Amex is a supplier of pharmaceuticals, medical and laboratory products to the world’s leading Non-Profit Organisations. The Vienna-based organisation distributes medical and laboratory equipment, devices and consumables – catering for the needs of humanitarian aid and development agencies by focusing on complex procurement projects all around the globe.

Agenda

0900 – 1030 : Change, Disruption and Megatrends

  • Every market is shaken up, making sense of a world of relentless change
  • Asia to AI, GenZ and gene-editing, sustainability and the super-apps
  • Inspired by 23andMe, Jio, Maersk, and Shein
  • What the 6 megatrends mean for me, turning challenge into opportunity

1100 – 1300 : Exploring Future Scenarios

  • Future uncertainties, and how markets of the future could evolve
  • Inspired by DHL, Haier, Tesla, and Schneider Electric
  • Exploring potential scenarios for our future markets
  • Evaluating optional futures, implications and impacts

1400 – 1600 : Defining Future Roadmaps

  • Moonshot thinking, to articulate your purpose, vision and mission
  • Strategies are about choices – why, where and how to compete
  • Inspired by Alphabet, Cemex, PingAn and Syngenta
  • Articulating future visions, strategies, plans and roadmaps

1615 – 1800 : Leading and Implementing Growth

  • Leading in a world of uncertainty, risk and relentless change
  • Inspired by DBS, FedEx, Microsoft and Orsted
  • Building a strategic portfolio for innovation and growth
  • 7 big ideas to take away and make happen

More from Peter Fisk

Other resources

Introduction

How do you develop a strategy in a world of relentless and uncertain change? Particularly one for growth, when so many familiar markets seem stagnant or in decline? How do you make sense of all this change, what is relevant to you?

Certainly, the old approach to incremental strategy development has given way to a much more creative and exploratory approach to business strategy, built around future casting, scenario planning, and agile roadmaps.

As an example, I recently worked with one of the Middle East’s fastest growing business groups. They’re in many businesses, and could grow in many directions, industrially and geographically. Where’s the growth? Where’s the risk? How should they act differently?

Future-back strategy is my favoured approach, starting with an ambitious purpose, a North Star, to give direction and substance to why the business exists, what it does for the world.

 

Five megatrends are shaping our future right, shifting the way we live and work:

  • Megatrend 1: Aging World … the shift from young to old … People are living longer, healthier lives throughout the world, as healthcare, education and lifestyles improve.
  • Megatrend 2: Booming Asia … the shift from west to east … Consumers are more affluent, particularly across Asia. So-called emerging markets will represent 6 of the 7 largest economies by 2050.
  • Megatrend 3: Cognitive Tech … the shift from automation to intelligence … Technology unlocks new possibilities, and exponential progress. 125 billion connected devices by 2030.
  • Megatrend 4: Dense Living … the shift from towns to megacities … 65% of the world will be concentrated in urban environments by 2050, today in the megacities of Asia, tomorrow in even larger cities of Africa.
  • Megatrend 5: Earth Renewal … the shift from crisis to circularity … 50% of the world’s energy will be sustainable by 2050, as we seek ways to combat climate change, and also the stress on natural resources.

In his book Future Shock, Alvin Toffler identified the watershed of a new post-industrial age, pinpointing the enormous structural change afoot in the global economy, and the acceleration of technological advances towards a ‘super-industrial society’ in an information era. 50 years later we see much of what he predicted coming true.

From their we worked through an accelerated scenario planning approach, embracing the critical uncertainties most relevant to the business and its markets. From their we developed a vision framework which then flows into a strategic roadmap, and transformational plan for innovation and growth.

Sounds simple, but there is much to it. Not least having a powerful sense of of the future, and how you will shape it to your advantage. During this workshop we will explore the mindset, strategies and frameworks which help you to more effectively make sense of change, manage uncertainty, scale your business and drive growth.

“Roche Rise” is a series of sessions by Peter Fisk for the future leaders of Roche, the Swiss pharma business – making sense of today’s changing world, understanding how business is responding, embracing an inclusive leadership approach:

  • Roche Rise, Week 1: Future Recoded … How will you embrace the megatrends to shape a better future?
    • Market disruption, future uncertainty, and accelerated change
    • Global megatrends, new possibilities, and emerging agendas
    • Future shapers, from 23andMe and Philip Morris, to Epic and Jio, Tesla and Twelve
  • Roche Rise, Week 2: Business Recoded … What are the new business models to drive success?
    • New business models, innovating every aspect of business
    • Power shifts, network dynamics, consumer influences and business partners
    • Business innovators, from Danone to PingAn, Haier to Fujifilm, Schneider and Shein
  • Roche Rise, Week 3: Work Recoded … How are we changing how we work as individuals and organisations?
    • New ways of working, beyond the hybrid, the power of teams and ecosystems
    • Organic organisations, distributed and empowered, fluid and dynamic
    • Work innovators, from Alphabet and Netflix, Haier and Haufe, Microsoft and Unilever
  • Roche Rise, Week 4: Leadership Recoded … Where do you start, in creating a future-fit business?
    • Getting started, from the future back, and the from the outside in
    • Future and growth mindsets, diverse and inclusive cultures, flat organisations and no rules
    • Inspired by Anne Wojcicki and Satya Nadella, Mary Barra and Eric Yuan, and you.

This week we focus on Leadership Recoded, and how you can shape the future to your advantage:

What kind of future do you want to create, shape and lead?

The future business will only emerge with your leadership. Leaders need the courage to step up, to envision and implement this future.

The new Leadership DNA

Having spent many hours with leaders, one to one, and with their teams – teaching, coaching and advising them on strategies and change – and explored the many leadership theories, and insights from today’s most inspiring leaders – it became clear that there are some common attributes.

In my new book Business Recoded: Have the courage to create a better future for you and your business, I define a new Leadership DNA.

The Leadership DNA is built on 12 attributes. These attributes form a pyramid, somewhat analogous to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At the foundation are the essentials required to operate, and deliver performance. Above these are the attributes required for progress, to make sense of change, to find new growth, and drive innovation. At the top are the attributes required of leaders who want to transform their organisations, guided by purpose beyond profit, to create a better business, and a better world.

These 12 attributes collectively make up the “new DNA of leadership”, with 3 levels from the top to the bottom:

“Creating the future” attributes:

  • Inspiring… being guided by a purpose and passion
  • Courageous… daring to do what hasn’t been done before
  • Farsighted … looking ahead with vision, foresight and intuition
  • Progressive… pioneering, embracing challenge, seizing opportunities

“Making change happen” attributes:

  • Curious… making sense of new, complex and uncertain environments
  • Imaginative… envisioning a better future worth working towards
  • Adaptive… having emotional agility to survive and drive relentless change
  • Entrepreneurial… the creative spirit to explore new ideas and think differently

“Delivering everyday performance” attributes

  • Empathetic … engaging people, tapping into their human qualities
  • Collaborative … working together, embracing diversity, to achieve more
  • Resilient… sticking to the task, enduring turbulence, motivated and optimistic
  • Impactful… making a positive difference to business, stakeholders and the world

Leaders shape the future

In today’s world, organisations need leaders, more than ever, to look forwards.

Leaders don’t have to be strategists in the traditional sense of spending many hours analysing markets, developing rigorous plans supported by lots of commentary and financial projections. The strategic contribution of a leaders needs to be context setting – defining a clear purpose, envisioning what the future will look like, stretching mindsets of what is possible, articulating the ambitions, the big choices, and horizons to aim for.

Business performance is the measure of how well leaders do this. Warren Buffett will of course remind us that a CEO of a public company is legally responsible to deliver a return to shareholders, but he would also agree that this is more an outcome. Value creation is the framework to engage all stakeholders in progress. The challenge for leaders is not to become obsessed by financials, but to define purpose and be the moral compass of the organisation, to achieve more, in a better way.

Leaders earn their power from how they inspire people with ideas, influence people about what’s right, and the impact they have through their actions. This is quite different from the old power of leaders, which came through position, experience and expertise. Instead of leadership based on command and control, I see a leaders as a

  • Catalyst: the leader stimulates and stretches the organisation, asking the important questions, adding energy and urgency, focusing on insights and goals.
  • Communicator: the leader articulates purpose, vision and direction, listening and engaging with people, building empathy and trust, creating a better future together.
  • Connectors: the leader connects ideas, people, activities and partners; encouraging learning and collaboration; facilitating new capacity for innovation.
  • Coaches: the leader supports rather than commands; to think, act and deliver better; and encouraging them have the confidence to rise up.

The Performer Transformer leader

The “ambidextrous” challenge of a business leader has become increasingly important in a world of relentless change.

Leaders need to be able to deliver high performance today, and simultaneously transform the business for tomorrow. Not just occasionally, but continuously. Not just as a balance, implying a bit of each, but to do both effectively.

25 years ago I wrote an article called “leading in double time”. The same idea. Now it matters more than ever, because leaders are at the heart of economic value creation.

Economic value which is driven partly by performance today, but equally by what you do today to create the profit streams of the future. In the past, the future was not so different from the past, now it most likely is. That’s why transformation is essential, and relentless.

And that’s why leaders need to simultaneously be performers and transformers:

“Roche Rise” is a series of sessions by Peter Fisk for the future leaders of Roche, the Swiss pharma business – making sense of today’s changing world, understanding how business is responding, embracing an inclusive leadership approach:

This week we focus on the new business models for success.

Objectives

  • To explore the change drivers in markets, when and how businesses need to transform to survive and thrive.
  • To understand the dimensions of a “business model” and how they can be innovated, individually and collectively.
  • To consider how business model innovation fits with business strategy, transformation and performance.

New business models are the most effective way to transform organisations, to innovate the whole way in which the business works. Inspired by a new generation of businesses – Airbnb to Uber, Dollar Shave Club to Netflix – we see dramatically new business models in every market, through collaborative platforms, data analytics and personal recommendations, or subscription-based payments.

Airbnb makes money by helping you to make money out of your spare room, connecting host and guest, then taking a small fee from each. Nespresso makes great coffee, selling discounted machines, and then getting you to sign up to an everlasting and incredibly profitable direct revenue steam of coffee pods.

What if your business started leasing rather than selling, became part of the sharing economy? What if you simply facilitated an exchange between buyers and sellers and took a cut? How about moving to a subscription model, or a freemium model, or a referral model, or an advertising model?

We used to just think a business simply made things, and sold them. Now its much more complicated. Or rather, there are many more innovative ways to achieve success …

The term “Business Model” is over used and under defined. Business models explain how organisations work – how do they create value for customers, and in doing so how they create value for all other stakeholders. They can map the current business, or explore options for the future.

The approach originates from mapping “value networks” in the 1990s, understanding the systems across business and its partners through which value (both financial and non-financial) is created and exchanged – by who, how and for whom. I remember working with Pugh Roberts to create a multi-million dollar dynamic model for Mastercard which showed varying any one driver – such as interest rates, or branding – affected everything else. And thereby being able to test new ideas and optimise the model.

Business models represent the dynamic system through which a business creates and captures value, and how this can changed or optimised. They are a configuration of the building blocks of business, and their creative reconfiguration can be a significant innovation.

Business models became fundamental to business strategy, driven by them but often driving them. Hambrick and Fredrickson’s Strategy Diamond is all about aligning the organisation, achieving an economic logic between strategic choices. They help to align the business, matching the right strategies for outside and inside, using the proposition as the fulcrum, and profitability as the measure of success.

Business models can often appear very mechanical, lacking emotion and easy to imitate. In 2001 Patrick Staehler, in particular seeking to explain the new breed of digital businesses, created a business model “map” driven by the value proposition, enabled by the value architecture, creating economic value and sustained by cultural values. The last point here is most interesting, in that it captured the distinctive personality of a business, its leadership styles and ways of doing business. This is much harder to copy, and also sustains the other aspects.

Alex Osterwalder’s subsequent Business Model Canvas emerged as the most common template on which to map a business model. He popularised the approach so much so that his supersized canvas now features in workshops throughout the world, always with an array of multi coloured sticky notes as teams debate the best combination of solutions for each box. Whilst the canvas lacks the sophistication of value driver analysis and dynamic modelling, it is about testing hypothesise in each aspect, and how they could work together, and that respect works as a thinking model.

Business models have become a practical tool for rethinking the whole business, seeing the connections and then innovating the business. In fact they offer a great platform to facilitate new strategy and innovation thinking. That’s why we’ve created the Business Innovation Program, which combines design thinking, new business models and strategic implementation – a great way to engage your team, to think about new ways to grow, and to create the future, practically.

