok on steroids. There’s waste, and human rights, and more. But there also some insights to learn from – AI predictive, on demand, social influence.

Gymshark is now 10 years old, but Ben Francis’ business continues to thrive, built on an online platform selling direct to consumers, fuelled by social media, and is now extending into physical stores. In 2020, the company was valued at over £1 billion.

Virtual and metaverse

While Zuckerberg’s Meta vision resulted in a 70% fall in his company’s share price, the web3-enabled world is taking shape with brands like Ledger and The Dematerialised. Nike acquired RTFKT to merge physical and virtual worlds. The latest evolution of the Nike Adapt platform features auto-lacing, haptic feedback, enhanced lighting, gesture control, walk detection, wireless charging, NFC link, App connectivity, AI/ML algo, and Move to Earn.

Dress X became the world’s largest digital fashion store targeting Gen Z awho seek digital, sustainable, and affordable fashion – even if it’s virtual. The company was named one of the finalists of LVMH Innovation Award 2022 in the category 3D/Virtual Product Experience & Metaverse.

 

Retailers as brands

Farfetch stocks goods from various boutiques big and small in over 50 different countries. It is stepping out with its very own in-house fashion brand. Dubbed ‘ There Was One ‘ the line takes inspiration from elevated classics and includes tailored blazers, soft slip dresses, denim jackets, and zippered leggings, and draws from the platform’s data-driven insights on what customers are actively searching for on Farfetch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-8XTsvBrRU

 

Brands beyond products

Brands are becoming increasingly independent of products, and more about consumers and communities. Take gaming brands for example. They define a lifestyle, culture, value set. Take 100 Thieves. The gaming brand collaborates with Gucci – including a limited-edition backpack from the Gucci Off The Grid collection—made from recycled and sustainably sourced materials— in a new shade of bright red featuring a distinctive circular patch with the 100 Thieves logo.

Brands with stories

Outerknown seeks to make clothing differently. Created by world champion surfer Kelly Slater in 2015, with the goal of creating high-quality, sustainable fashion that would stand up to any conditions—including those you’ll find in the water. The brand’s clothing is made using eco-conscious materials like organic cotton and hemp fibres, as well as recycled polyester derived from recycled plastic bottles.  Their jeans are made at the world’s cleanest denim facility, using less water, fewer chemicals, and organic cotton. They guarantee S.E.A. JEANS for life. Now your most comfortable jeans are also your most sustainable.

Cool and conscious

18 years ago, VEJA‘s founders decided to travel to the Amazon rainforest and meet the producers of wild rubber in person, the same rubber we use in every one of our VEJA soles.​ ​ Those producers protect the forest and live in harmony with it. This rubber, extracted from forest trees, is a completely ecological raw material.​ Last year, a team of VEJA members traveled to the Amazon rainforest to discover the Chico Mendes reserve.​ One of the many reserves that VEJA works to keep the Amazon rainforest alive.​ These families of rubber producers we work with are paid 4 times more than the market price.​

Vestiaire Collective is banning fast fashion from being bought, sold or listed on the platform. “We say no to a system that supports overconsumption, poor quality and over production. Its mission is to drive change from within the fashion industry. We aim, over the next 3 years, to become a fast fashion-free platform that celebrates quality, craftsmanship and sustainability.”

Fabrics and production

Swiss innovator HeiQ creates some of the most high performance textile technologies in the market today. Founded in 2005 as a spin-off of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Two examples: HeiQ Smart Temp provides textiles with the ability to dynamically respond to body heat, keeping you cool and dry when you are hot, and retaining body heat when you get chilly. This keeps you comfortable at all times. HeiQ Clean Tech makes processing of textiles more ecological, improves productivity and efficiency of textile manufacturing, and helps to significantly lower CO2 emission. In many cases by more than 30%. HeiQ AeoniQ makes yarn from cellulosic raw materials in a process that captures five tons of carbon for each ton of yarn. It operates a pilot plant with a capacity of 100 tons per year and plans a giga-factory for 2025

Swedish company Renewcell recently opened the world’s first commercial-scale textile recycling plant, turning old clothes that would have gone to landfill into a new sustainable material called circulose. The factory process, which also saves some 90 billion liters of fresh water a year, is based on a raft of custom-made ABB technologies.

