Peter Fisk

How do you see your future?

We live in an incredible time.  More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years. New technologies transforming the ways in which we live and work. Digital platforms and blockchains, AI and robotics, 3D printing and nanotech .

These are just some of the fantastic new capabilities that enable us to innovate beyond what we can even imagine today. The future isn’t like the future used to be. We cannot just evolve or extrapolate the past. Today’s future is discontinuous, disruptive, different.

It is imagination that will move us forwards … unlocking the technological possibilities, applying them to real problems and opportunities, to drive innovation and growth in every industry, in every part of our lives.

Imagine a world where you press “print” to get the dress of your dreams, the food of your fantasies, or the spare parts for your car. Instantly, personalised and on demand. Think then what does that mean if we don’t need the huge scale of manufacturing plants, warehousing and transportation. Maybe we will even subscribe to the IP catalogues of brands, in the ways we currently subscribe to Netflix.

Innovation starts from the “future back”

The best place to start is the future. The best entrepreneurs think “future back” rather than just trying to move forwards with the limitations and distractions of today. Elon Musk grabs headlines with his bold “Humans on Mars by 2025” vision, but then that makes everything else more purposeful, and more possible. Tesla to Hyperloop to SpaceX, all seem more possible, and even stepping stones to a greater destination.

“Future back” thinking also means you are not limited by your own capabilities. Richard Branson had a fantastic vision for a better airline, a consumer bank, a space travel business. But no idea how to make them happen. But then he found partners who could help make them happen. Partners with the expertise on tap, to connect with his ideas, and together innovate further and faster.

Partnerships are key to the future, connecting ideas and capabilities, risks and rewards, to achieve more together.

What might your world look like in 2025?

By jumping to the future, and then working backwards, you develop a bolder, braver ambition. Shaping the future on your terms, exploring the new possibilities for innovation and growth, unlimited by the priorities and prejudices of today. New technologies will be key, but they are more the enablers than answers. How will they make life better? How will they make your business better?

Inspired by the Adidas Speedfactory, what does the future of your manufacturing look like? If Amazon’s Alexa can manage your home, then what could the future workplace look like? What would happen if phones were free like Jio Phone has just disruptively done in India? How could you apply big data like 23&Me in healthcare to predict what people want? Or the new business models like Airbnb and Nespresso to redefine markets? Beyond the hype of Bitcoin, how could blockchain redefine how you engage customers? And what actually will people want most in the future?

Futurists look for emerging patterns – signals of future possibilities, already out there. Emergent behaviours, adaptive usage, new aspirations. You just need to find these signals, and apply them. Maybe on the fringes of your market, or by transferring ideas from other sectors, or other geograhies, or others aspects of life.

Leonardo da Vinci definined innovation as making unusual connections. So how could you connect the most relevant and disruptive ideas together in new ways?

Are you ready to create your better future?

It’s time to jump to the future. And then look back. Then you will see today differently.

Too many of us get locked in to a mindset of today – of incremental, extrapolating, and perfecting the old world. Working backwards from 2025 you will define different milestones, different priorities to be achieved within 3 years, and even next year.

Innovation demands a future mindset, that will deliver bigger ideas to drive innovation and growth, and new perspectives on what matters most today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G101Hud8nGU

Are you ready?

• Download my keynote in Linz on 7 June: Future Back
• Download more: articles and videos

The future or retail

Here are some of the inspiring companies shaping the future of retail:

• Peter Fisk on Amazon to Decathlon: How the high street is being reinvented with digital tech
• Peter Fisk on Retail Futures: Alfred and Amazon, Brandless and Sephora
• Peter Fisk on FutureStore: Gamechangers and the future of retail

Alibaba … “new retail” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9p5jaiOxD8&t=18s

Amazon … “Go”

Aussie Farmers Direct

Brandless

Eataly

Stitch Fix

Supreme

Warby Parker

• McKinsey on The Future of Retail: How to make your bricks click
• Deloitte on The Future of Retail: 11 disruptive forces
• PSFK on The Future of Retail: Unified channel strategies to drive brick and date retail

As consumer preferences and behavior have changed with the introduction of eCommerce businesses and on-demand delivery, retailers turn to emerging technologies to find alternative ways to keep their customers happy and serve them from all angles. StartUs Insights researched over 8000 startups to identify the key technologies driving the digital transformation in the retail industry. This research is backed by our proprietary AI- and data-driven innovation scouting approach, allowing us to provide you with actionable intelligence on startup-driven innovation. This is their summary map:

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality is one of the more common technologies already used by retailers globally. As brick-and-mortar stores increasingly face challenges due to the rise of eCommerce, traditional stores are on a journey to transform into showrooms. In these, AR supports vendors to increase the interaction with customers through smart dressing rooms, beacons, or AR catalog apps – resulting in increased customer satisfaction and higher sales.

Virtual Reality

Utilizing VR in physical stores massively increases opportunities for retailers. Specifically, retailers can draw from two core application cases. Firstly, the virtual redesign of a physical store allows for the optimization and even creation of a new experience for customers – every single time they enter that store. Secondly, the virtual demonstration of products holds great potential as shown by the clothing and cosmetics industry. Moreover, virtual reality offers to create a very personalized shopping experience thus overall improving it.

Artificial Intelligence

Through understanding customer behavior (including individual preferences) and anticipating what customers will purchase next, forward-looking retailers make use of artificial intelligence to drive sales. AI has a history of high accuracy as famously demonstrated by Target which predicted the pregnancy and due date of a 23-year old back in 2012. Said to eventually replace shopping assistants, AI also powers chatbots and voice-assisted shopping devices.

Mobile

With 82% of customers already consulting their smartphones before finalizing their purchase decision, the trend toward mobile will continue its significant influence on the retail sector. Vendors not only optimize their websites accordingly but also start to add emerging technologies such as AR- and VR-enhanced apps, smart packaging or upgraded mobile payment models to their business models to increase convenience for customers.

Internet of Things

In the retail industry, the Internet of Things allows for the gathering of data which is further analyzed to enable more informed decision-making in regards to stock control, product placement, and increasing efficiency. RFID, NFC tags as well as different sensors are used for tracking items through the supply chain and keeping an eye on in-store inventory in real-time. Another application for the IoT in the retail industry is the utilization of iBeacons to send consumers notifications on their smartphones when passing by a store in a pursuit to increase sales.

Big Data

We have already established that consumers provide retailers with various data sources. However, this data is only valuable once vendors can make sense of it. When done right, the possibilities of big data range from forecasting product demand, optimizing the price range (markup and markdown optimization) to identifying target audiences.

Disruptive startups

• Paris-based Augment connects on- and offline channels through an augmented reality platform, therefore creating a seamless omnichannel retail experience.
• Virt brings “reality into virtual reality”. The startup’s technology allows retailers to upgrade from simple product or store photos to a virtual walk-through tour by using a 360-degree video rover which maps a location before deploying it cross-platform.
• French startup Planorama makes use of deep learning algorithms and neural networks to equip vendors with actionable insights based on shelf pictures. Through leveraging AI, their solution analyzed and recognizes millions of product items.
• SplitIt provides a unique way to make retail purchases by removing a barrier that often stops consumers to finalize a purchase. SplitIt 360° offers consumers to pay by using their existing credit cards and divide the total cost across as many interest-free payments as they choose.
• Israeli WiseShelf develops a solution that is designed to improve stock status visibility via an appliance that is mounted on top of any standard retail shelf. Dozens of light sensors detecting the light level above them allow for a visual presentation of shelf planogram and can highlight products that need attention or special promotions.
• Berlin-based MiNODES’ solution understands and retains customers. The startup provides consumer insights through a big data SaaS solution by integrating a comprehensive set of technologies and tools, including state-of-the-art WiFi, beacon, and camera technology.

To conclude, the retail industry is in the middle of an evolution that challenges traditional brick-and-mortar stores as well as online sellers. Ultimately, developing technologies along with new customer expectations will deeply impact the retail industry, making tomorrow’s shopping a personalized, faster, and more convenient experience. Technologies such as 3D Printing & Imaging, in-store customization, biometrics, gamification, and face recognition shape the way consumers shop, calling for vendors to deploy these technologies in order to profit from this transition.

“The best way to predict the future is to create it” said Abraham Lincoln.

The best opportunities for business – to find new growth, to engage customers more deeply, to stand out from the crowd, to improve their profitability – is by seizing the opportunities of changing markets. The best way to seize these changes is by innovating – not just innovating the product, or even the business itself – but by innovating the market.