We explore at least 50 different business model templates which could transform your business. We start with the customer, to explore emergent needs and behaviours, shaping better propositions and solutions, then exploring how to deliver them commercially, and as engaging customer experiences.

Business models in pharma

Pharma companies are typically slow to move. Huge healthcare players are only now starting to take advantage of new technologies that are well-established in fast-moving tech start-ups and other sectors.

This failure exists in critical areas, such as marketing, logistics, and even Pharma’s bread and butter, R&D. The rise of gene therapy and gene-editing technologies, for example, has the potential to revolutionize drug development—but many pharmaceutical companies have been slow to embrace these new approaches. Of course, there are strict regulations around gene therapies, and rightly so. But to say that the industry has taken advantage of every opportunity would be a false statement.

In fact, it would be fair to say that pharma has actively contributed to the current situation by encouraging and funding the development of lean, technological advances businesses in its efforts to outsource more and more core processes.

It began with the outsourcing of clinical trials. Pharmaceutical companies seeking to minimize costs and maximize returns recognized that clinical trials posed a significant financial burden. By enlisting contract research organizations to carry out these trials on an as-needed basis, pharma giants could allocate their resources more effectively, and thus, boost profitability.

This early success with outsourcing spurred further expansion into other areas, as the industry, following traditional business models, focused efforts on its core competencies and outsourced the rest. Soon enough, discovery and R&D were delegated to contract organizations, biotech firms, and academia. Consequently, the proportion of drugs originating from external companies and in-licensed endeavors increased—reaching up to 30% and above.

Outsourcing permeated other aspects of the pharmaceutical value chain, as CROs expanded their service offerings to include discovery, formulation, contract manufacturing, marketing, and detailing. For example, Covance acquired Eli Lilly’s early drug development site, signaling an increasing trend towards outsourcing. Additionally, contract manufacturing organizations and contract sales reps began to play more prominent roles in the industry, further fragmenting the once-integrated process.

The outsourcing of services has led to a situation where pharmaceutical companies have become mere project managers, purchasing drugs, coordinating clinical trials, and contracting sales and marketing services. This disintegration of the value chain has had unintended consequences for the industry giants.

By breaking down the once-monolithic structure of pharma into smaller, more manageable pieces, they inadvertently lowered the barriers to entry for other players. The emergence of virtual pharma companies and the proliferation of biotech start-ups have crowded the drug discovery and development space, with Big Pharma no longer holding a dominant position.

Changing expectations and aspirations

The pharmaceutical industry have also struggled to adapt to changing consumer preferences.

This is true, particularly in terms of pricing and transparency. Consumers are increasingly demanding more affordable and accessible healthcare options, and many are looking for greater transparency around drug pricing and clinical trial results. The high cost of many drugs and the lack of transparency around pricing and clinical trial data, for example, have led to increased scrutiny of the pharmaceutical industry and have resulted in calls for greater regulation and oversight.

Another example has to do with the loss of diagnostics from Pharma’s toolbelt. In the past, many pharmaceutical firms sold off their diagnostics units, deeming them low-value additions to clinical decision-making, with thin margins in comparison to therapeutics. Consequently, precision diagnostics remain reimbursed at low rates, stifling the development and use of genetic and molecular diagnostics that, albeit costly, could deliver substantial savings to the healthcare system andsatisfy the public’s growing demand for precision medicine.

Diagnostics have emerged as a critical component in determining therapeutic efficacy. It has become evident that pharma’s future profits lie at the nexus of diagnostics and therapeutics. A decade ago, molecular diagnostics companies like Applied Biosystems began acquiring pharmaceutical companies, while others, such as Millennium Pharma (now Takeda) and Roche, have long straddled both fields. Roche’s Herceptin for HER2+ breast cancer exemplifies the potential of precision medicine: the test cost $366 to perform, but the financial benefit of doing so yielded $24,000 in savings per patient.

Finding new growth opportunities

Pharma has also faced challenges in adapting to evolving market conditions, particularly in the area of drug discovery and development. Many pharmaceutical companies, for example, have struggled to bring new drugs to market, and have been criticized for focusing too much on incremental improvements to existing drugs rather than on developing truly innovative new treatments.

Drug discoveries, like Prozac and Viagra, once paved the way for blockbuster revenues. However, as companies grew, achieving consistent growth became increasingly challenging. A company earning $50 billion per year requires an additional $5 billion for 10% growth. This led to prioritizing “me too” drugs targeting broader markets over smaller, niche areas.

This approach has shifted as big markets saturate with generics, and niche cancers and rare diseases become more attractive. Many drugs target symptoms (e.g., Lipitor for cholesterol), but precision medicine’s rise will likely fragment these markets further.

Now business models, unprepared for serving small niche markets, face challenges. With drug development costs starting around $1 billion, addressing niche conditions with few patients necessitates exorbitant prices to recoup investments. Precision medicine, fragmenting markets into smaller segments and lowering revenues per product, demands a complete overhaul of cost structures and investment models.

Pharma’s evolution may involve transitioning from specialized sales teams to direct-to-consumer (DTC) models, currently prevalent in the US and NZ. As DTC becomes dominant, companies like Amazon, with experience in healthcare value chains—discovery, telehealth, patient medical records, pill packing businesses, and pharmacies—may lead the charge. The industry may witness big tech perfecting DTC models, delivering next-day medications with services like Amazon Prime, thus reshaping the pharmaceutical landscape.

Pharma certainly isn’t alone when it comes to ignoring signals that change is necessary. Disruption is often most obvious when seen from the outside. But the view from the outside shows that existing pharma companies cannot wait any longer to change if they are to survive. Either that or go the way of Barnes and Noble – maybe not dead but significantly decimated.

Finding new business models

A business’s approach to technology, customers, and the market constitutes its business model, the manner in which it makes a profit by offering a product or service to specific individuals in a given context.

Drawing on models explored in The Invincible Company, there are several ways pharmaceutical businesses can adopt new business models that embrace disruption and leverage new opportunities, including artificial intelligence. We explore these below.

How can we improve the value we offer our customers?

From product to recurring service

One key transformation recommended for the pharmaceutical industry is to transition from selling products (such as pills) to offering recurring services that encompass more than just the medication.

This approach differs in scale and approach from previous attempts to move “beyond the pill”, which focused largely on supplementary services rather than a fundamentally new business model.

The escalating costs of R&D and current rates of failure are unsustainable. Marketing new drugs is not only expensive but also a continuous process. Although developing recurring services necessitates investment, it is likely to be significantly less than what is required for new drug development. In turn, this approach yields more predictable and regular revenue streams that are primed to experience exponential growth. The lifetime value of individual customers also increases.

A notable example of such a shift from outside of the pharmaceutical sector is Rolls Royce. The company transitioned from a pay-per-car model, akin to pharma’s pay-per-pill approach, to a subscription service where customers are charged per mile of usage. This change has led to the highest revenue in the company’s history.

The company made a similar move in the airline industry back in the late 1990s. Rolls Royce started by selling engines to airlines, who were left to maintain these extraordinarily expensive, highly complex, and highly varied machines. But they quickly realized that “airlines didn’t want to be in the ‘jet engine business’, [they] wanted to focus on flying passengers from point A to B.” So they developed a new subscription model called “power-by-the-hour”, and took over installations, check-ups, maintenance, and decommissioning. Airlines loved it, and engine failures were made rarer, to boot.

This couldn’t be more relevant to the pharmaceutical industry, because, unsurprisingly, doctors don’t want to be in the pharmaceutical business—they want to be in the patient business. They want to connect patients to long-term, sustainable solutions, and a subscription is one way to do that.

It’s good for patients, too. Car companies on the “power-by-the-hour” model are incented to keep the car running as long as possible. Subscribers to a pharma company that are provided with medication—whatever medication—they need based on a monthly subscription are of greatest value when they live long, healthy lives. Curing diseases would be just as profitable as treating them.

There are also advantages for the state. The United Kingdom’s NHS initiated a new trial involving a subscription-based payment model to encourage pharmaceutical companies to create novel antibiotics targeting antibiotic-resistant bacteria, something they’ve been hesitant to invest in due to falling returns from volume-based payment models.

“A ‘Netflix-style’ subscription model for antibiotic reimbursement changes the financial incentives for pharma companies; making the development of novel antibiotics that meet clinical unmet needs more attractive,” explains GlobalData senior analyst James Mather. Likewise, Louisiana and Washington have both individually agreed to fixed, monthly costs for a drug company’s Direct-Acting Antiviral, instead of paying per prescription.

Another instance of a successful transformation comes from Hilti, a company that initially manufactured tools. Hilti shifted from producing tools to offering a comprehensive tool management service designed to enhance productivity. By adopting a tool “fleet management and leasing” model based on subscriptions, the company became highly relevant to construction firms that prioritized efficient tool usage and reduced worker downtime over tool ownership. Hilti discovered that customers were willing to lease significantly more tools than they had previously purchased. During the 2008 financial crisis, when many companies halted tool purchases, Hilti’s recurring subscription model allowed them to weather the storm as clients continued to rent tools.

From low-tech to high-tech

Labor-intensive, low-tech value propositions are costly, resistant to change, and prone to disruption. Pharma companies need to embrace high-tech solutions, including AI and new forms of discovering, manufacturing, and delivering drugs.

For example, there are exciting opportunities in 3D printing. One major advantage of 3D drug printing is the ability to create personalized medications tailored to a patient’s unique needs. By adjusting the arrangement and density of active and inactive ingredients within pills, companies can produce drugs with precise release and absorption rates, enabling a new era of personalized medicine. Additionally, 3D printing allows for custom dosages at virtually no extra operational cost, increasing flexibility in medication production.

Another benefit of 3D printing is the creation of pills that are easier to swallow. For example, Aprecia’s ZipDose® Technology enables the manufacturing of highly porous, rapidly disintegrating pills that improve patient adherence. Custom polypills, designed for patients with multiple medications, can also enhance adherence and overall patient experience.

Moreover, 3D printing could lead to the democratization of pharmaceuticals, with hospitals and doctors’ offices potentially being able to manufacture their own medications. This can result in reduced costs for unused medication, more efficient storage, and better patient outcomes in remote areas.

Likewise, AI in pharma R&D offers several potential benefits, including redefining longstanding workflows, eliminating knowledge silos, and lowering costs. By increasing efficiency, accuracy, and effectiveness, AI can replace manual tasks and provide valuable statistical insights for improved decision-making. Furthermore, AI-powered knowledge-sharing and communication tools can break down knowledge silos, promoting collaboration and resource utilization. Lastly, AI can significantly reduce drug discovery costs by identifying inefficiencies, reducing redundancies, and optimizing processes, with some estimates suggesting savings of up to 70%.

Platform thinking

Business models based on recurring product sales demand continuous effort. By transitioning from a product-centric approach to a platform-based model, it’s possible to achieve much greater stability. Users of the network benefit through access and use of its many interconnected resources. It’s an instance of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, and platforms as a result are more resistant to disruption than individual products.

Best Buy, a company outside the pharmaceutical industry, successfully adopted this approach. Previously on a downward trajectory, Best Buy incorporated a platform focused on digital health, including AI-driven monitoring of elderly individuals in their homes, providing assistance in emergency situations such as falls. They also instituted one of Amazon’s successful tactics – offering a marketplace for big brands such as Samsung, Microsoft and Google. Their platform also includes subscription offers, contributing to the company’s dramatic growth and reversal of decline.

Another example is Apple, which shifted its business model with the launch of the App Store in 2008, connecting app developers and iPhone users. This transformation significantly increased customer value, created customer loyalty, and generated strong network effects. Consequently, Apple moved from solely selling hardware and its own software to managing a powerful platform—one that actually enhances the utility and attractiveness of its core products.

Achieving more together

An example from within the pharmaceutical industry comes from Novartis’ Biome initiative. Launched in 2018, Novartis Biome is a digital network of “innovation hubs” that fosters collaboration between Novartis and various other technology startups, healthcare providers, and other stakeholders. The goal is to develop innovative digital solutions that can address unmet healthcare needs and improve patient outcomes.

By creating the Biome platform, Novartis moved beyond the traditional pharmaceutical business model focused on drug (i.e., product) development and sales, instead leveraging their expertise and resources to build a network of partners that could jointly create and share value. This has allowed Novartis to indirectly explore digital health solutions in areas such as remote patient monitoring, AI-driven drug discovery, and personalized medicine. This not only increases value for customers but also creates synergies with Novartis’ core pharmaceutical business—much like Apple’s App Store did for its hardware products.