Infinited Fiber is a Finnish biotech with the technology to turn old clothes into new, super versatile, high-quality textile fibres that look and feel like cotton –  regenerating cotton into Infinna (TM).  “It’s like some kind of magical Willy Wonka machine. Throw in your old clothes, or used cardboard boxes, and they magically become my new T-shirt or jeans” 

Vegea was founded in 2016 in Milan, Italy, creating an alternative to leather .For every 2 bottles of wine produced there is a bottle of waste. Vegea takes the waste from winemaking, and turns the dried grape marc into an eco-composite alternative to leather … now used in Bentley interiors and Gucci shoes

Al Ghurair Group is a diversified family-owned conglomerate based in the UAE.

The group’s origins trace back to the 1930s when Ahmad Al Ghurair and his son Saif were pearl divers in Dubai, going on to create the UAE’s first cement factory, flour mill, and sugar refinery.

• Video: Al Ghurair Purpose and Vision

There are three main lines of business – manufacturing, including petrochemicals, aluminium steel and packaging; real estate including shopping malls; and financial investments including a major stake in Mashreq Bank. The business also has an expanding global presence.

Looking to the future, the group seeks new growth opportunities with a diversifying portfolio, while adhering to its values of excellence, innovation and integrity. The group’s ambition is to triple net profits over the next 5 years, with 25% of profits coming from new activities.

Foresight and innovation will be key to unlocking assets and capabilities in new ways, guided by a purpose to enhance life. This will require new mindsets and perspectives, to link strategic horizons with ideation, to think differently about how to drive long-term, innovative growth.

Useful articles about purpose

• BlackRock’s Larry Fink’s Annual Letter to CEOs
• Coca Cola CEO Purpose Letter
• DSM Purpose Led Performance Driven
• Business Roundtable Statement about Purpose
• The Purpose Premium by Deloitte
• Video: Golden Circle by Simon Sinek
• Video: Leading with Purpose by Hubert Joly

Useful articles about purposeful strategy

• Purpose Led Growth of Brands by Kantar
• Purpose Driven Business by FourZero
• Put purpose at the core of your strategy: it’s how successful companies redefine their businesses (Tom Malnight et al)
• The business case for purpose: why you should put purpose at the heart of your business (EY)
• Playbook for strategy: the five essential questions at the heart of any strategy (AG Lafley et al)
• Power shifts: scenarios for the future, exploring the drivers and possible outcomes (IFTF)
• Towards a circular economy: Accelerating the shift towards a sustainable business (Ellen Macarthur Foundation)

More for business leadersfrom Peter Fisk:

• Next Agenda of best ideas and priorities for business
• Megatrends 2030 in a world accelerated by pandemic
• 49 Recodes to help you develop a better business future
• 250 innovative companies innovators shaking up the world
• 100 inspiring leaders with the courage to shape a better future
• Executive education that is innovative, issue-driven, action-driving
• Boardroom facilitation that is collaborative, strategic and innovative
• Keynote speaking that is inspiring, topical, engaging and actionable

Some of the reference videos to get you started:

Download a summary of Peter Fisk’s masterclass “Strategy, Growth and Value Creation“. 

Incredible technologies and geopolitical shifts, complex markets and stagnating growth, demanding customers and disruptive entrepreneurs, environmental crisis and social distrust, unexpected shocks and uncertain futures.

How do we make sense of today’s rapidly changing world? How do prepare for tomorrow’s world?

We explore how businesses can survive and thrive, and move forwards to create a better future. How to reimagine business, to reinvent markets, to reengage people. We consider what it means to combine profit with more purpose, intelligent technologies with creative people, radical innovation with sustainable impact.