In the old world we accepted markets as a given – the status quo – and competed within it, with slightly different products and services, or most usually by competing on price. Most new products were quickly imitated, leading to declining margins and commoditisation. Most companies now receognise that this is not a route to long-term success in a rapidly changing world.

Fast-changing markets demand fast-changing businesses.

Download: Summary of “The Inspiratorium“

“The best way to predict the future is to create it” said Abraham Lincoln.

The best opportunities for business – to find new growth, to engage customers more deeply, to stand out from the crowd, to improve their profitability – is by seizing the opportunities of changing markets. The best way to seize these changes is by innovating – not just innovating the product, or even the business itself – but by innovating the market.

In the old world we accepted markets as a given – the status quo – and competed within it, with slightly different products and services, or most usually by competing on price. Most new products were quickly imitated, leading to declining margins and commoditisation. Most companies now receognise that this is not a route to long-term success in a rapidly changing world.

Fast-changing markets demand fast-changing businesses.

Download a summary of Peter Fisk’s keynote “Be the Gamechanger”   

We live in an incredible time. More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years.

New technologies are transforming the ways in which we live and work. Technologies enable incredible change. It is how we unlock their potential that matters.

The most innovative businesses see the world differently.

They don’t just seek to imitate the success of others, to compete in the markets of today, to frame themselves by their relative differences to competitors. Instead they play their own game.

I call them “gamechangers”, and have spent the last 24 months running competitions around the world, to find and rank the world’s most innovative companies by sector and geography.

So what’s the “game”? Well, in simple terms, it’s the market.

These companies go beyond innovating their products and services, their customer experienes and business models. They seek to innovate how their markets work.

Think of it like a sports game. How could you change the game? It could be anything from the pitch dimensions to rules of play, the team composition to the measures of success, the role of the referee to the participation of fans. Even the name of the game.

Now look at today’s most disruptive innovators – 23andMe to Airbnb, Brewdog to Buzzfeed, Casper to Coursera – they reframe, reimagine and redefine the market on their terms – who is it for, why people buy, what they pay and get, and how they work.

I’ve met and profiled over 250 “gamechanger” companies on my travels, in almost every sector, and in every part of the world. Corporate giants and start-ups, from Abu Dhabi to Berlin, Colombo to Qingdao.

There is no one way to change the game, but there are definitely some common traits:

• Audacious – Gamechangers are visionary and innovative, but also daring and original; they seek to shape the future to their advantage.
• Purposeful – They seek to make life better, in some relevant and inspiring way; they have a higher motive than just making money.
• Networked – Gamechangers harness the power of networks, digital and physical, both business and customer networks, to exponentially reach further faster.
• Intelligent – They use big data analytics and algorithms, machine learning and AI, to be smart and efficient, personal and predictive.
• Collaborative – Gamechangers work with others, from ecosystems to platforms, social networks and co-creation, to achieve more together.
• Enabling – They focus not on what they do, but what they enable people to do; and thereby redefine their marketspace, find new opportunities and redefine value.
• Commercial – Gamechangers take a longer-term perspective, adopting new business models, and recalibrating the measures of progress and success.

Do you have a future mindset?

Today’s business leaders need a future mindset. That sounds obvious, but isn’t.

Most leaders have a “fixed mindset”. They keep stretching the old models of success. They stay loyal to the model that made them great, seeking to squeeze and tweak it for as long as possible. They seek perfection – to optimise what they currently do – which leads to efficiency and incremental gains.

Instead a “future mindset” is prepared to let go of the past. To explore the future, to experiment with new ways of working and winning. Failure is a way to learn, and innovation becomes the norm. Change is relentless inside, as it is outside. Innovation is their lifeblood. Like Jeff Bezos loves to say “it is always day one”.

With a future mindset, the CEO needs new attributes:

• Sense maker – to interpret a fast and confusing world, to see new patterns and opportunities, what is relevant and not, to shape your own vision.
• Radical optimist – to inspire people with a stretching ambition, positive and distinctive, to be audacious, to see the possibilities when others only see risk.
• Future hacker – they start from the “future back”, with clarity of purpose and intent, encouraging ideas and experiments, leveraging resource and scale.
• Ideas connector – da Vinci said innovation is about making unusual connections;  connecting new people, new partners, new capabilities and new ideas.
• Emotionally agile – whilst organisational agility is essential, emotional agility matters even more; to cope with change, to be intuitive in making sense, and making choices.
• Entrepreneur at large – keeping the founders mentality alive, hands-on working with project teams to infuse the mindset, to be the catalyst and coach.
• Having grit – “gamechanger” leaders need to go against the grain, to persist but know when to move on, to have self belief and confidence, guts and resilience.

The future is a better place to start

Start from the “future back”.

Trying to evolve in today’s complex and confused world is unlikely to lead you towards a bright and distinctive future. It will extend your life a little longer, but it will be tough and uninspiring, with diminishing returns.

Instead jump to the future. I tend to start with five years ahead, although it may differ by company. 5 years is long enough to change the world, but close enough to be real. Start by creating a positive, collective and inspiring vision of the future market. What will it be like? What will people want? Why? How? Where? Then consider how to win in this new world.

This is where “moonshot thinking” can be really useful. “Why be 10% better, when you could be 10 times better?” 10 times more profits, more customers, more quality, reduced cost, reduced time. Whatever. By giving yourself a “How could we do it 10x better” challenge you take a new perspective, solve problems in different ways.

Be inspired by ideas from other places.

Explore how ARM or GE, Inditex or Netflix, Glossier or Novo Nordisk have changed their markets. Choose any of my 100+ “gamechanger” companies! How did they do it? How did customers respond? (Remember, they often serve the same customers as you!). You can’t learn much from competitors, but you can learn a lot from relevant parallels.

Copy. Adapt. Paste.

Customer insight also matters. Deep dives and design thinking, exploring the emerging trends and deviant behaviours. This can enhance and validate your ideas, but the problem with most customer insight is that it is filtered by our current world. You need something to disrupt your thinking.

I have a great box of disruptive techniques. Some are really simple – like break then remake the rules, like imagine its free then find a way to make money, like reverse polarities and many more. The point is to disrupt your conventional thinking.

From this, ideas rapidly emerge. You need lots of ideas about the future. But these are fragments of the real answer. The real creativity comes in fusing together into bigger “concepts”. These could be customer solutions, or new ways of working, new revenue streams, or new business models, and new market scenarios.

Once you have a clear and collective ambition for the future, it’s time to work backwards.  “If this is how we want to be in 5 years, where do we need to get to in 3 years, and then in 1 year?  Therefore what do we need to start doing now?” You develop a “horizon plan” for your business; a strategy roadmap if you like, but developed backwards.

The important thing is that by working backwards, you have jumped out of the morass of today. You’ve avoided the assumptions, limitations, problems and priorities of today’s thinking. You have a more inspiring “gamechanging” future, and have started to map out the steps to get there. Most likely with different priorities in the short-term too.

Of course the steps on this journey might change, but it’s going to be an exciting adventure.

Change the way we think, resolve the conflicts

In today’s busineses, we have created artificial divides in how we think and operate. Digital and physical seem like two different worlds, global and local seem like alternative strategies that cannot combine, many still struggle to align value to customers and shareholders in a mutually reinforcing way, and short and long-termism continues to confuse our priorities.

Our thinking within business, has created separate and apparently conflicting approaches. The opportunity is to make the combination of both approaches world – “fusions” if you like – to be innovative in the way you combine apparent opposites.

Digital and physical are two sides of the same coin.

There is only one world, unless you believe Ray Kurzweil, and it is the real one. It’s human and physical. Digital technologies are incredibly powerful, enabling people to connect, to work, to learn, to play in new ways. From mobile phones to blockchains, 3D printing and augmented reality, digital allows us to do more, do it faster, do things we could never do before. But it’s still about humanity.

Start with people. How can you enable them to achieve more? To live better, to have more fun, to do better for the world. Whatever matters. I work closely with Richard Branson and his Virgin teams. Their mindset is to “start from the outside, and then work in”. Design a better customer experience. Built on your ambition and insight, and then explore how you could deliver it with new and existing capabilities.

Global and local are opportunities for every business.

I love Amazon’s “Treasure Truck” … Most of us have never connected with Amazon beyond the website and the delivery guy. Amazon is huge, global and anonymous. But the Treasure Truck is real. It travels around the country, bringing its pop-up store to local neighbourhoods, fun and games, bargains and demos. For Amazon, it’s a chance to make real connections, listen to people, and to be local.