This is a prime example of what PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted in 2007 would become necessary by 2020. “The strategy of singlehandedly placing big bets on a few molecules, marketing them heavily, and turning them into blockbusters will not suffice.” Pharma needs to “‘profit together’ by joining forces with a wide range of organizations. The resultant network offers greater value to customers than any single company could alone, and it makes the operator of the network indispensable and thus more resistant to disruption.

New customers seeking, new products and services, delivered in new ways

Niche market to mass market

Pharma in recent years has experienced a “niching down”, and pharmaceutical companies have good reasons for doing so. Advances in genomics and molecular biology have allowed for more target therapies for specific populations; there has been a growing emphasis on developing drugs for rare (“orphan”) diseases, as encouraged by the FDA and EMA; the market has become increasingly competitive, and saturated; fragmentation of the payer landscape has required pharma to tailor its offering to specific payer groups (e.g. private insurers, government programs, and integrated healthcare networks); and personalized care is becoming increasingly sought after, leading to greater focus on niche markets and specialized therapies.

All of these are legitimate reasons to “niche down”, and they are trends that are unlikely to see a reversal any time soon (at least where the personalization of medicine is concerned).

But there are ways for pharma to maintain the benefits of these new approaches, while still capturing mass markets. One potential approach would be to concentrate on health and wellness generally instead of solely on illness and targeted drug therapies. The industry has a wealth of existing genetic knowledge and expertise, for example, that it could leverage to offer a broader range of services to the general public, rather than just patients.

A pharmaceutical company offering a $99/month subscription service that includes genetic analysis for subscribers would not only provide personalized recommendations to help individuals avoid or manage conditions they may be genetically predisposed to, but it would also ensure access to necessary medications if they eventually develop those conditions. By offering such a subscription, pharmaceutical companies could transition from a niche market to a mass-market approach, simultaneously expanding their customer base and promoting preventive healthcare.

Plus, it would provide pharma with access to even more genetic data, which could be used to better understand specific populations, develop better and more target drugs, and further increase the benefits of the subscription by offering better recommendations—not just around illnesses and drugs, but overall health and general lifestyle. Moving out of the “disease market” and into the “general health” market would be a big win for the industry.

From B2B to B2B2C:

With a few notable exceptions, pharmaceutical companies largely exist as faceless entities to the end consumer, because they deal mainly with physicians. But business structures are becoming flatter across all sectors as the gap between customers and businesses narrows. Pharmaceutical companies must become more relevant to the customer directly.

In the 1990s, for example, Intel launched its “Intel Inside” campaign to move from selling hardware just to PC manufacturers to educating consumers that this label meant a high-quality laptop. This allowed Intel to differentiate itself, charge more, and grow faster.

This can only be made possible by understanding patient experiences and building relationships in new ways. Transitioning from the faceless—even distrusted and shadowy—guise of “Big Pharma”, as it’s seen by the public today, to a trusted health facilitator is essential—and there are many ways to do it.

Pharma has already made inroads with direct-to-consumer advertising, patient support programs, and greater social media engagement. To continue these efforts, pharmaceutical companies should:

  • Emphasize corporate social responsibility (CSR) by funding research for neglected diseases, improving access to medications in underserved communities, and promoting environmental sustainability. By showcasing commitment to these issues, the industry can create a more positive image and strengthen its connection to consumers.
  • Develop consumer-oriented digital tools, such as mobile apps or wearable devices, that help individuals monitor their health, track symptoms, and manage their medications. (See, for example, Novartis’ smart NovoPens.)
  • Collaborate with patient advocacy groups, to better understand consumer needs and develop more patient-centric products and services, while also building trust and credibility within the patient community.
  • Personalize medicine and genetic testing, as previously mentioned, and thus move beyond the traditional role of drug manufacturers and become more integrated into the overall healthcare ecosystem.

Low-touch to high-touch:

High-touch approaches emphasize the importance of human interaction, empathy, and personalized care, which are considered crucial in building trust and understanding individual needs. On the other hand, low-touch solutions leverage technology, automation, and data analytics to streamline processes, reduce costs, and improve efficiency. The growing adoption of low-touch solutions, such as telemedicine, AI-driven diagnostics, and digital health platforms, has raised concerns about the potential erosion of human connection and empathy in healthcare delivery.

Importantly, the Covid-19 pandemic led to a rapid acceleration of low-touch (albeit highly convenient) approaches and tools in pharma and beyond. But, as we’ve seen above, there is a desperate need for pharma to become more personalized and more personable. We must consider the value of high-touch experiences in healthcare to achieve these goals, and strike a balance between low-touch and high-touch experiences, adeptly and seamlessly offering each as appropriate.

Apple exemplifies this balance. Unsurprisingly, the tech giant leverages automation and data analytics to provide extremely convenient, simple and intuitive low-touch experiences for purchases, support, and more. But they also offer personal, human interactions via the Genius Bar, present in every store and always busy. In-store buying experiences are likewise high-touch. Apple has understood that those who prefer low-touch will naturally gravitate towards such tools, if they are offered and powerful; and those who prefer high-touch interactions will similarly seek them out. By providing both, Apple has managed to satisfy a highly diverse market. Examples can be found within pharma, as well:

  • Novo Nordisk’s NovoCare platform combines digital tools and personalized support with resources like financial assistance, educational materials, and personalized care plans, as well as access to diabetes care specialists who can provide one-on-one guidance.
  • Sanofi’s MyStar Connect app provides personalized coaching and support for persons with diabetes, allowing them to track their blood glucose levels, set goals, and monitor their progress. In addition to the digital tools, Sanofi collaborates with healthcare professionals to offer patients access to educational programs.

Integrating technology-driven solutions with human interaction ensures patients receive both efficient support and personalized care. Notably, artificial intelligence can help automate the customer journey towards different touch points in a seamless manner. Next-generation chatbots and digital humans, for example, can provide high-touch experiences with low-touch stress on business, and help gather information for a human end-of-journey experience that’s highly personalized and successfully responds to customer expectations and needs.

Operating differently, using resources differently, and more effectively?

From dedicated to multi-usage resources

Businesses that can extract greater value from existing, especially untapped resources benefit from new and more diversified revenue streams and reduced costs of labor and raw materials. They can offer more to consumers and target new ones as well.

British Petroleum (BP) adopted this business model with great success when they started supplying petrochemical products to make clothes and building materials, produced refined petroleum products and scaled up co-processing of lower carbon fields, and identified new resources and development options for the exploitation an extract of oil and gas to extend the life of existing assets.

These existing resources needn’t necessarily be material in nature, though. Expertise and knowledge is also a resource that can be exploited in new ways.

With the digitization of film, FujiFilm was forced to pivot from analog film to other industries. They leveraged their expertise in collagen—a major component of both film and skin—to create Astalift skincare. This new adjacent business allowed them to bounce back when the analog film business declined, unlike Kodak. FujiFilm then expanded into medical devices, functional materials, and pharmaceuticals, building an entirely new value proposition while leveraging their existing expertise in collagen.

There are a few ways to do this in pharma, but one exciting and highly relevant way is by leveraging owned data sources with artificial intelligence. Pharmaceutical companies sell drugs, but they have many adjacent assets: data, relationships with doctors and patients, medical expertise, labs, supply chains, clinical trials, and more. Pharma must find new ways to combine and use these.

There are already some exciting examples in the industry:

  • Pfizer partnered with Concerto HealthAI to utilize real-world data and AI to optimize clinical trial design and accelerate drug development.
  • Novartis partnered with Microsoft to develop an AI-powered drug design platform to expedite the drug discovery process.
  • AstraZeneca partnered with BenevolentAI to use AI to identify new drug targets for chronic kidney disease.
  • Roche partnered with GE Healthcare to develop a digital platform that uses AI to optimize patient outcomes by analyzing data from medical imaging and other sources.
  • Sanofi partnered with Google to use AI and machine learning to improve their drug development processes and accelerate the discovery of new therapeutic targets.

A final notable example comes from 23andMe. They began by selling direct-to-consumer genetic testing kits for ancestry and health analysis. Roughly 80% of buyers opted in to having their data used by the company, which quickly developed a database of genetic data and was able to sell it, anonymised, to medical researchers, governments, universities, the military, and more. They then went into drug discovery, both on their own and in collaboration with pharmaceutical companies, and have since developed at least one drug.

Pharma has equal access to rich and highly relational medical data whose uses go well beyond current applications.

Other ways to transition from dedicated to multi-usage resources include:

  • Recycling and repurposing products, byproducts (both material and immaterial), and waste. For example, some byproducts and waste materials of pharmaceutical manufacturing can be used as fuel, raw materials for other industries, and in the production of other pharmaceutical products.
  • Traditional manufacturing processes in pharma rely on dedicated production lines and equipment optimized for specific products. Adopting flexible manufacturing processes allows for the repurposing and sharing of resources across different product lines.
  • Sharing research and development resources with other players within and beyond pharma to reduce duplication of efforts.

Asset-heavy to asset-light

Many aspects of the pharmaceutical industry are asset-heavy. The development and operation of manufacturing plants requires significant capital investment, specialized facilities, and equipment that meets regulatory standards. R&D and clinical trials, likewise, require specialized facilities, equipment and expertise, and complex supply chain and distribution networks are necessary to ensure timely delivery of drugs.

Many pharmaceutical companies have wisely begun looking for ways to reduce their asset-heavy operations and transition to asset-light business models, by outsourcing manufacturing, divesting non-core assets, and leveraging intellectual property and knowledge. There are two primary ways of achieving this.

The first is to outsource asset-heavy operations. The ATLATL Innovation Center in China is a good example of this. The center offers a range of services to pharmaceutical companies, including R&D, clinical trials, manufacturing, and supply chain management. By outsourcing these operations, pharmaceutical companies can reduce their asset-heavy operations, reduce costs, and focus on their core business of developing innovative drugs.

Another pertinent example comes from BestBuy, which was able to shift the cost of show-rooms by allowing Samsung, Microsoft and Google to open up kiosks within BestBuy stores—a move that helped save the company from bankruptcy when faced with stiff competition from Amazon. The business model allows both sides to share in the risks and rewards of getting closer to the customer.

The second is to leverage recent advancements in technology to transform once asset-heavy operations into light ones. For example, the advent of 3D printing, though, offers new ways for pharmaceutical companies to produce drugs in smaller batches, allowing for greater variation and personalization in the drugs produced.

And these two methods needn’t be mutually exclusive. The ATLATL center already offers pharmaceutical companies access to 3D printing technology to manufacture drugs, allowing pharmaceutical companies to reduce their capital expenditure and operational costs, while still maintaining regulatory compliance and ensuring the safety and efficacy of the drugs.

Closed to open innovation

With open innovation, firms create and leverage partnerships with startups and disruptors, rather than relying exclusively or primarily on in-house efforts to innovate. The job of the central business then becomes one of coordination. Pharma is no stranger to this model, and partnerships with AI tech developers and start-ups are already common.

Novartis established the Novartis Venture Fund to identify and fund early-stage life science companies. AstraZeneca’s Open Innovation Gateway provides a platform for external researchers and startups to collaborate with the company on drug discovery and development. Many labs, including Zoetis and Pfizer, have Compound Transfer Programs to the same end.

There are several key ways pharmaceutical companies can continue championing and benefiting from open innovation:

  • Partnering with experts in AI and ML to analyze data from internal and external sources, such as research papers, clinical trials, and patient data, to identify new drug candidates.
  • Launching online platforms and contests to engage the public, including patients and caregivers, in “crowdsourced” drug discovery.
  • Partnering with patient advocacy groups to identify unmet medical needs and innovate new ways to support existing patients, especially beyond the pill.
  • Partnering with experts in blockchain for secure data sharing between pharmaceutical companies, external researchers, and other stakeholders.
  • Collaborating with non-traditional partners, such as consumer goods companies, to develop new drug delivery systems, improve patient engagement, and enhance patient monitoring.

The name of the game is synergy, and there are countless opportunities for pharmaceutical companies with the growing number of startups, both within and beyond health sciences, as well as incumbents in other areas.

Changing the relationship between revenue and costs

High- to low-cost:

Historically, pharmaceutical business models have avoided low-cost products because they appear to offer low returns. But with newer technologies, business models can adapt to create cost structures that attract customers with smaller budgets.

In 2002, Dow Corning (now Dow Silicones Corporation) recognized that the market for silicone was becoming increasingly competitive, and that their business was under threat. In response, they created a new business model to offer silicon products at a lower cost than their competitors, which they called Xiameter. Xiameter ran alongside their original, high-cost silicon business.