We learn from the innovative strategies of incredible companies – Alibaba and Amazon, Biontech and BlackRock, Narayana and Netflix, Patagonia and PingAn, Spotify and Supercell, and many more. We also take a look at what this means for insurance, and some of the most innovative companies in the field

Creating a better future for your business

The old codes of business don’t work anymore. The most innovative companies – from Amazon and Bytedance, to Coupang and Deepmind – succeed with new codes. So what are the new ideas to win in a fast and dynamic world of Asian renaissance, entrepreneurial supremacy, social conscience and smarter machines? What can you learn from Jio’s revolution from petrochemicals to phones, and DBS’s transformation of banking? How can you be inspired by courageous leaders like 23andMe’s Anne Wojcicki, Haier’s Zhang Ruimin and Citigroup’s Jane Fraser?

• What can we learn the world’s most innovative companies right now
• Finding purpose, driving moonshots, and starting from the future back
• Exploring the radical innovations of companies like Orsted to PingAn
• Growth mindset, business models and business transformation
• Having the courage to lead a better future

More resources linked to these sessions

• Megatrends in a world accelerated by pandemic
• Trend maps of fast-change in every market
• 100 companies innovators shaking up the world
• 100 leaders with the courage to shape a better future

We live in a time of great promise but also great uncertainty.

Markets are more crowded, competition is intense, customer aspirations are constantly fuelled by new innovations and dreams. Technology disrupts every industry, from banking to construction, entertainment to healthcare. It drives new possibilities and solutions, but also speed and complexity, uncertainty and fear.

As digital and physical worlds fuse to augment how we live and work, AI and robotics enhance but also challenge our capabilities, whilst ubiquitous supercomputing, genetic editing and self-driving cars take us further.

Technologies with the power to help us leap forwards in unimaginable ways. To transform business, to solve our big problems, to drive radical innovation, to accelerate growth and achieve progress socially and environmentally too.

We are likely to see more change in the next 10 years than the last 250 years.

• Markets accelerate, 4 times faster than 20 years ago, based on the accelerating speed of innovation and diminishing lifecycles of products.
• People are more capable, 825 times more connected than 20 years ago, with access to education, unlimited knowledge, tools to create anything.
• Consumer attitudes change, 78% of young people choose brands that do good, they reject corporate jobs, and see the world with the lens of gamers.

However, change goes far beyond the technology.

Markets will transform, converge and evolve faster. From old town Ann Arbor to the rejuvenated Bilbao, today’s megacities like Chennai and the future Saudi tech city of Neom, economic power will continue to shift. China has risen to the top of the new global business order, whilst India and eventually Africa will follow.

Industrialisation challenges the natural equilibrium of our planet’s resources. Today’s climate crisis is the result of our progress, and our problem to solve. Globalisation challenges our old notions of nationhood and locality. Migration changes where we call home. Religious values compete with social values, economic priorities conflict with social priorities. Living standards improve but inequality grows.

Our current economic system is stretched to its limit. Global shocks, such as the global pandemic of 2020, exposes its fragility. We open our eyes to realise that we weren’t prepared for different futures, and that our drive for efficiency has left us unable to cope. Such crises will become more frequent, as change and disruption accelerate.

However, these shocks are more likely to accelerate change in business, rather than stifle it, to wake us up to the real impacts of our changing world – to the urgency of action, to the need to think and act more dramatically.

The old codes don’t work

Business is not fit for the future. Most organisations were designed for stable and predictable worlds, where the future evolves as planned, markets are definitive, and choices are clear.

The future isn’t like it used to be.

Dynamic markets are, by definition, turbulent. Whilst economic cycles have typically followed a pattern of peaks and troughs every 10-15 years, these will likely become more frequent.  Change is fast and exponential, uncertain and unpredictable, complex and ambiguous demanding new interpretation and imagination.

Yet too many business leaders hope that the strategies that made them successful in the past will continue to work in the future. They seek to keep stretching the old models in the hope that they will continue to see them through. Old business plans are tweaked each year, infrastructures are tested to breaking point, and people are asked to work harder.