We can all see a backlash in society against relentless globalisation, huge corporations, and social inequality. We see a lack of trust in brands, and know that authenticity matters. Etsy shows us that even the smallest and most local artisan businesses can also be global. For every business, local and global markets are within reach, however it’s also about combining scale and standardisation, with relevance and individuality.

Ideas and networks should be the core of your business.

Gamechanger businesses need a compelling idea, a core purpose, an inspiring proposition, that can spread fast and contagiously. In a digitally-fuelled world, the most innovative businesses embrace “ideas and networks” to drive exponential impact – like WhatsApp creating $19bn in three years, Airbnb $40bn in 9 years, Alibaba $476bn in 18 years, Amazon $740bn in 23 years.

Think about that concept of “exponential” … The power of networks – be it franchisees, or distributors, or customers and users – lies not in the number of members, but in the connections between them. Networks have a multiplying effect. Exponential. Consider, for example, Rapha, the sportwear brand that brings together people with a passion for cycling, who conveniently meet at their “Cycle Club” stores, and buy their premium gear. A fantastic “ideas and networks” business.

Finally this idea of short-term and long-term being in conflict with each other.

Jeff Bezos never has this problem, nor Elon Musk, nor Richard Branson. They focus on the long-term, recognising it will require some years of investment to get there. They all of course lead privately-owned companies. But every public company has the same ambition to innovate and grow. And so do most of their investors, actually.

The reality is that any company’s stock market performance is based on its future earnings potential, not its past. The better you can engage with equity analysts, journalists and investors themselves to explain why you will deliver a better future worth waiting for, then you get their support. If you don’t engage them in your future vision, plans and innovations, then they will default to looking for short-term evidence. It’s really in our hands, to work together to create a future we want to invest in. And to share the greater risk and rewards.

Time to embrace your future mindset

We live in an incredible time … More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years … remember? I know that sounds a little crazy, but think about Hyperloop in 3 years, a tipping point to electric cars in 5 years, Mars missions in 8 years. They are all real, and possible.

Digital platforms connecting buyers and sellers in new ways, blockchain having the potential to transform relationships and trust, 3d printing having the potential to transform value chains to deliver anything personalised and on-demand, AI and robotics giving us the capabilities to be superhuman in our minds and bodies.

These are just some of the fantastic new capabilities that enable us to innovate beyond what we can even imagine today. The future isn’t like the future used to be. We cannot just evolve or extrapolate the past. Today’s future is discontinuous, disruptive, different.

It is imagination that will move us forwards … unlocking the technological possibilities, applying them to real problems and opportunities, to drive innovation and growth in every industry, in every part of our lives.

Imagine a world where you press “print” to get the dress of your dreams, the food of your fantasies, or the spare parts for your car. Instantly, personalised and on demand. Think then what does that mean if we don’t need the huge scale of manufacturing plants, warehousing and transportation. Maybe we will even subscribe to the IP catalogues of brands, rather than buy standard products, in the ways we currently subscribe to Netflix.

Time to embrace your Musk mindset … Unlock your Einstein dreams and Picasso passion … Embrace your Mandela courage and Ghandi spirit. Be more curious, be more intuitive, be more human. Ask more questions. Don’t be afraid to have audacious ideas, to challenge the old models of success, and turn future ambitions into practical profitable reality.

How else did Zespri reinvent the Chinese gooseberry as the kiwi fruit? How else will SpaceX reach Mars by 2025? How else did Netflix came to be, or NuTonomy, or Nespresso, or Nyx?

This is why 23andMe’s Anne Wojicki wont give up in her quest to make DNA analysis available to everyone, and to ultimately find a cure for cancer. And it’s why Jack Ma didn’t give up as he rose from $1000-per year English teacher to technological royalty.

The secret is the future mindset.

To realise that the future is malleable. So we need to grab hold of it, and shape it in our own vision. To our advantage.

This is what “gamechangers” do.

We live in an incredible time. More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years.

New technologies are transforming the ways in which we live and work. Technologies enable incredible change. It is how we unlock their potential that matters.

The most innovative businesses see the world differently.

They don’t just seek to imitate the success of others, to compete in the markets of today, to frame themselves by their relative differences to competitors. Instead they play their own game.

I call them “gamechangers”, and have spent the last 24 months running competitions around the world, to find and rank the world’s most innovative companies by sector and geography.

So what’s the “game”? Well, in simple terms, it’s the market.

These companies go beyond innovating their products and services, their customer experienes and business models. They seek to innovate how their markets work.

Think of it like a sports game. How could you change the game? It could be anything from the pitch dimensions to rules of play, the team composition to the measures of success, the role of the referee to the participation of fans. Even the name of the game.

Now look at today’s most disruptive innovators – 23andMe to Airbnb, Brewdog to Buzzfeed, Casper to Coursera – they reframe, reimagine and redefine the market on their terms – who is it for, why people buy, what they pay and get, and how they work.

I’ve met and profiled over 250 “gamechanger” companies on my travels, in almost every sector, and in every part of the world. Corporate giants and start-ups, from Abu Dhabi to Berlin, Colombo to Qingdao.

There is no one way to change the game, but there are definitely some common traits:

• Audacious – Gamechangers are visionary and innovative, but also daring and original; they seek to shape the future to their advantage.
• Purposeful – They seek to make life better, in some relevant and inspiring way; they have a higher motive than just making money.
• Networked – Gamechangers harness the power of networks, digital and physical, both business and customer networks, to exponentially reach further faster.
• Intelligent – They use big data analytics and algorithms, machine learning and AI, to be smart and efficient, personal and predictive.
• Collaborative – Gamechangers work with others, from ecosystems to platforms, social networks and co-creation, to achieve more together.
• Enabling – They focus not on what they do, but what they enable people to do; and thereby redefine their marketspace, find new opportunities and redefine value.
• Commercial – Gamechangers take a longer-term perspective, adopting new business models, and recalibrating the measures of progress and success.

Do you have a future mindset?

Today’s business leaders need a future mindset. That sounds obvious, but isn’t.

Most leaders have a “fixed mindset”. They keep stretching the old models of success. They stay loyal to the model that made them great, seeking to squeeze and tweak it for as long as possible. They seek perfection – to optimise what they currently do – which leads to efficiency and incremental gains.

Instead a “future mindset” is prepared to let go of the past. To explore the future, to experiment with new ways of working and winning. Failure is a way to learn, and innovation becomes the norm. Change is relentless inside, as it is outside. Innovation is their lifeblood. Like Jeff Bezos loves to say “it is always day one”.

With a future mindset, the CEO needs new attributes:

• Sense maker – to interpret a fast and confusing world, to see new patterns and opportunities, what is relevant and not, to shape your own vision.
• Radical optimist – to inspire people with a stretching ambition, positive and distinctive, to be audacious, to see the possibilities when others only see risk.
• Future hacker – they start from the “future back”, with clarity of purpose and intent, encouraging ideas and experiments, leveraging resource and scale.
• Ideas connector – da Vinci said innovation is about making unusual connections;  connecting new people, new partners, new capabilities and new ideas.
• Emotionally agile – whilst organisational agility is essential, emotional agility matters even more; to cope with change, to be intuitive in making sense, and making choices.
• Entrepreneur at large – keeping the founders mentality alive, hands-on working with project teams to infuse the mindset, to be the catalyst and coach.
• Having grit – “gamechanger” leaders need to go against the grain, to persist but know when to move on, to have self belief and confidence, guts and resilience.

The future is a better place to start

Start from the “future back”.

Trying to evolve in today’s complex and confused world is unlikely to lead you towards a bright and distinctive future. It will extend your life a little longer, but it will be tough and uninspiring, with diminishing returns.

Instead jump to the future. I tend to start with five years ahead, although it may differ by company. 5 years is long enough to change the world, but close enough to be real. Start by creating a positive, collective and inspiring vision of the future market. What will it be like? What will people want? Why? How? Where? Then consider how to win in this new world.

This is where “moonshot thinking” can be really useful. “Why be 10% better, when you could be 10 times better?” 10 times more profits, more customers, more quality, reduced cost, reduced time. Whatever. By giving yourself a “How could we do it 10x better” challenge you take a new perspective, solve problems in different ways.

Be inspired by ideas from other places.