Apple’s various lineups are another example. Customers can purchase an iPhone Pro Max for $1200 or an iPhone SE for $300; an Apple Watch Ultra for $800 or an Apple Watch SE for $250.

Pharma could do the same with generic drugs. Currently, they mostly let them go (although Novartis and Pfizer both produce branded and generic drugs, to great effect). And demand for generic drugs has more than doubled in the last 10 years, capturing roughly 75% of prescriptions.

Transactions to recurring revenue:

We already explored one way of doing this above with subscription models. The case is well illustrated with Adobe Creative Cloud;

  • From transactional to subscription. Adobe moved from perpetual software licenses to a monthly subscription service for Adobe Creative Cloud, and was able to increase revenue year on year.
  • From sales to recurring service propositions. The perpetual software license required seasonal software upgrades. With Creative Cloud, subscribers get immediate access to upgrades, online technical support, online storage, publishing, and file-sharing capabilities.
  • From transactional to long-term relationship. The move to Creative Cloud meant that relationships between the customer and Adobe moved from a punctual, transactional event to a long-term engagement and relationships. Adobe leveraged this to create a thriving online user community that greatly contributes to the overall value proposition.
  • From continuous, hard-won customer acquisition to single, first-time acquisitions. Finally, the move allowed Adobe to focus on acquiring customers once, and then providing them with a lifetime of products and services.

There are other ways to make the transition from transactional to recurring revenue:

  • Maintenance and Support: Pharmaceutical companies can (and do) offer ongoing monitoring of patient health and regular check-ins with healthcare providers through partnerships with healthcare providers and through the development of proprietary software and monitoring tools.
  • Service Contracts: Pharmaceutical companies could offer service contracts that provide ongoing access to certain services, such as telemedicine consultations or access to specialty pharmacy services. These contracts could be sold directly to consumers or through partnerships with healthcare providers.
  • Memberships: Pharmaceutical companies could create membership programs that provide access to exclusive products, services, or content. For example, access to patient education materials, personalized health coaching, or discounts on prescription drugs.

Implementation of these models in the pharmaceutical industry can be challenging due to the complex regulatory environment and the need for extensive clinical testing and safety monitoring. However, there are opportunities for companies to innovate and explore new ways of generating recurring revenue and building long-term relationships with customers.

Multi-shift models

How can we combine different transformations to make businesses unique and hard to replicate?

Of course, while it is possible to shift the business model so that it predominantly embraces one of the shifts above, it may work to incorporate multiple business model shifts. Indeed, in many cases, it is beneficial to create a unique business model that draws on different aspects, creating a highly-customized business model. Business models that combine different multi-shifts, as appropriate to the individual business, are generally more competitive and much harder to replicate, disrupt and displace. A complex web of business model strands ensures competitive advantage.

Ørsted is a Danish energy company. In 2009, it recognized that fossil fuels were neither environmentally sustainable nor financially viable. The company made the decision to shift from fossil fuels to green energy technology, with three key drivers to combat climate change:

  • It aimed to phase out coal by 2023 and generate nearly 100% green energy by 2025, focusing entirely on renewables.
  • It strove to become a leader in offshore wind and develop innovations and large-scale deployment of onshore wind, solar energy, and storage solutions, with the goal of delivering green energy to hundreds of millions of people.
  • It sought to gradually phase out natural gas trading activities while increasing the green share of power traded, and work with suppliers to reduce carbon emissions from the manufacturing and installation of renewable energy.

To achieve these goals, Ørsted made several shifts in their business model, starting in 2012.

  • A shift from dedicated resources to multi-usage of key resources. Ørsted was a leader in offshore drilling know-how in the North Sea and decided to move to building offshore wind farms, facilitating a radical shift from fossil fuel energy to renewables.
  • A move from low tech to high tech, investing significant costs to move to new high-tech green power plants. The government facilitated this transition through subsidies to support Ørsted’s move to wind farms.
  • A transition from volatile transaction revenues to predictable recurring revenues. Traditional revenues from fossil fuels were volatile due to price dependence and geopolitical factors, including fluctuating commodity prices. Wind-based energy, however, has fixed pricing due to subsidies, which allowed Ørsted to move their fixed pricing to 81% of their portfolio in 2018.

Ørsted’s successful transition to renewable energy was facilitated by strategic shifts in their business model, including a move to multi-usage of key resources, a shift from low tech to high tech, and a focus on predictable recurring revenues.

Another example comes from one of pharma’s main players, Danish company Novo Nordisk.

Founded in 1923, Novo Nordisk is not a newcomer to the pharmaceutical arena. It made its name as a specialist in diabetes management and has become one of the world’s leading insulin producers. Diabetes is a growing global health crisis, with 463 million living with the disease worldwide.

Novo Nordisk realized that straightforward insulin and diabetes care products were insufficient for the future and needed to innovate to become sustainable. Using artificial intelligence and other technological tools, Novo Nordisk now provides connected tools, platforms, programs and services for those with diabetes, helping to improve their care and wellbeing.

In terms of business model shifts, Novo Nordisk undertook many of the above, including moving from transactional to recurring revenue, changes from sales to platform (while still maintaining the pay-per-pill alongside the new revenue model), and a shift from dedicated resources to multi-usage resources. Fundamentally, they undertook a value proposition shift while retaining some core elements of being a drug company. They underwent a seismic change from being drug-led to becoming customer relationship-led. Using AI tools, they became industry leaders in digital therapeutics in the diabetes space.

Novo Nordisk’s business model incorporates artificial intelligence in multiple ways. For example, their diabetes pens track accurate dosing data, linked, using Near Field Communication, to a user’s chosen app so that patients can view insulin and blood sugar data together. This provides better data and insight to patients and their physicians, allowing for better diabetes management. It also ensures a more personalized customer approach with digital therapeutics that allow individual choice. Alongside this, there is a shift to multi-usage resources using data collected to optimize the development of new diabetes solutions with better predictions.

Novo Nordisk’s success is a testament to its ability to change its business model radically.

Common traits among future-proofed companies

Businesses that demonstrate resilience to disruption and shifting markets share several common traits. Pharma would do well to adopt these in its efforts to transition to more sustainable, profitable and future-proofed business models.

  • Personalization: Personalization is becoming increasingly important in pharma, as patients demand more customized treatment options. By leveraging data and technology, pharma companies can create more personalized medicines and treatment plans, which can lead to better health outcomes for patients.
  • Asset Sharing: Pharma companies can adopt asset-sharing models to reduce costs and improve resource utilization. For example, companies can share manufacturing and research facilities, as well as equipment and personnel, to improve operational efficiency and reduce waste.
  • Collaborative Ecosystem: Building a collaborative ecosystem within pharma can enable companies to share knowledge and resources more effectively, fostering innovation and driving better health outcomes for patients. Collaboration can also help reduce the time and cost of drug development, bringing new treatments to market more quickly.
  • Closed Loop: Pharma companies can adopt closed-loop systems to reduce waste and improve sustainability. Closed-loop systems involve using waste materials or byproducts from one process as inputs for another process, creating a circular system that minimizes waste and maximizes resource utilization.
  • Usage-based Pricing: Usage-based pricing models can help make medicines more affordable and accessible for patients, especially in developing countries where affordability can be a major barrier to accessing healthcare.
  • Agility: The pharmaceutical industry is constantly evolving, and companies that can adapt quickly to changing market conditions and patient needs will be better positioned for success. By adopting agile processes and technologies, pharma companies can respond more quickly to market demands and patient needs, improving their competitiveness and profitability.

How pharma can future proof with new business models

Change is never easy, and resistance is normal. However, disruptors to the pharmaceutical industry won’t sit idly by, waiting for big players to make a change. All signals point to a radically different future for pharma, where the pay-per-pill blockbuster model no longer serves pharmaceutical companies, physicians or patients.

Now, it’s a case of getting on board or getting left behind. Technology and AI are already revolutionizing healthcare with a shift from treatment to prevention and early detection. Digital therapeutics (DTx) are proving as effective as drugs without the bothersome or dangerous side effects, and nanobots promise to revolutionize all areas of medicine in a future that’s not as distant as some might believe.

Numerous big tech businesses and start-ups are focused on redesigning healthcare for the coming generations, and the pharmaceutical industry must plan carefully for long-term survival with similar profit margins.

Business model shifts require reflection, insight and courage. Transformation is challenging, but it is necessary and can be successfully implemented. The most effective way forwards is to to create an innovative framework by leveraging the experience and expertise of leaders in transformation, such as Eularis, who have successfully created and executed strategies to help pharma companies leverage tech enablers such as Artficial Intelligence (AI) and new business models, make better-informed decisions, increase efficiency, and improve their profitability through the strategic use of AI and other innovative solutions.

Explore more about business innovation

“Roche Rise” is a series of workshops by Peter Fisk for the future leaders of Roche, the Swiss pharma business – making sense of today’s changing world, understanding how business is responding, embracing an inclusive leadership approach:

  • Roche Rise, Week 1: Future Recoded … How will you embrace the megatrends to shape a better future?
    • Market disruption, future uncertainty, and accelerated change
    • Global megatrends, new possibilities, and emerging agendas
    • Future shapers, from 23andMe and Philip Morris, to Epic and Jio, Tesla and Twelve
  • Roche Rise, Week 2: Business Recoded … What are the new business models to drive success?
    • New business models, with purpose and profit, innovating every aspect of business
    • Power shifts, network dynamics, consumer influences and business partners
    • Business innovators, from Danone to PingAn, Haier to Fujifilm, Schneider and Shein
  • Roche Rise, Week 3: Work Recoded … How are we changing how we work as individuals and organisations?
    • New ways of working, beyond the hybrid, the power of teams and ecosystems
    • Organic organisations, distributed and empowered, fluid and dynamic
    • Work innovators, from Alphabet and Netflix, Haier and Haufe, Microsoft and Unilever
  • Roche Rise, Week 4: Leadership Recoded … Where do you start, in creating a future-fit business?
    • Getting started, from the future back, and the from the outside in
    • Future and growth mindsets, diverse and inclusive cultures, flat organisations and no rules
    • Inspired by Anne Wojcicki and Satya Nadella, Jessica Tan and Eric Yuan, and you.

This week we focus on Future Recoded, and making sense of “what happens next” in the world, across markets, and in healthcare.

You can read more about the topics covered, including:

  • Futures … What are the megatrends, and how are they shaking up every industry?
  • Leadership … What are the new challenges for leaders, and why inclusive leadership matters?
  • Innovation … How are businesses responding, what are the new business models?
  • 49 Codes … Where do I start, what do I do, how do I transform my business for a better future?
  • 100 Companies … Anne Wojcicki to Zhang Yimin, who are the world’s most inspiring leaders?
  • 100 Leaders … Arabica and Aerofarms,  Zespri and Zipline, who are the most innovative companies?

And more from the fast-changing world of healthcare:

We live in a time of incredible change. Dramatic, pervasive, and relentless. More change in the next 10 years than the last 250 years. Incredible technologies, expectant consumers, climate crisis, social distrust, and much more. How will you embrace the megatrends? Disruptive technologies, connected and intelligent; economic power shifts, 80% of the middle class in emerging markets; resource scarcity, where water is the biggest risk; demographic change, where markets are older, demanding and mobile; and rapid urbanisation, 33 of the 45 megacities in Asia.

“Future Recoded” is about making sense of today’s rapidly changing world, and understanding how to prepare for, and succeed, in tomorrow’s world.

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?

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

Accelerating Change

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.

“Roche Rise” is a series of sessions by Peter Fisk for the future leaders of Roche, the Swiss pharma business – making sense of today’s changing world, understanding how business is responding, embracing an inclusive leadership approach:

The last few years have seen a transformation in how we work. How we work personally, how we contribute to teams, how we work for and as organisations and ecosystems. And also, why.

Hybrid working, obviously – but also more flexible to fit with your life, more collaborative across geographic borders, more access to resources and new work tools like Miro, more multi-tasking, less commuting, more empowered, less formality, more deep work.

Remote working was not the answer. It brought frustrations – the lack of socialisation, of a team home, the intensity of being “always on”, the seeming lack of purpose and importance given of business given else was happening in the world, and then going back traditional organisations seemed too rigid and hierarchical, and “the great resignation” followed.

Now, as companies look beyond the pandemic, many are adapting to new hybrid models – hybrid in the sense of home and work, hybrid in the sense of employed and freelance, hybrid in the sense of work and lifestyle.

The future of work, however,  is a much bigger question – the search for meaning, the shift towards organic organisations, working in partnerships and ecosystems, rewards beyond money, portfolio working as a norm, finding new ways to engage young people, harnessing digital tools for efficiency, and humanity for imagination.