In a way of dramatic, unpredictable change, this is not enough to survive, let alone thrive.

• Growth is harder. Global GDP growth has declined by more than a third in the past decade. As the west stagnates, Asia grows, albeit more slowly.
• Companies struggle, their average lifespan falling from 75 years in 1950 to 15 years today, 52% of the Fortune 500 in 2000 no longer exist in 2020.
• Leaders are under pressure. 44% of today’s business leaders have held their position for at least 5 years, compared to 77% half a century ago.

Profit is no longer enough; people expect business to achieve more. Business cannot exist in isolation from the world around them, pursuing customers without care for the consequence. The old single-minded obsession with profits is too limiting. Business depends more than ever on its resources – people, communities, nature, partners – and will need to find a better way to embrace them.

Technology is no longer enough; innovation needs to be more human. Technology will automate and interpret reality, but it won’t empathise and imagine new futures. Ubiquitous technology-driven innovation quickly becomes commoditised, available from anywhere in the world, so we need to add value in new ways. The future is human, creative, and intuitive. People will matter more to business, not less.

Sustaining the environment is not enough. 200 years of industrialisation has stripped the planet of its ability to renew itself, and ultimately to sustain life. Business therefore needs to give back more than it takes. As inequality and distrust have grown in every society, traditional jobs are threatened by automation and stagnation, meaning that social issues will matter even more, both globally and locally.

The new DNA of business

As business leaders, our opportunity is to create a better business, one that is fit for the future, that can act in more innovative and responsible ways.

How can we harness the potential of this relentless and disruptive change, harness the talents of people and the possibilities of technology? How can business, with all its power and resources, be a platform for change, and a force for good?

We need to find new codes to succeed. We need to find new ways to work, to recognise business as a system that be virtuous, where less can be more, and growth can go beyond the old limits. This demands that we make new connections:

• Profit + Purpose … to achieve more enlightened progress
• Technology + Humanity … to achieve more human ingenuity
• Innovation + Sustainability … to achieve more positive impact

We need to create a new framework for business, a better business – to reimagine why and redesign how we work, as well as reinvent what and refocus where we do business.

Imagine a future business that looks forwards not back, that rises up to shape the future on its own terms, making sense of change to find new possibilities, inspiring people with vision and optimism. Imagine a future that inspires progress, seeks new sources of growth, embraces networks and partners to go further, and enables people to achieve more.

Imagine too, a future business that creates new opportunity spaces, by connecting novel ideas and untapped needs, creatively responding to new customer agendas. Imagine a future business that disrupts the disruptors, where large companies have the vision and courage to reimagine themselves and compete as equals to fast and entrepreneurial start-ups.

Imagine a future business that embraces humanity, searches for better ideas, that fuse technology and people in more enlightened ways, to solve the big problems of society, and improve everyone’s lives. Imagine a future business that works collectively, self-organises to thrive without hierarchy, connects with partners in rich ecosystems, designs jobs around people, to do inspiring work.

Imagine also, a future business which is continually transforming, that thrives by learning better and faster, develops a rich portfolio of business ideas and innovations to sustain growth and progress. Imagine a future business that creates positive impact on the world, benefits all stakeholders with a circular model of value creation, that addresses negatives, and creates a net positive impact for society.

Creating a better business is an opportunity for every person who works inside or alongside it. It is not just a noble calling, to do something better for the world, but also a practical calling, a way to overcome the many limits of today, and attain future success for you and your business.You could call it the dawn of a new capitalism.

More from Peter Fisk linked to these sessions

• Next Agenda of best ideas and priorities for business
• Megatrends 2030 in a world accelerated by pandemic
• Business Futures Project by Peter Fisk
• 49 Codes to help you develop a better business future
• 250 innovative companies shaking up every market
• 100 inspiring leaders with the courage to shape a better future
• Education that is innovative, issue-driven, action-driving
• Consulting that is collaborative, strategic and innovative
• Speaking that is inspiring, topical, engaging and actionable

From perma-crisis to consequences, from meta-madness to moments of optimism …

Incredible technologies and geopolitical shifts, complex markets and stagnating growth, demanding customers and disruptive entrepreneurs, environmental crisis and social distrust, unexpected shocks and uncertain futures.