Explore how ARM or GE, Inditex or Netflix, Glossier or Novo Nordisk have changed their markets. Choose any of my 100+ “gamechanger” companies! How did they do it? How did customers respond? (Remember, they often serve the same customers as you!). You can’t learn much from competitors, but you can learn a lot from relevant parallels.

Copy. Adapt. Paste.

Customer insight also matters. Deep dives and design thinking, exploring the emerging trends and deviant behaviours. This can enhance and validate your ideas, but the problem with most customer insight is that it is filtered by our current world. You need something to disrupt your thinking.

I have a great box of disruptive techniques. Some are really simple – like break then remake the rules, like imagine its free then find a way to make money, like reverse polarities and many more. The point is to disrupt your conventional thinking.

From this, ideas rapidly emerge. You need lots of ideas about the future. But these are fragments of the real answer. The real creativity comes in fusing together into bigger “concepts”. These could be customer solutions, or new ways of working, new revenue streams, or new business models, and new market scenarios.

Once you have a clear and collective ambition for the future, it’s time to work backwards.  “If this is how we want to be in 5 years, where do we need to get to in 3 years, and then in 1 year?  Therefore what do we need to start doing now?” You develop a “horizon plan” for your business; a strategy roadmap if you like, but developed backwards.

The important thing is that by working backwards, you have jumped out of the morass of today. You’ve avoided the assumptions, limitations, problems and priorities of today’s thinking. You have a more inspiring “gamechanging” future, and have started to map out the steps to get there. Most likely with different priorities in the short-term too.

Of course the steps on this journey might change, but it’s going to be an exciting adventure.

Change the way we think, resolve the conflicts

In today’s busineses, we have created artificial divides in how we think and operate. Digital and physical seem like two different worlds, global and local seem like alternative strategies that cannot combine, many still struggle to align value to customers and shareholders in a mutually reinforcing way, and short and long-termism continues to confuse our priorities.

Our thinking within business, has created separate and apparently conflicting approaches. The opportunity is to make the combination of both approaches world – “fusions” if you like – to be innovative in the way you combine apparent opposites.

Digital and physical are two sides of the same coin.

There is only one world, unless you believe Ray Kurzweil, and it is the real one. It’s human and physical. Digital technologies are incredibly powerful, enabling people to connect, to work, to learn, to play in new ways. From mobile phones to blockchains, 3D printing and augmented reality, digital allows us to do more, do it faster, do things we could never do before. But it’s still about humanity.

Start with people. How can you enable them to achieve more? To live better, to have more fun, to do better for the world. Whatever matters. I work closely with Richard Branson and his Virgin teams. Their mindset is to “start from the outside, and then work in”. Design a better customer experience. Built on your ambition and insight, and then explore how you could deliver it with new and existing capabilities.

Global and local are opportunities for every business.

I love Amazon’s “Treasure Truck” … Most of us have never connected with Amazon beyond the website and the delivery guy. Amazon is huge, global and anonymous. But the Treasure Truck is real. It travels around the country, bringing its pop-up store to local neighbourhoods, fun and games, bargains and demos. For Amazon, it’s a chance to make real connections, listen to people, and to be local.

We can all see a backlash in society against relentless globalisation, huge corporations, and social inequality. We see a lack of trust in brands, and know that authenticity matters. Etsy shows us that even the smallest and most local artisan businesses can also be global. For every business, local and global markets are within reach, however it’s also about combining scale and standardisation, with relevance and individuality.

Ideas and networks should be the core of your business.

Gamechanger businesses need a compelling idea, a core purpose, an inspiring proposition, that can spread fast and contagiously. In a digitally-fuelled world, the most innovative businesses embrace “ideas and networks” to drive exponential impact – like WhatsApp creating $19bn in three years, Airbnb $40bn in 9 years, Alibaba $476bn in 18 years, Amazon $740bn in 23 years.

Think about that concept of “exponential” … The power of networks – be it franchisees, or distributors, or customers and users – lies not in the number of members, but in the connections between them. Networks have a multiplying effect. Exponential. Consider, for example, Rapha, the sportwear brand that brings together people with a passion for cycling, who conveniently meet at their “Cycle Club” stores, and buy their premium gear. A fantastic “ideas and networks” business.

Finally this idea of short-term and long-term being in conflict with each other.

Jeff Bezos never has this problem, nor Elon Musk, nor Richard Branson. They focus on the long-term, recognising it will require some years of investment to get there. They all of course lead privately-owned companies. But every public company has the same ambition to innovate and grow. And so do most of their investors, actually.

The reality is that any company’s stock market performance is based on its future earnings potential, not its past. The better you can engage with equity analysts, journalists and investors themselves to explain why you will deliver a better future worth waiting for, then you get their support. If you don’t engage them in your future vision, plans and innovations, then they will default to looking for short-term evidence. It’s really in our hands, to work together to create a future we want to invest in. And to share the greater risk and rewards.

Time to embrace your Musk mindset

We live in an incredible time … More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years … remember? I know that sounds a little crazy, but think about Hyperloop in 3 years, a tipping point to electric cars in 5 years, Mars missions in 8 years. They are all real, and possible.

Digital platforms connecting buyers and sellers in new ways, blockchain having the potential to transform relationships and trust, 3d printing having the potential to transform value chains to deliver anything personalised and on-demand, AI and robotics giving us the capabilities to be superhuman in our minds and bodies.

These are just some of the fantastic new capabilities that enable us to innovate beyond what we can even imagine today. The future isn’t like the future used to be. We cannot just evolve or extrapolate the past. Today’s future is discontinuous, disruptive, different.

It is imagination that will move us forwards … unlocking the technological possibilities, applying them to real problems and opportunities, to drive innovation and growth in every industry, in every part of our lives.

Imagine a world where you press “print” to get the dress of your dreams, the food of your fantasies, or the spare parts for your car. Instantly, personalised and on demand. Think then what does that mean if we don’t need the huge scale of manufacturing plants, warehousing and transportation. Maybe we will even subscribe to the IP catalogues of brands, rather than buy standard products, in the ways we currently subscribe to Netflix.

Time to embrace your Musk mindset … Unlock your Einstein dreams and Picasso passion … Embrace your Mandela courage and Ghandi spirit. Be more curious, be more intuitive, be more human. Ask more questions. Don’t be afraid to have audacious ideas, to challenge the old models of success, and turn future ambitions into practical profitable reality.

How else did Zespri reinvent the Chinese gooseberry as the kiwi fruit? How else will SpaceX reach Mars by 2025? How else did Netflix came to be, or NuTonomy, or Nespresso, or Nyx?

This is why 23andMe’s Anne Wojicki wont give up in her quest to make DNA analysis available to everyone, and to ultimately find a cure for cancer. And it’s why Jack Ma didn’t give up as he rose from $1000-per year English teacher to technological royalty.

The secret is the future mindset.

To realise that the future is malleable. So we need to grab hold of it, and shape it in our own vision. To our advantage.

This is what “gamechangers” do.

Are you ready?

Download the article: Winning with a Future Mindset

The Future Book Forum is the world’s largest gathering of book publishers and printers, exploring the best new ideas for innovation and growth. Enabled by Canon, the event is fast and inspiring, practical and collaborative.

Over the last 4 years we set out an an ambitious journey, to define a better future for the book. Whilst we all recognise that digital technologies have fundamentally transformed lives and industries, we also recognised that it can also enhance the physical world. Making real things – in our case, books – even more personal, intelligent and useful.

2014: Future Vision … We started by creating a new inspiring view of the future of the book publishing industry, one in which publishers and printers, authors and readers, could work together to create more inspiring and more profitable experiences. Whilst most of our discussion tended to focus on the digital impact of online distribution and digital formats – with clear benefits to adopting digital technologies in the supply chain for printing on demand and personalisation – we went far beyond this.

2015: Consumer World … Most importantly we needed to understand the outside world – the changing reader, or consumer. For every one of us, the way we shop, the way we stay in touch with friends, the way in which we learn, the way in which we are entertained has been quite dramatically changed. Whilst young people have naturally embraced a new world, largely centred around their smart phones, every age group, at work and home have migrated to new ways of gaining and sharing content.

2016: Business Model … We then looked at alternative revenue and cost models. Digital printing technologies offered a simple way to reduce the risk in publishing, being able to print small batches on demand, develop regular updates and special editions, reduce warehouse stocks and speed up time to market. But this is largely a story of cost efficiency. We explored how publishers could do much more to drive growth too, to increase revenues and in particular profitability, by leveraging content in new ways.