The disruption, and experiment, has allowed companies and individuals to reimagine how we work.

Work Recoded

“The future of work” was already a huge question before Covid ever hit. Digitally-enabled transformation of every market and organisation demands that business thinks, adds value and works in new ways. Fast and connected, automated or augmented, collaborative ecosystems and empowered teams, gig workers and multi careers, more flexible, more hybrid, more human.

Haier, the world leader in home appliances, is a ecosystem of 10,000 micro-enteprises, highly innovative and incentivised. Google did a huge study into what made teams effective, and transformed its ways of working as a result. Haufe, the German electronics engineer, has a bi-annual employee vote to agree the CEO. Dutch homecare organisation Buurtzorg empowers people to work how they judge best to achieve team goals.

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Work agenda, updated annually, creates a strong vision of a rapidly changing world of work, most significantly driven by the fourth industrial revolution, the challenge of technology, but also the imperative for human ingenuity. My new book Business Recoded builds on this, connecting it with other ideas such as Laloux’s reimagined organisations, Haier’s “rendanheyi” devolved structure, and Google Aristotle’s safe and extreme teaming:

  • Future-proofed organisations – simple, flat and agile structures – connecting people and partners
  • Align new technologies and skills – augmenting and enabling people to add more beyond process and machine
  • Work portfolios – everyone is a project worker, internally or gig-working, lifelong learning and evolving
  • Doing meaningful work – more purposeful, more responsible, more valued outcomes, particularly for GenZ
  • Human-centric leadership – organisations as platforms to enable people to achieve their potential

The pandemic’s disruption has accelerated this shift. Without choice, we all found ourselves experimenting with new environments, new tools, new ways of working.

Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends report for 2021 focuses on the shrift from surviving to thriving, both in the sense of surviving the pandemic and thriving as we emerge, but also a more general complacency in business, to choose stability over change.  It highlights 5 big trends:

  • Designing work for wellbeing (and the end of the work/life balance or separation)
  • Unleashing human potential (beyond skills, enabling new mindsets and freedoms)
  • Building superteams (power of teams, and using tech to augment the humanity)
  • Adaptive strategies (embracing uncertainty, to make better decisions, with agility)
  • Rearchitecting organisations (enterprise-wide mindset, more fluid, connected and human)

One of the most insightful analysis of what is happening comes from Microsoft, and while they clearly have a Teams-centred tech view of of the digital workspace, they are also an organisation of 166,000 people across the world. Over the last two years I have seen at first hand how they are rapidly embracing a new work style, physical and virtual, not just where, but why and how their people approach work.

Microsoft’s report (see below) has key messages including “leaders are out of touch … productivity masks exhaustion … GenZ most at risk … authenticity drives well-being … innovation in danger … talent is everywhere”.

Teal organisations, hybrid models, B corporations, extreme teams, psychological safety, meta jobs, soft skills, project centric, GenZ engagement, new work contracts, portfolio working, employee democracy, human-tech augmentation, and much more.

I call it “Work Recoded”:

Future Work

By 2025 the majority of workers will be freelance individuals working around the world, independent of distance or background. They will apply their human, emotional, and creative skills to solve ever-more complex problems. They have the hunger to keep learning throughout their lives, the agility to keep adapting and updating their skills, and the open-mindedness to see things differently.

Modern and high-tech working environments are enhanced by a community feeling with shared facilities and resources. Many of the workers are not even employed by the companies, instead they are happier to remain freelance “gig-workers” working on projects that require specialist inputs. New ideas, new skills, new innovations and new opportunities swirl around in the creative atmosphere, and new partnerships often emerge out of the fusion. This is the new world of work. No jobs for life. Few permanent roles. Fluid job descriptions. Multiple jobs at the same time. And companies working together.

Some of the jobs of the future will be highly technical, whilst others will be much more human. In exploring the jobs of the future, Ben Pring from Cognizant explores 4Es to consider the skills required:

  • Eternal skills: Some human skills have existed since our very beginning. No matter how brilliant our technologies become, these human skills, along with many others, will be of value through eternity.
  • Enduring skills: The ability to sell has always been important. Other such enduring abilities – being empathetic, trusting, helping, imagining, creating, striving – will always be needed. Such skills will be central to jobs of the future.
  • Emerging skills: New skills for the future relate to the complexity, density and speed of work. The skill to use a 315mb Excel spreadsheet, or to navigate a drone virtual cockpit. These will enhance our ability to utilise new machines.
  • Eroding skills: Many skills that used to be special are now normal, to manage a social media platform, to product a fantastic presentation, whilst others are redundant like photocopying or replaced like data entry.

However the World Economic Forum suggests that more jobs will be created than lost, 133 million created and 75 million lost over the 5 years to 2025, as we see a huge evolution in the workplace of what people do, as well as how they do it. Top emerging jobs will include:

  • Data analysts and scientists
  • AI and machine learning specialists
  • Software and application developers
  • Sales and marketing professionals
  • Digital transformations specialists

Beyond technology, data and AI, many new roles will also emerge in the broader aspects of engineering and sustainable development. The growth in elderly will drive a boom in care work, and many more creative roles will emerge through relentless innovation and more human pursuits, like sport and entertainment.

Completely new jobs in specific industries will emerge such as

  • Flying car developers
  • Virtual identity defenders
  • Tidewater architects
  • Smart home designers
  • Joy adjutants

Analysis by BCG in 2020 shoes that 95% of most at risk workers could find good quality, higher paid jobs, if they are prepared to make the transition. This shift also offers the opportunity to close the wage gap, with 74% of women and 53% of men likely to find higher paid roles.  It suggests that around 70% of those affected will need to make a significant shift in job, requiring a huge skills revolution.

At the same time, it is not just about refitting people for new jobs. The “dandelion principle”, embraced by organisations like SAP, starts by hiring great people with a diversity of backgrounds and skills to create a richer talent base. It then seeks to build jobs around people, rather than people around jobs, in a more symbiotic way.

More human, more creative, more female

As machines take on our more physical skills, the opportunity is for people to be liberated from the drudgery of repetitive tasks to add more human, creative and emotional value. Imagination will drive progress, whilst machines sustain efficiency.

Human skills matter not only within the workplace, but also in engaging with consumers. In a world of automated interfaces, brands will differentiate  on their ability to be more intuitive, empathic and caring. The roles of people, assistants in stores, nurses in hospitals, teachers in classrooms, will be to add-value with premium levels of service.

Creative skills are not only in demand in the areas of communication, marketing and innovation, but also in rethinking how organisations can better work, how business models can be transformed, and machines themselves deployed in better ways.

Typically these “softer” skills are what we could call more “female” attributes. Of course, that is to stereotype genders, but it certainly requires more empathy than apathy, intuition than evidence, influence than instruction, care than control. At the same time it requires men to adopt these behaviours too, and in general to embrace inequalities and diversity.

BCG’s 2020 research suggests that analytical and critical thinking skills will be crucial to the future of the work, alongside more emotional intelligence and social influence. Learning and creative capabilities will be the most significant growth areas for development in the coming years. They identified these priorities:

  • Analytical thinking and innovation
  • Active learning and learning strategies
  • Creativity, originality and initiative
  • Technology design and programming
  • Critical thinking and analysis
  • Complex problem-solving
  • Leadership and social influence
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Reasoning, problem-solving and ideation
  • Systems analysis and evaluation.

Meta skills, rather than technical or specialist skills which we may have trained for or focused on in the past, will become more significant. These are the more enduring skills which  allow us to evolve and adapt to relentless change. Sensemaking, learning to learn, coping with uncertainty and change.

Sometimes this will require us to unlearn first, to let go of old assumptions and prejudices, and open our minds to new possibilities and perspectives.

In “The 100 Year Life” Lynda Gratton recognises that as life expectancy moves beyond 100, most of us will work for longer, and transition more often, with around seven different phases in our career journeys – not just new jobs, but entirely new vocations.

Future Organisations

Qingdao is the home of Haier, the world’s leading home appliances business. Over the years, the company’s CEO Zhang Ruimin has become an innovator not only of washing machines and refrigerators, but of organisations and entrepreneurship too.

Once a devotee of the “six sigma” approach, Zhang has developed his own management ideology: rendanheyi. By dividing a company up into micro-enterprises on an open platform and dismantling the traditional “empire” management system, rendanheyi creates “zero distance” between employee and the needs of the customer.

At the heart of rendanheyi is the cultivation of entrepreneurship – by removing the costly level of middle management (Zhang famously eliminated the positions of 10,000 employees), you encourage innovation, flexibility and risk-taking.

The quantum mechanics of business

On meeting, we quickly found a common background, having both studied physics, and specifically quantum mechanics. I was curious about how he had embraced the ideas of physical science into his vision of how Haier should work as an organisation. We quickly got into a passionate, and somewhat technical discussion about atomic structure and wave theory. Whilst I’m not sure atomic physics would be many business people’s ideal topic, I was intrigued.

“When I first studied physics, I was amazed by the perpetual motion of subatomic particles. Electrons and protons coexist in a dynamic equilibrium, created by their equal and opposite charges. This sustains a continual existence, it enables atoms to come together in many different formats as molecules, each with their own unique properties, and within these atomic structures is huge amounts of energy”.

The application to business becomes clear, and also much of the founding ideas behind why and how he has developed his rendanheyi model of entrepreneurial businesses.

“Applying this idea from physics to business” he says “small teams of people with different backgrounds, skills, and ideas, can co-exist incredibly effectively. It is the ability to create small diverse teams where ideas and actions are equally dynamic, that enables a business to sustain over time. They become self-organising and mutually enabling. Ideas, innovation and implementation are continuous. And they can easily link with other teams, like atoms coming together as molecules, for collaborative projects and to create new solutions.”

As a result, he challenges the old supremacy of shareholders in the value equation, putting a premium on employees, and the value created by them and for them. However, at the same time, he recognises the need to empower employees to be more customer intimate. As a result, the rate of growth has risen from 8% to 30% in recent years.

 “People are not a means to an end, but an end in themselves. We took away all of our middle management. Now things are working much better. Zero signature, zero approval. Now we have only one supervisor, which is the customer.”

Haier’s evolution has been rapid and relentless, as Zhang has driven the company from an old refrigerator factory – where indiscipline and poor quality was so rife that he took to shock tactics, taking a sledge hammer to some of the products to demonstrate that such mediocrity was no longer acceptable – to a pioneer of digital tech.

In the 1990s, Haier focused on the Chinese market, building a portfolio of high-quality standardised products. The 2000s was about internationalisation, reaching across the world, and then adding more localisation and customisation. The 2010s have been all about digitalisation, embracing the power of automation and data, to the point where Haier is now one of the world’s leading producers of “smart” products, embedded with Internet of Things, IoT, and connected intelligently.

However, the implications are profound. Today, Haier is not motivated by seeking to create the best product. With a brand purpose that seeks to make people’s lives better, it looks beyond products to services, to how it can do more to help people live in their everyday lives, with a focus on the intelligent home.

“In a digital world of globalization, connectivity and personalization, there is no such thing as a perfect product. People will buy scenarios, or concepts, where the products might be free and act as enablers for services. Haier’s products embrace IoT to ensure that they connect with other devices, with other partners in our ecosystems, and with people and their homes. In the future, maybe the product will be free, and people will pay for services – from food delivery, to home entertainment, security or maintenance.”

Organisations as living organisms

The way we manage organisations seems increasingly out of date.

Most employees are disengaged. Too often work is associated with  dread and drudgery, rather than passion or purpose.

Leaders complain that their organisations are too slow, siloed and bureaucratic for today’s world. Behind the façade and bravado, many business leaders are deeply frustrated by the endless power games and politics of corporate life.

Frédéric Laloux offers an alternative. In his book “Reinventing Organizations” he uses the metaphor of an organisation as a living system, with radically streamlined structures that facilitate active involvement and self-management.

He envisions a new organisational model, which is self-managed, built around a “wholeness” approach to life and work, and guided by an “evolutionary purpose”.

Wholeness means that people strive to be themselves, rather than putting on a mask when they go to work. This, he argues can only be achieved when they let go of the idea of “work-life balance” which encourages a compromise. By aligning personal and organisational purpose and passions, you have less stress, and contribute more.

Evolutionary purpose means that meaning and direction of the business is not defined from above but drawn from what feels right amongst people. It might be articulated in a manifesto which defines the actions most admired, the new projects that receive the most interest. And it is constantly evolving, as both the culture inside, and world outside, evolve too.