What does it take to drive a business for innovation and growth … and to  lead a business towards a better future?

• Managing doesn’t work – because the old ways don’t work anymore, working harder isn’t smarter.
• Consulting doesn’t work – because executives don’t engage with strategies, or feel ownership of solutions.
• Education doesn’t work – because executives struggle to apply academic concepts in direct, actionable ways

The answer lies in a reinvention of these three mindsets – stepping up to make sense of a rapidly changing world, to explore new ways to win, to step back as a team to rethink where and how to win, and taking the best new ideas from around the world, the new relevant concepts, to experiment and learn by doing, to be an expeditionary, transforming leader.

• Bold leadership that is “heads up”, not heads down – have the courage to let go of the past, to create a better future.
• Strategic innovation, rather than strategy or innovation – reimagining markets, then business, then solutions.
• Transformational action, rather than efficiency and change – taking your people on a journey towards a better place.

Time for a boost. Time to accelerate your mind, to up your game. Time for action.

Where are we now?

We live in a time of great promise but also great uncertainty.

Markets are more crowded, competition is intense, customer aspirations are constantly fuelled by new innovations and dreams. Technology disrupts every industry, from banking to construction, entertainment to healthcare. It drives new possibilities and solutions, but also speed and complexity, uncertainty and fear.

As digital and physical worlds fuse to augment how we live and work, AI and robotics enhance but also challenge our capabilities, whilst ubiquitous supercomputing, genetic editing and self-driving cars take us further.

Technologies with the power to help us leap forwards in unimaginable ways. To transform business, to solve our big problems, to drive radical innovation, to accelerate growth and achieve progress socially and environmentally too.

We are likely to see more change in the next 10 years than the last 250 years.

• Markets accelerate, 4 times faster than 20 years ago, based on the accelerating speed of innovation and diminishing lifecycles of products.
• People are more capable, 825 times more connected than 20 years ago, with access to education, unlimited knowledge, tools to create anything.
• Consumer attitudes change, 78% of young people choose brands that do good, they reject corporate jobs, and see the world with the lens of gamers.

However, change goes far beyond the technology.

Markets will transform, converge and evolve faster. From old town Ann Arbor to the rejuvenated Bilbao, today’s megacities like Chennai and the future Saudi tech city of Neom, economic power will continue to shift. China has risen to the top of the new global business order, whilst India and eventually Africa will follow.

Industrialisation challenges the natural equilibrium of our planet’s resources. Today’s climate crisis is the result of our progress, and our problem to solve. Globalisation challenges our old notions of nationhood and locality. Migration changes where we call home. Religious values compete with social values, economic priorities conflict with social priorities. Living standards improve but inequality grows.

Our current economic system is stretched to its limit. Global shocks, such as the global pandemic of 2020, exposes its fragility. We open our eyes to realise that we weren’t prepared for different futures, and that our drive for efficiency has left us unable to cope. Such crises will become more frequent, as change and disruption accelerate.

However, these shocks are more likely to accelerate change in business, rather than stifle it, to wake us up to the real impacts of our changing world – to the urgency of action, to the need to think and act more dramatically.

The old codes don’t work

Business is not fit for the future. Most organisations were designed for stable and predictable worlds, where the future evolves as planned, markets are definitive, and choices are clear.

The future isn’t like it used to be.

Dynamic markets are, by definition, turbulent. Whilst economic cycles have typically followed a pattern of peaks and troughs every 10-15 years, these will likely become more frequent.  Change is fast and exponential, uncertain and unpredictable, complex and ambiguous demanding new interpretation and imagination.

Yet too many business leaders hope that the strategies that made them successful in the past will continue to work in the future. They seek to keep stretching the old models in the hope that they will continue to see them through. Old business plans are tweaked each year, infrastructures are tested to breaking point, and people are asked to work harder.