2017: Smart Book … We defined a new DNA for the physical-digital hybrid platform which brings together the best content for the individual, delivered over time in a relevant and personal experience. How can you bring together the best of physical (tangible, browsable, artistic, treasurable) and digital (instant, customisable, efficient, updatable)? Forget the artificial division of print and digital, people consume knowledge across platforms, and therefore the best books embrace both worlds too.

This year we want to go further, again.

“Intelligent Growth” is all about data’s potential to transform the publishing world, and drive new growth.

Day 1, Inspiration:  21 November 2018

It starts with the consumer – and the need to serve them in more personal, predictive and profitable ways – harnessing the power of big data and artificial intelligence, platforms and clouds, to go beyond today’s world of books and ebooks, to deliver better digitally-enabled physical experiences.

0900 – 1000: Intelligent Growth, Peter Fisk, Professor at IE Business School – how can publishers embrace the power of data to create more personal, predictive and profitable book-related experiences?

0930 – 1000: Intelligent Consumers, Nick Morris, CEO Canvas8 – engaging consumers in more intelligent ways – what are the changing behaviours of people, to how they engage with content, and around the world?

1000 – 1030: Intelligent Publishers, Mark Allin, former CEO John Wiley – the need to embrace intelligence beyond content – harnessing the power of data, platforms and business models, communities and more.

1030 – 1100: Future Book Mash Up, audience co-creation – bringing together the big issues and ideas of everyone in the room!

1100 – 1130 : Break

1130 – 1200: Intelligent Technologies, Rainer Kellerhals, Microsoft – Case study of how technology is enabling every type of business to embrace data, from clouds to databases.

1200 – 1230: Intelligent Data, Tom Betts, CDO Financial Times – Case study of how data is transforming the world of newspapers, profitable with new business models.

1230 – 1300: Where’s the Growth in Intelligent Publishing? – Mark, Nick, Rainer and Tom, answer the most difficult questions.

1300 – 1430 : Lunch

1430 – 1600: Growth Accelerator – Practical workshop for all participants exploring how they can harness growth across their business models to drive growth

1600 – 1645 : Break

1645 – 1700: The Magic of Reading, Leanne McNulty, Room to Read  – more insights from our community’s nonprofit partner, helping children around the world to experience the wonders of reading through books.

1700 – 1730: Intelligent Business Models, Dan Kieren, CEO Unbound – embracing new approaches to business that combine the best of communities, participation, digital and physical experiences, for books to do more.

1730 – 1800 : The Agenda for Intelligent Growth – Mark, Dan and Sven Fund, reflecting on the best ideas for publishers to grow their businesses in smarter ways.

1900 – 0000 : Dinner at Film Casino, Munich

Day 2, Implementation: 22 November 2018

0900 – 0920 : Intelligent Technology in Publishing, Peter Fisk with Sven Fund –  rethinking the toolkit for publishers, and how they can embrace new technologies to achieve more.

0920 – 1000 : Great Examples of Innovation –  from the publishers and printers perspectives, where the future is more about process than content.

1000 – 1030 : The Publishing Innovation Toolkit, Sven Fund – what are the innovative tools in the publishing ecosystem, and 6 great examples of companies to inspire us.

1030 – 1100 : Break

1100 – 1230 : Roundtables … The Publishing Innovation Toolkit  – each participant joins one of the eight roundtables, and then a second, for 30 minutes each.

• Increasing satisfaction – IntechOpen
• Identifying bestsellers – Inkitt
• New business models – Knowledge Unlatched
• Consumer co-creation – Moo
• Controlling inventory – Peter Lang
• Monetising assets – Building Digital Solutions 421

1230 – 1400 : Lunch

1400 – 1500 : The Publishing Innovation Toolkit, What we learnt  – each participant joins one of the eight roundtables, and then a second, for 30 minutes each.

1500 – 1530 : Collaboration and automation, panel discussion

1530 – 1600 : Baume Custom Timepieces Series – inspiring insight into the future of the watch industry, and what we can learn from it in the world of publishing.

1600 – 1630 : The Best Ideas for Intelligent Growth, Peter Fisk … what have you learnt, what will you do … ready to change the world of publishing, again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_z2v9GhmWQ&t=22shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK02oSjbbPI

The event is by invitation only.

Whilst creativity is about divergent thinking – opening up to explore new perspectives, make new connections, generate more ideas – innovation is about convergent thinking – evaluating the best ideas, focusing on making them practical and profitable, then making them happen effectively.

In my book “Creative Genius” we explore Leonardo da Vinci’s 8 principles, then apply them to today’s business world: being curious, exploring margins, reframing context, visualisation, resolving paradox, balancing art and science, making new connections and being alive.

Innovation in most companies is still mostly about products and services, whereas innovation has most impact when applied to business models and customer experiences. We therefore focus on business innovation, driven by your purpose and opportunity, and by thinking hard about what is the problem we are trying to solve, and the impact we want to make. Innovation is therefore particularly about five important factors, looking across the whole business to open up, and then close down:

• Design thinking – embracing “insight” to understand the deeper motivations and aspirations of customers, through deep-dive immersion with individuals, connecting analytics with observation and intuition. Design thinking is about better defining the challenge – problem, opportunity – then being more human, creative and real in solving it.

• Making connections – fusing ideas to create richer “concepts”, but also learning from other places, from “parallel” markets where the same customers are already embracing change and new ideas, and then applying to your own market, as a pioneer. Connecting initial ideas into concepts makes them stronger and more distinctive.

• Creative disruption – how to be different, to challenge the conventions, break the rules, and redefine the markets in a different way – for example by technological simplification, or new customer behaviour. This creates rethinking – changing the who, why, what and how – and can potentially recalibrate the market.

• New business models – more dramatic and sustainable innovation usually involves changing the way the business works – in particular through new partnerships, and creating new revenue streams built around a strong value proposition at the core – this focuses on value propositions and business model design.

• Accelerating action – facilitating your best ideas to market better and faster, through challenge and support, bringing your best people together, adding external ideas to internal expertise, and disciplined process. This includes “lean thinking” techniques from minimal viable products, prototyping and then vortex market adoption.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-VjSorGvcY

Russian Railways is Russia’s leading railway company and one of the largest companies in the global transport sector. The Company is a natural monopoly and fully owned by the Russian Federation. Our primary goal is to meet the state’s rail transport and employment needs, and to provide services to passengers.

Russian Railways is

• one of the largest freight carriers in the world (third in the world by freight turnover)
• ranked fourth in the world for passenger rail transportation
• a leading contributor by size to the Russian economy (about 1.6% of GDP in 2013)
• supported by the Russian Federation.

 

Download a summary of Peter Fisk’s keynote “Gamechangers”

Peter Fisk introduces a preview of Europe’s top business summit

The European Business Forum is the premier meeting place for business leaders in Europe. It brings together the continent’s top business people with the world’s leading management gurus in “the Davos of business thinking”.

“Making better choices” is the theme of EBF18, on 26-27 September 2018.

Business leaders face more choices than ever before – there are few limits to the ways a business can grow – any geographical market, any industrial sector, any business model – enabled by technology, partners, people and investment. In fact, in a world of infinite possibilities, the hardest part is often deciding what not to do – to make choices.

Download: NOW+NEXT Preview of the European Business Forum 2018

In the “fourth industrial revolution” it is the new generation of technologies – from digital networks and blockchain, to robotics and artificial intelligence, 3d printing and biotechnologies – that challenge business leaders to rethink what matters, how to embrace the new capabilities, and what creates sustained economic value.

Yet another challenge – how the business exists within society, and the value it adds to people, local communities and social progress – might have just as much impact on a business’ future success. What is fair, what is good, what is progress, have become huge questions – particularly for business leaders.

At the previous forum, Europe’s business leaders said “Fast change has left business out of touch with people. Leaders are complacent, and innovation is wasted.” Collectively we asked ourselves how can European business rediscover its place in the world. There was a strong and overwhelming message from participants: “Business should be a force for positive progress.” This year we build on your agenda.

“Making Better Choices” is about connecting these challenges and new opportunities – exploring how business leaders can most effectively apply these new technologies for more impact, for both people and profit. This requires new options, new choices, and smarter decisions.

Agenda Day 1

0900 – 1015 … Technologies that will change our world

The “Odense Moonshot” explores the incredible potential of new technologies to transform every market. Whilst Bitcoin has grabbed headlines, the underlying blockchain technologies could transform the way every market works, and not just in financial services. It could transform business models and supply chains, whilst reinventing the ways in which consumers engage, and their trust in brands. This will be enhanced by other technologies, adding intelligence, speed and efficiency. Which technologies matter most to your future, and how will you embrace their potential?