Laloux describes humanity as evolving in stages. Inspired by the philosopher Ken Wilber, he describes five stages of human consciousness, with associated colours, and proposes that organizations evolve according to these same stages. They are:

  • Impulsive (red): Characterised by establishing and enforcing authority through power, eg mafia, street gangs. For business, this is reflected in the functional boundaries, and top down authority.
  • Conformist (amber): The group shapes its own beliefs and value. Self-discipline, shame and guilt, are used to enforce them, eg military, religion. For business this means replicable processes, and defined organizations.
  • Achievement (orange): The world is seen as a machine, seeking scientifically to predict, control and deliver, eg banking, MBA programs. For business this means Innovation, analytics and metrics, and accountability
  • Pluralistic (green): Characterised by a sense of inclusion, to treat all people as equal, more like a family, eg non-profits. For business this means a values-driven culture, empowerment and shared value.
  • Evolutionary (teal): The world is seen as neither fixed nor machine, but a place where everyone is called by an inner purpose to contribute, eg holocracy. For business this means self-management and wholeness.

Most organisations today are “orange”, still driven by analysis and metrics, driving profitability and growth. Examples of “green” organisations include Apple, Ben & Jerry’s, Starbucks. Examples of “teal” organisations might be Patagonia, Buurtzorg and Morning Star.

The end of hierarchy

What replaces the old hierarchies of organisations?

Henry Ford built his organisation for stability, efficiency and standardisation. Clearly defined processes and controls ensured that it worked like a machine, no space for deviance or change. Some decades later, Kaori Ishikawa went further to systemise the approach with total quality management, seen as the secret of Japan’s industrial success in the late 20th century. Efficiency was the goal, not creativity.

However, today’s world requires a different approach. Business needs to be fast and adaptive to a world of change. Technology has transformed the roles of people inside organisations, automating processes, adding intelligent systems, and digital interfaces. The value of organisations lies in its ideas, reputation and reach. Organisations embrace the connectedness of the outside world, technology enabling knowledge sharing, fast decision making, and collaborative working.

Flat organisations became fast and agile, putting customers at their heart. Yet this is all structural, and did not in itself create difference. In a world where businesses could essentially do anything, they have become more purposeful, and also more distinctive in their character and beliefs.

Expert teams don’t need the old controls. Empowered and enabled, they become more self-managing, and teams collectively work together towards a higher purpose and strategic framework that guides but doesn’t prescribe. As a result, the business develops a human-like consciousness. It resembles a complex adaptive system, where there is a wholeness built on multiple non-linear connections, combining progress with agility.

Buurtzorg, like Haier, is a great example of self-managing teams. The Dutch healthcare business provides home support to elderly people. It recognised that local teams, which acted largely autonomously had a much great commitment to their work, than if they were managed centrally using standard efficiency metrics.

Haufe Group is an innovative media and software business in Freiburg, in the heart of Germany’s Black Forest. As an organisation they have long put people first, sharing in the development of strategy, and the rewards of success. When it came to appointing a new CEO, the company realised that this couldn’t just be imposed on such a democratic structure, and so now holds elections to find who amongst peers will be the leader.

If, as Peter Drucker said, “the purpose of an organisation is to enable ordinary human beings to do extraordinary things” then organisations must evolve to make this possible.

More useful links

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.

“Business Recoded” is about making sense of today’s rapidly changing world, and understanding how to prepare for, and 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.

Agenda

1: Worldchanging: How do you see the future?

We live in a time of incredible change. Dramatic, pervasive, and relentless. More change in the next 10 years than the last 250 years. Incredible technologies, expectant consumers, climate crisis, social distrust, and much more.

  • Every market is shaken up, how pandemic accelerated the future
  • Asia to AI, GenZ and gene-editing, sustainability and the super-apps
  • Who were the winners during two years of pandemic-driven revolution?

2: Megatrends: How to harness the change drivers?

How will you embrace the megatrends? Disruptive technologies, connected and intelligent; economic power shifts, 80% of the middle class in emerging markets; resource scarcity, where water is the biggest risk; demographic change, where markets are older, demanding and mobile; and rapid urbanisation, 33 of the 45 megacities in Asia.

  • What the 5 megatrends mean for me, turning challenge into opportunity
  • Starting from the future back, working from the outside in
  • Decoding the changing consumer types, and their new priorities

3: Reimagining Business: What are the new codes of business?

The old codes of business don’t work anymore. The most innovative companies – from Alibaba 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 we learn the world’s most innovative companies right now
  • Exploring the radical innovations of companies like Orsted and PingAn
  • 7 priorities for business to be winners in 2022 and beyond

Introduction: Accelerating Change

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.

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.

“Business Recoded” is about making sense of today’s rapidly changing world, and understanding how to prepare for, and 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.

Agenda

1: Worldchanging: How do you see the future?

We live in a time of incredible change. Dramatic, pervasive, and relentless. More change in the next 10 years than the last 250 years. Incredible technologies, expectant consumers, climate crisis, social distrust, and much more.

  • Every market is shaken up, how pandemic accelerated the future
  • Asia to AI, GenZ and gene-editing, sustainability and the super-apps
  • Who were the winners during two years of pandemic-driven revolution?

2: Megatrends: How to harness the change drivers?

How will you embrace the megatrends? Disruptive technologies, connected and intelligent; economic power shifts, 80% of the middle class in emerging markets; resource scarcity, where water is the biggest risk; demographic change, where markets are older, demanding and mobile; and rapid urbanisation, 33 of the 45 megacities in Asia.

  • What the 5 megatrends mean for me, turning challenge into opportunity
  • Starting from the future back, working from the outside in
  • Decoding the changing consumer types, and their new priorities

3: Reimagining Business: What are the new codes of business?

The old codes of business don’t work anymore. The most innovative companies – from Alibaba 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 we learn the world’s most innovative companies right now
  • Exploring the radical innovations of companies like Orsted and PingAn
  • 7 priorities for business to be winners in 2022 and beyond

Introduction: Accelerating Change

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.

Download a summary of Peter Fisk’s Innovation and Transformation Masterclass. 

How do you see the future? Peter Fisk’s keynote builds on his new book Business Recoded to explore the post-pandemic world, the new opportunities emerging as every market is shaken up, and what it takes to reimagine the future and embrace the waves of change.

Agenda:

0930 – 1100    Session 1: Future Mindset

  • Change, disruption, markets and metaverses
  • Thinking from the future back
  • Innovation as your growth driver
  • What the world’s most innovative companies do

1100 – 1230    Session 2: Innovation Scenarios

  • Moonshots and megatrends
  • Exploring your critical future drivers
  • Learning from retail and healthcare
  • Developing scenarios for innovation

1330 – 1500    Session 3: Business Innovation

  • 10 types of innovation, and which matter most
  • Unlocking the business model canvas
  • Creative applications for your business
  • The next big innovations in financial services

1500 – 1630    Session 4: Transforming Futures

  • What really is business transformation?
  • Explore tomorrow, and also exploit today
  • Building an “invincible” innovation portfolio
  • Being a performer-transformer leader

Peter takes you on a journey that rides the 5 seismic megatrends reshaping every market over the next 10 years, and what this means for business and its leaders in driving future strategies, innovation and growth.

He explores some of the world’s most innovative companies right now – from Haier’s future vision to Orsted’s green transformation, and in finance, from Nubank’s unbanked to DBS’s invisible bank, Jio’s superapps to PingAn’s dual transformation.

And how to do it. Future back and outside in. With purpose, disruption and courage. It will take curiosity, creativity and courage. It may mean that to change your business, you also need to change yourself.

Interview with Peter Fisk:

Could you briefly tell us how the idea for your book ‘Business Recoded: Have the Courage to Create a Better Future for Yourself and Your Business’ originate? Was there a particular incident?

I started writing the book just as Covid-19 locked down the world. I was sitting at home, unable to travel, unable to work. Everyone was asking, what will happen next? For a long time we have talked about the ways in which business will change because of the rapid development of new technologies, the economic power shift west to east,  and the rise of social and environmental agendas. Now I could see they were happening faster than ever – accelerated by the pandemic. Business would not return as it used to be. There would be no going back to normal.

I started writing “There will be more change in the next 10 years, than the last 250 years”. That change has now been accelerated by Covid. Most businesses are not fit for the future. For too long business leaders have kept trying to extend the old models of success, with diminishing returns. We now need to think fundamentally differently. We need to think about new ways of working, new ways of competing, and new ways of measuring success. We need to “recode” business.

You illustrated seven shifts in the book. How did you come up with the seven shifts? Do business leaders need to go through all seven shifts to growing and creating better future for the companies?

I talked to 50 business leaders across the world. I particularly focused on those companies that are shaking up markets, exploring new possibilities, and creating the future. I wanted to understand what these companies were doing, how they were changing, and what they thought were the old codes – and new codes – of business success. Many of the companies are featured in the book.

The 7 shifts emerged out of categorizing the many different changes that are happening – and started with the highest level of “why” do companies exist. The shift was from the “old” mindset of achieving market share leadership and optimising profitability to shareholders, to a “new” mindset of achieving a higher purpose has positive impact for the world, and then understanding how all stakeholders can benefit. That doesn’t necessarily mean less profit, it could actually mean more. By doing more for society, by doing more for employees and customers, companies often find that they can be more profitable and valuable over the longer term.

The other shifts then followed, from old to new mindset:

  • Recode your future… from profit machine to enlightened progress
  • Recode your growth … from uncertain survival to futuristic growth
  • Recode your market … from marginal competition to market creating
  • Recode your innovation … From technology obsession to human ingenuity
  • Recode your organisation … From passive hierarchies to dynamic ecosystems
  • Recode your transformation … From incremental change to sustained transformation
  • Recode your leadership … From good managers to extraordinary leaders

Together these 7 shifts begin to shape a better future for your business, delivered through the 49 codes. The 49 codes make up the chapters of the book, each with specific examples, and practical tools and approaches for change.

The first shift is “recode your future.” What are the specific ways business leaders can realize what their companies’ future potential is?

 Most companies are limited in their future potential, because of the way in which they look ahead. They look through the narrow lens of their current business – their current sector, their current business models, their current audiences. Indeed most companies view their strategies for growth, by doing more of the same – faster, cheaper, better.

Look at a company like Hyundai. It largely sees the future through the lens of vehicle production. However it is slowly waking up to the reality of a future where cars will be electric and self-driven, where people will not own cars but rent them, where mobility solutions will converge, and we will see cars like local, personalised trains, available on demand. Who will succeed in this future? Probably the mobility network providers who we most trust to provide an efficient integrated service of travel.

Therefore companies can increase their “future potential” by changing their perspective. By jumping to the future, then working backwards. By seeing the world from a customer’s perspective, not dominated by existing products. By “reframing” their marketspace, in a new or bigger way. Hyundai are not a car company, but a mobility company. Samsung is not an electronics company, but an entertainment company. Now where are the best opportunities for the future?

Once leaders realize their company’s future potential, what are the practical steps they can take to achieving the potential and bringing out performance(positive financial results)? If there is an example of a business leader that took the steps, could you share the story?

Lei Jun is the founder of Chinese electronics company Xiaomi. He initially sought to be a business that competed with Apple and Samsung – making phones and tablets for the Chinese market. By changing his perspective he realised that content was far more important than hardware. He realised that people maybe buy one device every two years, but they buy and use content every day. Content in many forms – news, entertainment, gaming, social media, retail etc. Now Lei Jun is one of the largest investors in the movie industry, with a particular focus on creating Chinese entertainment for his local consumers.

The second shift is “recode your growth.” One of the ways to doing so is to ride with the megatrends. Of the five megatrends you pointed out in the book, which do you think business leaders should be the most alert of in the current crisis? Has the COVID-19 crisis brought out new megatrends as well?

 These 5 megatrends are still the most significant pathways to the future, and a useful checklist for any business leader exploring their future strategy.

All five megatrends have been accelerated by Covid-19. The shift from young to old, particularly in providing healthcare. The shift from west to east, particularly in the rise of Asian businesses like Alibaba and PingAn. The shift from towns to cities, particularly in emerging markets in search of jobs and support.

However most significant have been the huge acceleration in shift to technologies – the digitalization of our lives, from education to work, from retail to entertainment. Many online retailers say they saw 10 years of change in 3 months. However this has not just been in shopping online, but also the convergence of shopping and entertainment. Look at Sea in Singapore, or Pinduoduo in China, the gamification and socialization of retail.