In a way of dramatic, unpredictable change, this is not enough to survive, let alone thrive.

• Growth is harder. Global GDP growth has declined by more than a third in the past decade. As the west stagnates, Asia grows, albeit more slowly.
• Companies struggle, their average lifespan falling from 75 years in 1950 to 15 years today, 52% of the Fortune 500 in 2000 no longer exist in 2020.
• Leaders are under pressure. 44% of today’s business leaders have held their position for at least 5 years, compared to 77% half a century ago.

Profit is no longer enough; people expect business to achieve more. Business cannot exist in isolation from the world around them, pursuing customers without care for the consequence. The old single-minded obsession with profits is too limiting. Business depends more than ever on its resources – people, communities, nature, partners – and will need to find a better way to embrace them.

Technology is no longer enough; innovation needs to be more human. Technology will automate and interpret reality, but it won’t empathise and imagine new futures. Ubiquitous technology-driven innovation quickly becomes commoditised, available from anywhere in the world, so we need to add value in new ways. The future is human, creative, and intuitive. People will matter more to business, not less.

Sustaining the environment is not enough. 200 years of industrialisation has stripped the planet of its ability to renew itself, and ultimately to sustain life. Business therefore needs to give back more than it takes. As inequality and distrust have grown in every society, traditional jobs are threatened by automation and stagnation, meaning that social issues will matter even more, both globally and locally.

The new DNA of business

As business leaders, our opportunity is to create a better business, one that is fit for the future, that can act in more innovative and responsible ways.

How can we harness the potential of this relentless and disruptive change, harness the talents of people and the possibilities of technology? How can business, with all its power and resources, be a platform for change, and a force for good?

We need to find new codes to succeed. We need to find new ways to work, to recognise business as a system that be virtuous, where less can be more, and growth can go beyond the old limits. This demands that we make new connections:

• Profit + Purpose … to achieve more enlightened progress
• Technology + Humanity … to achieve more human ingenuity
• Innovation + Sustainability … to achieve more positive impact

We need to create a new framework for business, a better business – to reimagine why and redesign how we work, as well as reinvent what and refocus where we do business.

Imagine a future business that looks forwards not back, that rises up to shape the future on its own terms, making sense of change to find new possibilities, inspiring people with vision and optimism. Imagine a future that inspires progress, seeks new sources of growth, embraces networks and partners to go further, and enables people to achieve more.

Imagine too, a future business that creates new opportunity spaces, by connecting novel ideas and untapped needs, creatively responding to new customer agendas. Imagine a future business that disrupts the disruptors, where large companies have the vision and courage to reimagine themselves and compete as equals to fast and entrepreneurial start-ups.

Imagine a future business that embraces humanity, searches for better ideas, that fuse technology and people in more enlightened ways, to solve the big problems of society, and improve everyone’s lives. Imagine a future business that works collectively, self-organises to thrive without hierarchy, connects with partners in rich ecosystems, designs jobs around people, to do inspiring work.

Imagine also, a future business which is continually transforming, that thrives by learning better and faster, develops a rich portfolio of business ideas and innovations to sustain growth and progress. Imagine a future business that creates positive impact on the world, benefits all stakeholders with a circular model of value creation, that addresses negatives, and creates a net positive impact for society.

Creating a better business is an opportunity for every person who works inside or alongside it. It is not just a noble calling, to do something better for the world, but also a practical calling, a way to overcome the many limits of today, and attain future success for you and your business.You could call it the dawn of a new capitalism.

More from Peter Fisk

• Next Agenda of best ideas and priorities for business
• Trends Kaleidoscope 2023 exploring the year ahead
• Megatrends 2030 in a world accelerated by pandemic
• 49 Codes to help you develop a better business future
• 100 companies innovators shaking up the world
• 100 leaders with the courage to shape a better future
• Education that is innovative, issue-driven, action-driving
• Consulting that is collaborative, strategic and innovative
• Speaking that is inspiring, topical, engaging and actionable

Disrupt or be disrupted … inspiring insights and new ideas for business leaders around the world, from some of the world’s best business thinkers and coaches.