• Don Tapscott is often known as Mr Wikinomics, and is #2 in the Thinkers50 global ranking of business gurus. He has become the spokesperson of the network age – explaining the exponential potential of networks when you make them work for you (like Wikipedia, but equally by turning your customer base into a vibrant community). Now he turns his attention to Blockchain, one of the many new technologies that fascinate and baffle most business leaders. His new book is Blockchain Revolution. How will distributed, network-based transaction systems transform the way money works, and almost every other industry too?

1045 – 1200 … Social issues that will change our world

Dramatic change brings new tensions, not least in how business progress is challenging our ways of life, our society and environment. Global and local, rich and poor, fake and authentic, climate and ecology, fairness and ethics. What is the impact of your business on our world, in your local community and far across continents? At the same time, social issues provide new opportunities for business to do good. How could you innovate your business activities in a way that does more for society, engaging people more deeply and maybe even more profitable too? This is no longer about CSR, but has profound implications for every part of business.

1230 – 1330 … Big Talk: Defining the Choices

What are the biggest challenges for us all, as business leaders? The forum works together in roundtables, speakers and participants, to explore the questions, tensions and dilemmas we face in business – the role of technology in driving progress, and the impact financially and socially which they can have. Together we will create an “agenda” for European business, considering which factors are most significant together and individually. By learning from each other, we may uncover choices we didn’t even realise we had, and new opportunities to innovate and grow.

1430 – 1515 … Rethinking Purpose

Entrepreneurs have a clarity of purpose when they set out, which is often lost or confused as their businesses grow and evolve. Finding a purpose beyond profit has become the guiding path of most enlightened businesses today, rethinking “why” the business exists before “what and how” to do. Purpose gives you a north star, and source of enduring difference. By rediscovering the mindset of your founder, businesses can often rekindle their creativity, reneergise their people, and refocus their priorities. This often involves applying innovation to every aspect of the business, and its wider impact.

1545 – 1700 … Rethinking Organisations

Disruptive technologies are unlikely to thrive in traditional organisations built around hierarchies of people and products. Creativity and agility comes from new ways of working together, more flexibly and collaboratively, building new types of partnerships with new capabilities. Organisations need in many ways to mirror the new market models, speed and agility, but also human and responsible. They need to harness their connected intelligence, whilst maintain emotional agility to sustain the delivery of projects and results. How can you build the right organisation for the future? What are the big choices, and best solutions?

Agenda Day 2

0900 – 1015 … Innovation Accelerator

Innovation drives business progress. It has become core to what the organisation does, and all embracing in its scope, rethinking everything from business models to customer experiences. At the same time, the process of innovation has become smarter, faster, more collaborative and more creative. From design thinking to lean implementation, organisations seek to bring an entrepreneurial mindset to the development process. At the heart of all of this sits the business model. And often one that can be expressed on a one page canvas. So how can you develop a better business model, and in particular, one that embraces the potential of technologies for both people and profit?

• Alex Osterwalder is popular for his Business Model Canvas, a one-page framework in which you map and then creatively explore the opportunities for rethinking every aspect of your business. With post-it notes, and a blank canvas you can play with your future business model, including how to achieve those new choices. Together with Yves Pigneur, and 470 co-creators, the Swiss innovation guru has authored three books, and is now #7 on the Thinkers50 global ranking.

1045 – 1200 … Rethinking Networks

Networks are the drivers of exponential growth – social media, distribution partners, licensing models, business ecosystems, media networks. Every additional member creates a multiplying effect through its added connections. As a result, customers trust customers, businesses work together to share capabilities, and reaching across markets is fast and easy. What are the best ways to make networks work? How can you engage business partners more effectively, and more consumers faster and more authentically?

1230 – 1330 … Big Talk: Making Better Choices

So how can we, as business leaders, make better choices? The forum works together in roundtables, speakers and participants, to address the core theme, building on the ideas of previous sessions, and the experiences of all of us. How can the new technologies help us to make better choices, in a way that delivers success for society, and profitable growth too? What are the new choices? How do we choose? What difference will it make?

1430 – 1515 … Rethinking Leadership

Leaders are the ultimate decision makers. How has decision-making changed in today’s world? With ever greater complexity and relentless change, multiple cultures and dispersed working, how do you make better choices? Information is ubiquitous, analytics are rampant, yet making the right choices requires more than lots of data. It is about understanding the choices – what options are available; and then the impacts – the consequences of decisions. Do you have what it takes to rethink your role as leader, maybe even to disrupt yourself, and to rethink how you think, decide and lead?

1545 – 1700 … European Business Lecture 2018

The European Business Lecture defines the agenda for business across the continent in the year ahead, a seminal moment in the European business calendar. What are the priorities for business, for governments, and others? How will Europe win in a fast and dynamic world? How can smarter choices enable leaders to see their future differently, to focus on new priorities and practices, and to have more impact?  Good judgement is a rare but crucial quality in today’s business leaders. Winners, particularly in a world of new technologies and new priorities, are the ones who make great choices.

• Roger Martin is the world’s #1 business thinker, and tops the 2017 Thinkers50 ranking of global management gurus. He is a Canadian strategist, formerly Dean of the Rotman School of Management. He is perhaps most famous for his “Playing to Win” collaboration with P&G’s former CEO AG Lafley, which defined the key choices to make in developing a great strategy. He has almost dedicated much of his time to social entrepreneurship, and has a new book just out called Creating Great Choices, which explores how “integrative thinking” can lead to solutions which are not trade-offs or compromises, but adopt a better way.

Keynote speakers

Peter Fisk will be hosting the event again, and working with my Thinkers50 colleagues Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove to design an event that brings together the best ideas in a fresh and though-provoking. Here are some of this years top speakers who will be working together, and with you:

• Roger Martin, author of Creating Great Choices, the world’s #1 business guru
• Don Tapscott, author of Blockchain Revolution, the world’s #2 business guru
• Alex Osterwalder, co-author of Business Model Generation, and #7 business guru

Together with:

• Jim Hageman Snabe, Chairman of AP Moller-Maersk, one of Europe’s top leaders
• Chris Zook, Bain & Co partner, and author of Founders Mentality
• Johanna Mair, German social innovation expert from Stanford
• Martin Lindstrom, Denmark’s Lego kid, and though leader on consumer insight
• Erica Dhawan, from Harvard on the power of Connectional Intelligence
• Casper von Koskull, Finnish banker and CEO of Nordea Bank
• Nikolaj Coster Waldau, UN Ambassador and star of Game of Thrones
• Alexandra, Countess of Frederiksborg, author of The Sincerity Edge
• Tania de Jong, Dutch Australian operatic-singing creative catalyst
• Ricardo Vargas, CEO of Brightline Initiative, on a mission to make strategy happen
• Jimmy Maymann-Holler, EVP of AOL, previously CEO of Huff Post
• Andrew Shipilov, Insead professor, and author of Network Advantage
• Esben Østergaard, founder and CTO of Universal Robotics
• Whitney Johnson, Harvard executive coach, author of Disrupt Yourself
• Tanyer Sonmezer, CEO of Management Centre Turkey

Peter Fisk introduces a preview of Europe’s top business summit

• Download my keynote on Gamechangers 
• Read my article Norwegian Gamechangers

The European Business Forum is the premier meeting place for business leaders in Europe. It brings together the continent’s top business people with the world’s leading management gurus in “the Davos of business thinking”.

“Making better choices” is the theme of EBF18, on 26-27 September 2018.

Business leaders face more choices than ever before – there are few limits to the ways a business can grow – any geographical market, any industrial sector, any business model – enabled by technology, partners, people and investment. In fact, in a world of infinite possibilities, the hardest part is often deciding what not to do – to make choices.

Download: NOW+NEXT Preview of the European Business Forum 2018

In the “fourth industrial revolution” it is the new generation of technologies – from digital networks and blockchain, to robotics and artificial intelligence, 3d printing and biotechnologies – that challenge business leaders to rethink what matters, how to embrace the new capabilities, and what creates sustained economic value.

Yet another challenge – how the business exists within society, and the value it adds to people, local communities and social progress – might have just as much impact on a business’ future success. What is fair, what is good, what is progress, have become huge questions – particularly for business leaders.