The other shift, towards a huge awareness of the fragility of our planet and society, has also been hugely increased by Covid-19. We have seen the impacts of extreme weather on the environment, but we have also seen the impacts of pandemic on society. Inequality of wealth, inequality of access to services. This is why we have seen such as growth in interest in companies having a greater purpose, and stakeholder capitalism.

One of the megatrends is the fast growth of Asia. In the book you mentioned that “The E7 will be larger than the G7 by 2030 and double their size by 2050). For clarification, do you mean that the GDP of E7 countries in total will double the amount that of G7 by 2050? If yes, what will be the drivers of the growth? Also, could you share the source for this data?

This was initially discussed by the World Economic Forum back in 2010. And yes, we are rapidly seeing a new world order, with the E7 growing far faster than the old G7. The general principle still holds true, although the definition of E7 – or the top emerging nations – has changed a little, for example Brazil becoming less successful.

The drivers of this growth? Population is one – predominantly in emerging markets. And in broad terms, the rise in personal incomes and living standards. As education has improved, so has business success – better standards of production, innovation and growth. The best ideas in business now largely come from emerging markets, not the developed markets. The G7 is largely stagnant, fading giants, trying to work out what to do next. The E7 are ambitious and energized, the new giants, plating a new game.

Next comes ‘recode your market.’ As you mentioned in the book, the terms market and industry has been overlapped. How do you define ‘market’? When you say ‘recode your market,’ what do you exactly mean?

Markets are blurring incredibly rapidly – the old boundaries and definitions of sectors are increasingly redundant, and many – perhaps most – companies now work in multiple sectors, and their solutions are combinations of multiple products and services.

I love the story of PingAn, which is the world’s second largest insurance company. They have a huge technological platform, and customer base of billions of people in China. How could they grow? Well by thinking outside of their old “market” definition. Jessica Tan tells how as COO, she developed PingAn’s new healthcare business, and now Good Doctor is the world’s largest healthcare platform offering online and physical services to over one billion consumers.

The best examples are probably the “Super-apps” that have emerged across the world, as online single-point to reach many different services – companies like WeChat from China, Jio in India, Grab in Singapore, GoJek in Malaysia, Line in Japan, Rappi in Colombia. Most either started as messaging platforms, taxi services, or online retail delivery services. Now they are also platforms for gaming, movies, healthcare, and most significantly financial services. Once they have a payments engine, or bank, they can become the core of almost every type of transaction you make. What sector are they in? Everything!

One of the ways business leaders can recode the market is by setting the market space. You argue that ‘a customer-centric mindset is the best way to setting market space.’ Could you elaborate on this? Also, how can business leaders change their mindset to a customer-centric mindset?

You can define your market any way you want, there are no rules, or limits!

Both in terms of what type of business you are in – transport can easily become mobility – and equally geographically. Increasingly, there are more commonalities between consumers across nations, than within a nation. Young people have more similarities with other young people in other countries, than with old people in their same country. Therefore why think in treating each geographical country differently, when you could develop different propositions by multi-national segments.

Taking a customer-centric mindset to define your marketspace is one of the most useful ways to reframe your market.

Take a pharmaceutical company – you could equally call it a healthcare company, which would give you the additional space to offer non-drug type of products and services, or you could even call it a “wellbeing” company, which would give you even more space to innovate and serve customers in areas such as nutrition and fitness. A drug company could become a sports company!

Or think about insurance. Most people inside insurance companies are obsessed about financials, about risks. When I take out car insurance, I actually want peace of mind, to enjoy driving. Therefore insurance companies, like Sompo in Japan for example, are no focusing on developing car driving services that enhance the driving experience. If these can also reduce the risk – for example, by encouraging safer driving – then they can directly benefit the core business, while also adding new revenue streams.

The fourth shift is ‘recode your innovation.’ Innovation starts with questions. In the book you explained Professor Hal Gregersen’s ‘Question Burst.’ Do you know any company that has implemented the ‘Question Burst’ method in its quest to recoding innovation?

I have worked with Microsoft over the last few years, helping them to strategically and culturally change their approach to the market. In the most simple terms this has involved a shift from product-thinking to customer-thinking.  In the past they were an organisation of salespeople selling billions of software licenses – Windows 365 to individuals, cloud computing to corporations.

Now, to grow further, and to add more value to their customers, they are focusing on understanding and solving customers problems. How can the software help their customers to do more? How can the Windows user be more effective at what they do? How can a small company in a small town become a global player, with the help of a cloud-based digital platform? The focus on problems, and exploring what the real problem is, is key to this.

Perhaps the most common ways companies recode their innovation is by developing new business models. Is there any new business model that you have recently learned about that impressed you?

The super-apps!

Do you think remote work will continue to grow? If yes, how can business leaders recode their organization as remote work expands? How can teamwork be created in the remote work environment?

Yes. But not in isolation from the real world. We will see almost every company moving to some form of hybrid working model. I actually prefer to call this a liquid model, because people will learn to move more fluidly between physical and digital modes. The same in education, the same in retail, the same in healthcare, etc.

Many organisations across the world have already stated that for many employees, they will continue to work 2-3 days/week at home. But this is more than home/office thinking. It is also about a more flexible, personalised lifestyle – something which young people particularly want. It will also drive a change in work contracts – we will see more flexible contracts, less permanent employees, more part-time, or short contract workers, maybe working for many companies at the same time.

Similarly, teamwork is not simply about being in the same place, or managers have sight of their people. In many cases, during Covid-19, team effectiveness actually increased, by people in different places – functions, or countries, or even companies – being able to easily join online meetings or workshops, and be involved in projects quickly and easily. Once we get used to the technology, and the ways of staying in touch socially too, then remote working will be an extremely positive force. But we are still human, and there are also times when it is better – and good for us – to be together physically!

When of the big areas I explore in the book is the rise of “extreme teaming”. This is largely about building teams that are more diverse, and more self-managed. Bringing together different types of people – age, gender, experience, attitude – drives greater creativity in teams. But also letting those teams have the power to define their roles, to manage their own progress, gives ownership and improved performance. Google and Netflix are great examples of this, as is Haier with its “rendanheyi” organisation model.

For companies to recode their transformations, ‘pivoting’ is essential. How can business leaders know how to pivot the business and when is the right time to doing so?

Innovation is a constant in business today, and so is transformation. Companies are constantly evolving. They therefore need to become much more “ambidexterous” – the ability to deliver for today, and create tomorrow, at the same time. One practical strategic way to do this is to develop a dual portfolio approach – a portfolio of innovations and businesses which will succeed in today’s world (to meet the needs of current customers, outperform current competitors, and generate profitability over 1-3 years), and also a portfolio to succeed in tomorrow’s world (future customers, competitors).

By working with two portfolios, business leaders can increasingly shift from today to tomorrow’s world. The “pivot” if you like, is the moment when the core business shifts from the old to the new. Take the earlier example of Hyundai, the today portfolio is about manufacturing better cars, the tomorrow portfolio about future mobility networks. The pivot comes when the core of Hyundai is no longer a car maker, but a mobility operator. Leaders need to judge when is the right time to make that shift.

Lastly comes “recode your leadership.” One of the ways to recode one’s leadership is to developing one’s own leadership style. What are the basic steps leaders take to developing their own leadership style?

I did a huge research study with IE Business School in preparation for writing the book about what are the changing characteristics of the most effective business leaders. I call this the new leadership DNA – and in particular it defines the critical role of leaders in creating better futures, making change happen, and delivering positive impact.

However there are many ways to be a leader. It is certainly not about standing at the top of the building and shouting commands! When we look at many of the leaders in the book – Anne Wojcicji at 23andMe or Jeff Bezos at Amazon, Piyush Gupta at DBS or Zhang Ruimin at Haier – they are all different. Yes they have incredible vision, they bring together great teams, they are problem solvers, and they have enormous courage to step up and make the future happen – but they are all different.

The biggest challenge in developing yourself as a business leader is in being authentic. And finding ways in which you can make your personal strengths work for you, and for others. There is no simple or single leadership model to follow. And indeed, leaders will need to behave in different ways at different moments. This is a real skill. But the leaders who can do this in an authentic way, will be more trusted by others, and will be more effective in themselves.

The book was written before the Covid-19 pandemic began. Apart from the 7 shifts you illustrated in the book, are there any additional shift that should be included in order for business leaders to creating and delivering a better future amidst the current crisis?

The biggest shift now is to create a better future. As every company emerges from Covid-19, it is not about getting back to normal, but about imagining better. Now is the moment when business leaders need the imagination and courage to step up, to think different, and to accelerate the changes that are necessary and possible.

What is the most important insight you want readers to take away from ‘Business Recoded: Have the Courage to Create a Better Future for Yourself and Your Business’?

The pandemic has given us this unique opportunity to hit the “reset” button. It has given us a reason to let go of many of the old ways of doing business, and it has demonstrated why new ways are urgently needed. Now is the moment when investors, employees and customers, are seeking and supporting leaders who are brave and bold. Now is the time to have the courage to step up, to create a better future.

Download a summary of Peter Fisk’s keynote Business Recoded. 

How do you see the future? Peter Fisk’s keynote builds on his new book Business Recoded to explore the post-pandemic world, the new opportunities emerging as every market is shaken up, and what it takes to reimagine the future and embrace the waves of change.

Peter takes you on a journey that rides the 5 seismic megatrends reshaping every market over the next 10 years, and what this means for business and its leaders in driving future strategies, innovation and growth.

He explores some of the world’s most innovative companies right now – from Haier’s future vision to Orsted’s green transformation, and in finance, from Nubank’s unbanked to DBS’s invisible bank, Jio’s superapps to PingAn’s dual transformation.

And how to do it. Future back and outside in. With purpose, disruption and courage. It will take curiosity, creativity and courage. It may mean that to change your business, you also need to change yourself.

Interview with Peter Fisk:

Could you briefly tell us how the idea for your book ‘Business Recoded: Have the Courage to Create a Better Future for Yourself and Your Business’ originate? Was there a particular incident?

I started writing the book just as Covid-19 locked down the world. I was sitting at home, unable to travel, unable to work. Everyone was asking, what will happen next? For a long time we have talked about the ways in which business will change because of the rapid development of new technologies, the economic power shift west to east,  and the rise of social and environmental agendas. Now I could see they were happening faster than ever – accelerated by the pandemic. Business would not return as it used to be. There would be no going back to normal.

I started writing “There will be more change in the next 10 years, than the last 250 years”. That change has now been accelerated by Covid. Most businesses are not fit for the future. For too long business leaders have kept trying to extend the old models of success, with diminishing returns. We now need to think fundamentally differently. We need to think about new ways of working, new ways of competing, and new ways of measuring success. We need to “recode” business.

You illustrated seven shifts in the book. How did you come up with the seven shifts? Do business leaders need to go through all seven shifts to growing and creating better future for the companies?

I talked to 50 business leaders across the world. I particularly focused on those companies that are shaking up markets, exploring new possibilities, and creating the future. I wanted to understand what these companies were doing, how they were changing, and what they thought were the old codes – and new codes – of business success. Many of the companies are featured in the book.

The 7 shifts emerged out of categorizing the many different changes that are happening – and started with the highest level of “why” do companies exist. The shift was from the “old” mindset of achieving market share leadership and optimising profitability to shareholders, to a “new” mindset of achieving a higher purpose has positive impact for the world, and then understanding how all stakeholders can benefit. That doesn’t necessarily mean less profit, it could actually mean more. By doing more for society, by doing more for employees and customers, companies often find that they can be more profitable and valuable over the longer term.

The other shifts then followed, from old to new mindset:

  • Recode your future… from profit machine to enlightened progress
  • Recode your growth … from uncertain survival to futuristic growth
  • Recode your market … from marginal competition to market creating
  • Recode your innovation … From technology obsession to human ingenuity
  • Recode your organisation … From passive hierarchies to dynamic ecosystems
  • Recode your transformation … From incremental change to sustained transformation
  • Recode your leadership … From good managers to extraordinary leaders

Together these 7 shifts begin to shape a better future for your business, delivered through the 49 codes. The 49 codes make up the chapters of the book, each with specific examples, and practical tools and approaches for change.

The first shift is “recode your future.” What are the specific ways business leaders can realize what their companies’ future potential is?

 Most companies are limited in their future potential, because of the way in which they look ahead. They look through the narrow lens of their current business – their current sector, their current business models, their current audiences. Indeed most companies view their strategies for growth, by doing more of the same – faster, cheaper, better.