This is a series of free regular webinars, every month … specifically for members of the Global AMP community, the flagship executive program from IE Business School … bring your friends, and potential participants, too! Each online session is 1700-1800 CET.

4 May 23 “Smarter Implementation” … Antonio Nieto-Rogriguez, GSK global transformation director, author of The Project Management Handbook, and part of the Global AMP faculty, joins academic director Peter Fisk to share his new insights and inspiration … “Why is everyone a project manager today? How to make sure 70% of projects don’t fail? How to turn projects into new businesses through drive more value creation?

Also coming soon:

Date to be confirmed … “Strategic Innovation” … Tendayi Viki, strategic innovation expert and Strategyzer partner, from Zimbabwe, and part of the Global AMP faculty, joins academic director Peter Fisk to share his new insights and inspiration … How do you create a culture for radical, relentless innovation – to exploit the present and explore the future – to drive entrepreneurship throughout the business, and to deliver exceptional value creation?

Date to be confirmed … “Leadership Storytelling” … Javier Bernad, founder of Speak and Span, expert in public speaking, and part of the Global AMP faculty, joins academic director Peter Fisk to share his new insights and inspiration … “How do you communicate your business future? What makes a great business story? What makes you more authentic, more engaging, more inspiring, to listen to?”

Date to be confirmed … “Leadership Vitality” … Steven McGregor, author of Chief Wellness Officer, and part of the Global AMP faculty, joins academic director Peter Fisk to share his new insights and inspiration … “What does it take to deliver peak performance in a world of relentless change, of alway-on media, and pressure for results? How can you manage your personal health, fitness and wellbeing? Your energy and effectiveness, to thrive every day?”

Email me, peterfisk@peterfisk.com, for more details!

Disrupt or be disrupted … inspiring insights and new ideas for business leaders around the world, from some of the world’s best business thinkers and coaches.

This is a series of free regular webinars, every month … specifically for members of the Global AMP community, the flagship executive program from IE Business School … bring your friends, and potential participants, too! Each online session is 1700-1800 CET.

6 April 23: “Innovation Safari” … Ramon Vullings, Idea DJ, and author Great Leaders Mix and Match, from the Netherlands, joins academic director Peter Fisk to share his new insights and inspiration … “Where can you find the best new ideas for innovation? How do you take ideas from one sector and apply them elsewhere? What ensures that innovations really deliver financial results and social impact too?”

4 May 23 “Smarter Implementation” … Antonio Nieto-Rogriguez, GSK global transformation director, author of The Project Management Handbook, and part of the Global AMP faculty, joins academic director Peter Fisk to share his new insights and inspiration … “Why is everyone a project manager today? How to make sure 70% of projects don’t fail? How to turn projects into new businesses through drive more value creation?

Also coming soon:

Date to be confirmed … “Strategic Innovation” … Tendayi Viki, strategic innovation expert and Strategyzer partner, from Zimbabwe, and part of the Global AMP faculty, joins academic director Peter Fisk to share his new insights and inspiration … How do you create a culture for radical, relentless innovation – to exploit the present and explore the future – to drive entrepreneurship throughout the business, and to deliver exceptional value creation?

Date to be confirmed … “Leadership Storytelling” … Javier Bernad, founder of Speak and Span, expert in public speaking, and part of the Global AMP faculty, joins academic director Peter Fisk to share his new insights and inspiration … “How do you communicate your business future? What makes a great business story? What makes you more authentic, more engaging, more inspiring, to listen to?”

Date to be confirmed … “Leadership Vitality” … Steven McGregor, author of Chief Wellness Officer, and part of the Global AMP faculty, joins academic director Peter Fisk to share his new insights and inspiration … “What does it take to deliver peak performance in a world of relentless change, of alway-on media, and pressure for results? How can you manage your personal health, fitness and wellbeing? Your energy and effectiveness, to thrive every day?”

Email me, peterfisk@peterfisk.com, for more details!