At the previous forum, Europe’s business leaders said “Fast change has left business out of touch with people. Leaders are complacent, and innovation is wasted.” Collectively we asked ourselves how can European business rediscover its place in the world. There was a strong and overwhelming message from participants: “Business should be a force for positive progress.” This year we build on your agenda.

“Making Better Choices” is about connecting these challenges and new opportunities – exploring how business leaders can most effectively apply these new technologies for more impact, for both people and profit. This requires new options, new choices, and smarter decisions.

Agenda Day 1

0900 – 1015 … Technologies that will change our world

The “Odense Moonshot” explores the incredible potential of new technologies to transform every market. Whilst Bitcoin has grabbed headlines, the underlying blockchain technologies could transform the way every market works, and not just in financial services. It could transform business models and supply chains, whilst reinventing the ways in which consumers engage, and their trust in brands. This will be enhanced by other technologies, adding intelligence, speed and efficiency. Which technologies matter most to your future, and how will you embrace their potential?

• Don Tapscott is often known as Mr Wikinomics, and is #2 in the Thinkers50 global ranking of business gurus. He has become the spokesperson of the network age – explaining the exponential potential of networks when you make them work for you (like Wikipedia, but equally by turning your customer base into a vibrant community). Now he turns his attention to Blockchain, one of the many new technologies that fascinate and baffle most business leaders. His new book is Blockchain Revolution. How will distributed, network-based transaction systems transform the way money works, and almost every other industry too?

1045 – 1200 … Social issues that will change our world

Dramatic change brings new tensions, not least in how business progress is challenging our ways of life, our society and environment. Global and local, rich and poor, fake and authentic, climate and ecology, fairness and ethics. What is the impact of your business on our world, in your local community and far across continents? At the same time, social issues provide new opportunities for business to do good. How could you innovate your business activities in a way that does more for society, engaging people more deeply and maybe even more profitable too? This is no longer about CSR, but has profound implications for every part of business.

1230 – 1330 … Big Talk: Defining the Choices

What are the biggest challenges for us all, as business leaders? The forum works together in roundtables, speakers and participants, to explore the questions, tensions and dilemmas we face in business – the role of technology in driving progress, and the impact financially and socially which they can have. Together we will create an “agenda” for European business, considering which factors are most significant together and individually. By learning from each other, we may uncover choices we didn’t even realise we had, and new opportunities to innovate and grow.

1430 – 1515 … Rethinking Purpose

Entrepreneurs have a clarity of purpose when they set out, which is often lost or confused as their businesses grow and evolve. Finding a purpose beyond profit has become the guiding path of most enlightened businesses today, rethinking “why” the business exists before “what and how” to do. Purpose gives you a north star, and source of enduring difference. By rediscovering the mindset of your founder, businesses can often rekindle their creativity, reneergise their people, and refocus their priorities. This often involves applying innovation to every aspect of the business, and its wider impact.

1545 – 1700 … Rethinking Organisations

Disruptive technologies are unlikely to thrive in traditional organisations built around hierarchies of people and products. Creativity and agility comes from new ways of working together, more flexibly and collaboratively, building new types of partnerships with new capabilities. Organisations need in many ways to mirror the new market models, speed and agility, but also human and responsible. They need to harness their connected intelligence, whilst maintain emotional agility to sustain the delivery of projects and results. How can you build the right organisation for the future? What are the big choices, and best solutions?

Agenda Day 2

0900 – 1015 … Innovation Accelerator

Innovation drives business progress. It has become core to what the organisation does, and all embracing in its scope, rethinking everything from business models to customer experiences. At the same time, the process of innovation has become smarter, faster, more collaborative and more creative. From design thinking to lean implementation, organisations seek to bring an entrepreneurial mindset to the development process. At the heart of all of this sits the business model. And often one that can be expressed on a one page canvas. So how can you develop a better business model, and in particular, one that embraces the potential of technologies for both people and profit?

• Alex Osterwalder is popular for his Business Model Canvas, a one-page framework in which you map and then creatively explore the opportunities for rethinking every aspect of your business. With post-it notes, and a blank canvas you can play with your future business model, including how to achieve those new choices. Together with Yves Pigneur, and 470 co-creators, the Swiss innovation guru has authored three books, and is now #7 on the Thinkers50 global ranking.

1045 – 1200 … Rethinking Networks

Networks are the drivers of exponential growth – social media, distribution partners, licensing models, business ecosystems, media networks. Every additional member creates a multiplying effect through its added connections. As a result, customers trust customers, businesses work together to share capabilities, and reaching across markets is fast and easy. What are the best ways to make networks work? How can you engage business partners more effectively, and more consumers faster and more authentically?

1230 – 1330 … Big Talk: Making Better Choices

So how can we, as business leaders, make better choices? The forum works together in roundtables, speakers and participants, to address the core theme, building on the ideas of previous sessions, and the experiences of all of us. How can the new technologies help us to make better choices, in a way that delivers success for society, and profitable growth too? What are the new choices? How do we choose? What difference will it make?

1430 – 1515 … Rethinking Leadership

Leaders are the ultimate decision makers. How has decision-making changed in today’s world? With ever greater complexity and relentless change, multiple cultures and dispersed working, how do you make better choices? Information is ubiquitous, analytics are rampant, yet making the right choices requires more than lots of data. It is about understanding the choices – what options are available; and then the impacts – the consequences of decisions. Do you have what it takes to rethink your role as leader, maybe even to disrupt yourself, and to rethink how you think, decide and lead?

1545 – 1700 … European Business Lecture 2018

The European Business Lecture defines the agenda for business across the continent in the year ahead, a seminal moment in the European business calendar. What are the priorities for business, for governments, and others? How will Europe win in a fast and dynamic world? How can smarter choices enable leaders to see their future differently, to focus on new priorities and practices, and to have more impact?  Good judgement is a rare but crucial quality in today’s business leaders. Winners, particularly in a world of new technologies and new priorities, are the ones who make great choices.

• Roger Martin is the world’s #1 business thinker, and tops the 2017 Thinkers50 ranking of global management gurus. He is a Canadian strategist, formerly Dean of the Rotman School of Management. He is perhaps most famous for his “Playing to Win” collaboration with P&G’s former CEO AG Lafley, which defined the key choices to make in developing a great strategy. He has almost dedicated much of his time to social entrepreneurship, and has a new book just out called Creating Great Choices, which explores how “integrative thinking” can lead to solutions which are not trade-offs or compromises, but adopt a better way.

Keynote speakers

Peter Fisk will be hosting the event again, and working with my Thinkers50 colleagues Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove to design an event that brings together the best ideas in a fresh and though-provoking. Here are some of this years top speakers who will be working together, and with you:

• Roger Martin, author of Creating Great Choices, the world’s #1 business guru
• Don Tapscott, author of Blockchain Revolution, the world’s #2 business guru
• Alex Osterwalder, co-author of Business Model Generation, and #7 business guru

Together with:

• Jim Hageman Snabe, Chairman of AP Moller-Maersk, one of Europe’s top leaders
• Chris Zook, Bain & Co partner, and author of Founders Mentality
• Johanna Mair, German social innovation expert from Stanford
• Martin Lindstrom, Denmark’s Lego kid, and though leader on consumer insight
• Erica Dhawan, from Harvard on the power of Connectional Intelligence
• Casper von Koskull, Finnish banker and CEO of Nordea Bank
• Nikolaj Coster Waldau, UN Ambassador and star of Game of Thrones
• Alexandra, Countess of Frederiksborg, author of The Sincerity Edge
• Tania de Jong, Dutch Australian operatic-singing creative catalyst
• Ricardo Vargas, CEO of Brightline Initiative, on a mission to make strategy happen
• Jimmy Maymann-Holler, EVP of AOL, previously CEO of Huff Post
• Andrew Shipilov, Insead professor, and author of Network Advantage
• Esben Østergaard, founder and CTO of Universal Robotics
• Whitney Johnson, Harvard executive coach, author of Disrupt Yourself
• Tanyer Sonmezer, CEO of Management Centre Turkey

Peter Fisk introduces a preview of Europe’s top business summit

The European Business Forum is the premier meeting place for business leaders in Europe. It brings together the continent’s top business people with the world’s leading management gurus in “the Davos of business thinking”.

“Making better choices” is the theme of EBF18, on 26-27 September 2018.

Business leaders face more choices than ever before – there are few limits to the ways a business can grow – any geographical market, any industrial sector, any business model – enabled by technology, partners, people and investment. In fact, in a world of infinite possibilities, the hardest part is often deciding what not to do – to make choices.