Look at a company like Hyundai. It largely sees the future through the lens of vehicle production. However it is slowly waking up to the reality of a future where cars will be electric and self-driven, where people will not own cars but rent them, where mobility solutions will converge, and we will see cars like local, personalised trains, available on demand. Who will succeed in this future? Probably the mobility network providers who we most trust to provide an efficient integrated service of travel.

Therefore companies can increase their “future potential” by changing their perspective. By jumping to the future, then working backwards. By seeing the world from a customer’s perspective, not dominated by existing products. By “reframing” their marketspace, in a new or bigger way. Hyundai are not a car company, but a mobility company. Samsung is not an electronics company, but an entertainment company. Now where are the best opportunities for the future?

Once leaders realize their company’s future potential, what are the practical steps they can take to achieving the potential and bringing out performance(positive financial results)? If there is an example of a business leader that took the steps, could you share the story?

Lei Jun is the founder of Chinese electronics company Xiaomi. He initially sought to be a business that competed with Apple and Samsung – making phones and tablets for the Chinese market. By changing his perspective he realised that content was far more important than hardware. He realised that people maybe buy one device every two years, but they buy and use content every day. Content in many forms – news, entertainment, gaming, social media, retail etc. Now Lei Jun is one of the largest investors in the movie industry, with a particular focus on creating Chinese entertainment for his local consumers.

The second shift is “recode your growth.” One of the ways to doing so is to ride with the megatrends. Of the five megatrends you pointed out in the book, which do you think business leaders should be the most alert of in the current crisis? Has the COVID-19 crisis brought out new megatrends as well?

 These 5 megatrends are still the most significant pathways to the future, and a useful checklist for any business leader exploring their future strategy.

All five megatrends have been accelerated by Covid-19. The shift from young to old, particularly in providing healthcare. The shift from west to east, particularly in the rise of Asian businesses like Alibaba and PingAn. The shift from towns to cities, particularly in emerging markets in search of jobs and support.

However most significant have been the huge acceleration in shift to technologies – the digitalization of our lives, from education to work, from retail to entertainment. Many online retailers say they saw 10 years of change in 3 months. However this has not just been in shopping online, but also the convergence of shopping and entertainment. Look at Sea in Singapore, or Pinduoduo in China, the gamification and socialization of retail.

The other shift, towards a huge awareness of the fragility of our planet and society, has also been hugely increased by Covid-19. We have seen the impacts of extreme weather on the environment, but we have also seen the impacts of pandemic on society. Inequality of wealth, inequality of access to services. This is why we have seen such as growth in interest in companies having a greater purpose, and stakeholder capitalism.

One of the megatrends is the fast growth of Asia. In the book you mentioned that “The E7 will be larger than the G7 by 2030 and double their size by 2050). For clarification, do you mean that the GDP of E7 countries in total will double the amount that of G7 by 2050? If yes, what will be the drivers of the growth? Also, could you share the source for this data?

This was initially discussed by the World Economic Forum back in 2010. And yes, we are rapidly seeing a new world order, with the E7 growing far faster than the old G7. The general principle still holds true, although the definition of E7 – or the top emerging nations – has changed a little, for example Brazil becoming less successful.

The drivers of this growth? Population is one – predominantly in emerging markets. And in broad terms, the rise in personal incomes and living standards. As education has improved, so has business success – better standards of production, innovation and growth. The best ideas in business now largely come from emerging markets, not the developed markets. The G7 is largely stagnant, fading giants, trying to work out what to do next. The E7 are ambitious and energized, the new giants, plating a new game.

Next comes ‘recode your market.’ As you mentioned in the book, the terms market and industry has been overlapped. How do you define ‘market’? When you say ‘recode your market,’ what do you exactly mean?

Markets are blurring incredibly rapidly – the old boundaries and definitions of sectors are increasingly redundant, and many – perhaps most – companies now work in multiple sectors, and their solutions are combinations of multiple products and services.

I love the story of PingAn, which is the world’s second largest insurance company. They have a huge technological platform, and customer base of billions of people in China. How could they grow? Well by thinking outside of their old “market” definition. Jessica Tan tells how as COO, she developed PingAn’s new healthcare business, and now Good Doctor is the world’s largest healthcare platform offering online and physical services to over one billion consumers.

The best examples are probably the “Super-apps” that have emerged across the world, as online single-point to reach many different services – companies like WeChat from China, Jio in India, Grab in Singapore, GoJek in Malaysia, Line in Japan, Rappi in Colombia. Most either started as messaging platforms, taxi services, or online retail delivery services. Now they are also platforms for gaming, movies, healthcare, and most significantly financial services. Once they have a payments engine, or bank, they can become the core of almost every type of transaction you make. What sector are they in? Everything!

One of the ways business leaders can recode the market is by setting the market space. You argue that ‘a customer-centric mindset is the best way to setting market space.’ Could you elaborate on this? Also, how can business leaders change their mindset to a customer-centric mindset?

You can define your market any way you want, there are no rules, or limits!

Both in terms of what type of business you are in – transport can easily become mobility – and equally geographically. Increasingly, there are more commonalities between consumers across nations, than within a nation. Young people have more similarities with other young people in other countries, than with old people in their same country. Therefore why think in treating each geographical country differently, when you could develop different propositions by multi-national segments.

Taking a customer-centric mindset to define your marketspace is one of the most useful ways to reframe your market.

Take a pharmaceutical company – you could equally call it a healthcare company, which would give you the additional space to offer non-drug type of products and services, or you could even call it a “wellbeing” company, which would give you even more space to innovate and serve customers in areas such as nutrition and fitness. A drug company could become a sports company!

Or think about insurance. Most people inside insurance companies are obsessed about financials, about risks. When I take out car insurance, I actually want peace of mind, to enjoy driving. Therefore insurance companies, like Sompo in Japan for example, are no focusing on developing car driving services that enhance the driving experience. If these can also reduce the risk – for example, by encouraging safer driving – then they can directly benefit the core business, while also adding new revenue streams.

The fourth shift is ‘recode your innovation.’ Innovation starts with questions. In the book you explained Professor Hal Gregersen’s ‘Question Burst.’ Do you know any company that has implemented the ‘Question Burst’ method in its quest to recoding innovation?

I have worked with Microsoft over the last few years, helping them to strategically and culturally change their approach to the market. In the most simple terms this has involved a shift from product-thinking to customer-thinking.  In the past they were an organisation of salespeople selling billions of software licenses – Windows 365 to individuals, cloud computing to corporations.

Now, to grow further, and to add more value to their customers, they are focusing on understanding and solving customers problems. How can the software help their customers to do more? How can the Windows user be more effective at what they do? How can a small company in a small town become a global player, with the help of a cloud-based digital platform? The focus on problems, and exploring what the real problem is, is key to this.

Perhaps the most common ways companies recode their innovation is by developing new business models. Is there any new business model that you have recently learned about that impressed you?

The super-apps!

Do you think remote work will continue to grow? If yes, how can business leaders recode their organization as remote work expands? How can teamwork be created in the remote work environment?

Yes. But not in isolation from the real world. We will see almost every company moving to some form of hybrid working model. I actually prefer to call this a liquid model, because people will learn to move more fluidly between physical and digital modes. The same in education, the same in retail, the same in healthcare, etc.

Many organisations across the world have already stated that for many employees, they will continue to work 2-3 days/week at home. But this is more than home/office thinking. It is also about a more flexible, personalised lifestyle – something which young people particularly want. It will also drive a change in work contracts – we will see more flexible contracts, less permanent employees, more part-time, or short contract workers, maybe working for many companies at the same time.

Similarly, teamwork is not simply about being in the same place, or managers have sight of their people. In many cases, during Covid-19, team effectiveness actually increased, by people in different places – functions, or countries, or even companies – being able to easily join online meetings or workshops, and be involved in projects quickly and easily. Once we get used to the technology, and the ways of staying in touch socially too, then remote working will be an extremely positive force. But we are still human, and there are also times when it is better – and good for us – to be together physically!

When of the big areas I explore in the book is the rise of “extreme teaming”. This is largely about building teams that are more diverse, and more self-managed. Bringing together different types of people – age, gender, experience, attitude – drives greater creativity in teams. But also letting those teams have the power to define their roles, to manage their own progress, gives ownership and improved performance. Google and Netflix are great examples of this, as is Haier with its “rendanheyi” organisation model.

For companies to recode their transformations, ‘pivoting’ is essential. How can business leaders know how to pivot the business and when is the right time to doing so?

Innovation is a constant in business today, and so is transformation. Companies are constantly evolving. They therefore need to become much more “ambidexterous” – the ability to deliver for today, and create tomorrow, at the same time. One practical strategic way to do this is to develop a dual portfolio approach – a portfolio of innovations and businesses which will succeed in today’s world (to meet the needs of current customers, outperform current competitors, and generate profitability over 1-3 years), and also a portfolio to succeed in tomorrow’s world (future customers, competitors).

By working with two portfolios, business leaders can increasingly shift from today to tomorrow’s world. The “pivot” if you like, is the moment when the core business shifts from the old to the new. Take the earlier example of Hyundai, the today portfolio is about manufacturing better cars, the tomorrow portfolio about future mobility networks. The pivot comes when the core of Hyundai is no longer a car maker, but a mobility operator. Leaders need to judge when is the right time to make that shift.

Lastly comes “recode your leadership.” One of the ways to recode one’s leadership is to developing one’s own leadership style. What are the basic steps leaders take to developing their own leadership style?

I did a huge research study with IE Business School in preparation for writing the book about what are the changing characteristics of the most effective business leaders. I call this the new leadership DNA – and in particular it defines the critical role of leaders in creating better futures, making change happen, and delivering positive impact.

However there are many ways to be a leader. It is certainly not about standing at the top of the building and shouting commands! When we look at many of the leaders in the book – Anne Wojcicji at 23andMe or Jeff Bezos at Amazon, Piyush Gupta at DBS or Zhang Ruimin at Haier – they are all different. Yes they have incredible vision, they bring together great teams, they are problem solvers, and they have enormous courage to step up and make the future happen – but they are all different.

The biggest challenge in developing yourself as a business leader is in being authentic. And finding ways in which you can make your personal strengths work for you, and for others. There is no simple or single leadership model to follow. And indeed, leaders will need to behave in different ways at different moments. This is a real skill. But the leaders who can do this in an authentic way, will be more trusted by others, and will be more effective in themselves.

The book was written before the Covid-19 pandemic began. Apart from the 7 shifts you illustrated in the book, are there any additional shift that should be included in order for business leaders to creating and delivering a better future amidst the current crisis?

The biggest shift now is to create a better future. As every company emerges from Covid-19, it is not about getting back to normal, but about imagining better. Now is the moment when business leaders need the imagination and courage to step up, to think different, and to accelerate the changes that are necessary and possible.

What is the most important insight you want readers to take away from ‘Business Recoded: Have the Courage to Create a Better Future for Yourself and Your Business’?

The pandemic has given us this unique opportunity to hit the “reset” button. It has given us a reason to let go of many of the old ways of doing business, and it has demonstrated why new ways are urgently needed. Now is the moment when investors, employees and customers, are seeking and supporting leaders who are brave and bold. Now is the time to have the courage to step up, to create a better future.

Leading in a world of fast, disruptive, and uncertain change.

Links

Introduction 

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.

“Business Recoded” is about making sense of today’s rapidly changing world, and understanding how to prepare for, and 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.

 

Agenda

1. SenseMakers: Thriving on Chaos: How do you see the future?

We live in a time of incredible change. Dramatic, pervasive, and relentless. More change in the next 10 years than the last 250 years. Incredible technologies, expectant consumers, climate crisis, social distrust, and much more.

  • Every market is shaken up, how pandemic accelerated the future
  • Asia to AI, GenZ and gene-editing, sustainability and the super-apps
  • Who were the winners during two years of pandemic-driven revolution?

2. ChangeDrivers: Business Imagination: How to harness the change drivers?

How will you embrace the megatrends? Disruptive technologies, connected and intelligent; economic power shifts, 80% of the middle class in emerging markets; resource scarcity, where water is the biggest risk; demographic change, where markets are older, demanding and mobile; and rapid urbanisation, 33 of the 45 megacities in Asia.

  • What the 5 megatrends mean for me, turning challenge into opportunity
  • Starting from the future back, working from the outside in
  • Decoding the changing consumer types, and their new priorities

3. FutureShapers: Leadership Superpowers: What are the new codes of business?

The old codes of business don’t work anymore. The most innovative companies – from Alibaba 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 we learn the world’s most innovative companies right now
  • Exploring the radical innovations of companies like Orsted and PingAn
  • 7 priorities for business to be winners in 2022 and beyond

Starting 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.