Download: NOW+NEXT Preview of the European Business Forum 2018

In the “fourth industrial revolution” it is the new generation of technologies – from digital networks and blockchain, to robotics and artificial intelligence, 3d printing and biotechnologies – that challenge business leaders to rethink what matters, how to embrace the new capabilities, and what creates sustained economic value.

Yet another challenge – how the business exists within society, and the value it adds to people, local communities and social progress – might have just as much impact on a business’ future success. What is fair, what is good, what is progress, have become huge questions – particularly for business leaders.

At the previous forum, Europe’s business leaders said “Fast change has left business out of touch with people. Leaders are complacent, and innovation is wasted.” Collectively we asked ourselves how can European business rediscover its place in the world. There was a strong and overwhelming message from participants: “Business should be a force for positive progress.” This year we build on your agenda.

“Making Better Choices” is about connecting these challenges and new opportunities – exploring how business leaders can most effectively apply these new technologies for more impact, for both people and profit. This requires new options, new choices, and smarter decisions.

Agenda Day 1

0900 – 1015 … Technologies that will change our world

The “Odense Moonshot” explores the incredible potential of new technologies to transform every market. Whilst Bitcoin has grabbed headlines, the underlying blockchain technologies could transform the way every market works, and not just in financial services. It could transform business models and supply chains, whilst reinventing the ways in which consumers engage, and their trust in brands. This will be enhanced by other technologies, adding intelligence, speed and efficiency. Which technologies matter most to your future, and how will you embrace their potential?

• Don Tapscott is often known as Mr Wikinomics, and is #2 in the Thinkers50 global ranking of business gurus. He has become the spokesperson of the network age – explaining the exponential potential of networks when you make them work for you (like Wikipedia, but equally by turning your customer base into a vibrant community). Now he turns his attention to Blockchain, one of the many new technologies that fascinate and baffle most business leaders. His new book is Blockchain Revolution. How will distributed, network-based transaction systems transform the way money works, and almost every other industry too?

1045 – 1200 … Social issues that will change our world

Dramatic change brings new tensions, not least in how business progress is challenging our ways of life, our society and environment. Global and local, rich and poor, fake and authentic, climate and ecology, fairness and ethics. What is the impact of your business on our world, in your local community and far across continents? At the same time, social issues provide new opportunities for business to do good. How could you innovate your business activities in a way that does more for society, engaging people more deeply and maybe even more profitable too? This is no longer about CSR, but has profound implications for every part of business.

1230 – 1330 … Big Talk: Defining the Choices

What are the biggest challenges for us all, as business leaders? The forum works together in roundtables, speakers and participants, to explore the questions, tensions and dilemmas we face in business – the role of technology in driving progress, and the impact financially and socially which they can have. Together we will create an “agenda” for European business, considering which factors are most significant together and individually. By learning from each other, we may uncover choices we didn’t even realise we had, and new opportunities to innovate and grow.

1430 – 1515 … Rethinking Purpose

Entrepreneurs have a clarity of purpose when they set out, which is often lost or confused as their businesses grow and evolve. Finding a purpose beyond profit has become the guiding path of most enlightened businesses today, rethinking “why” the business exists before “what and how” to do. Purpose gives you a north star, and source of enduring difference. By rediscovering the mindset of your founder, businesses can often rekindle their creativity, reneergise their people, and refocus their priorities. This often involves applying innovation to every aspect of the business, and its wider impact.

1545 – 1700 … Rethinking Organisations

Disruptive technologies are unlikely to thrive in traditional organisations built around hierarchies of people and products. Creativity and agility comes from new ways of working together, more flexibly and collaboratively, building new types of partnerships with new capabilities. Organisations need in many ways to mirror the new market models, speed and agility, but also human and responsible. They need to harness their connected intelligence, whilst maintain emotional agility to sustain the delivery of projects and results. How can you build the right organisation for the future? What are the big choices, and best solutions?

Agenda Day 2

0900 – 1015 … Innovation Accelerator

Innovation drives business progress. It has become core to what the organisation does, and all embracing in its scope, rethinking everything from business models to customer experiences. At the same time, the process of innovation has become smarter, faster, more collaborative and more creative. From design thinking to lean implementation, organisations seek to bring an entrepreneurial mindset to the development process. At the heart of all of this sits the business model. And often one that can be expressed on a one page canvas. So how can you develop a better business model, and in particular, one that embraces the potential of technologies for both people and profit?

• Alex Osterwalder is popular for his Business Model Canvas, a one-page framework in which you map and then creatively explore the opportunities for rethinking every aspect of your business. With post-it notes, and a blank canvas you can play with your future business model, including how to achieve those new choices. Together with Yves Pigneur, and 470 co-creators, the Swiss innovation guru has authored three books, and is now #7 on the Thinkers50 global ranking.

1045 – 1200 … Rethinking Networks

Networks are the drivers of exponential growth – social media, distribution partners, licensing models, business ecosystems, media networks. Every additional member creates a multiplying effect through its added connections. As a result, customers trust customers, businesses work together to share capabilities, and reaching across markets is fast and easy. What are the best ways to make networks work? How can you engage business partners more effectively, and more consumers faster and more authentically?

1230 – 1330 … Big Talk: Making Better Choices

So how can we, as business leaders, make better choices? The forum works together in roundtables, speakers and participants, to address the core theme, building on the ideas of previous sessions, and the experiences of all of us. How can the new technologies help us to make better choices, in a way that delivers success for society, and profitable growth too? What are the new choices? How do we choose? What difference will it make?

1430 – 1515 … Rethinking Leadership

Leaders are the ultimate decision makers. How has decision-making changed in today’s world? With ever greater complexity and relentless change, multiple cultures and dispersed working, how do you make better choices? Information is ubiquitous, analytics are rampant, yet making the right choices requires more than lots of data. It is about understanding the choices – what options are available; and then the impacts – the consequences of decisions. Do you have what it takes to rethink your role as leader, maybe even to disrupt yourself, and to rethink how you think, decide and lead?

1545 – 1700 … European Business Lecture 2018

The European Business Lecture defines the agenda for business across the continent in the year ahead, a seminal moment in the European business calendar. What are the priorities for business, for governments, and others? How will Europe win in a fast and dynamic world? How can smarter choices enable leaders to see their future differently, to focus on new priorities and practices, and to have more impact?  Good judgement is a rare but crucial quality in today’s business leaders. Winners, particularly in a world of new technologies and new priorities, are the ones who make great choices.

• Roger Martin is the world’s #1 business thinker, and tops the 2017 Thinkers50 ranking of global management gurus. He is a Canadian strategist, formerly Dean of the Rotman School of Management. He is perhaps most famous for his “Playing to Win” collaboration with P&G’s former CEO AG Lafley, which defined the key choices to make in developing a great strategy. He has almost dedicated much of his time to social entrepreneurship, and has a new book just out called Creating Great Choices, which explores how “integrative thinking” can lead to solutions which are not trade-offs or compromises, but adopt a better way.

Keynote speakers

Peter Fisk will be hosting the event again, and working with my Thinkers50 colleagues Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove to design an event that brings together the best ideas in a fresh and though-provoking. Here are some of this years top speakers who will be working together, and with you:

• Roger Martin, author of Creating Great Choices, the world’s #1 business guru
• Don Tapscott, author of Blockchain Revolution, the world’s #2 business guru
• Alex Osterwalder, co-author of Business Model Generation, and #7 business guru

Together with:

• Jim Hageman Snabe, Chairman of AP Moller-Maersk, one of Europe’s top leaders
• Chris Zook, Bain & Co partner, and author of Founders Mentality
• Johanna Mair, German social innovation expert from Stanford
• Martin Lindstrom, Denmark’s Lego kid, and though leader on consumer insight
• Erica Dhawan, from Harvard on the power of Connectional Intelligence
• Casper von Koskull, Finnish banker and CEO of Nordea Bank
• Nikolaj Coster Waldau, UN Ambassador and star of Game of Thrones
• Alexandra, Countess of Frederiksborg, author of The Sincerity Edge
• Tania de Jong, Dutch Australian operatic-singing creative catalyst
• Ricardo Vargas, CEO of Brightline Initiative, on a mission to make strategy happen
• Jimmy Maymann-Holler, EVP of AOL, previously CEO of Huff Post
• Andrew Shipilov, Insead professor, and author of Network Advantage
• Esben Østergaard, founder and CTO of Universal Robotics
• Whitney Johnson, Harvard executive coach, author of Disrupt Yourself