Six macro factors reshaping business this decade

Executives will continue to grapple with a host of challenges during the 2020s, but from the maelstrom new business opportunities will arise.

A decade-long boom, generated substantially from inexpensive finance and lower-cost energy, led to structural stresses such as highly leveraged debt, crumbling international alliances, and bubble-like asset prices. We were overdue for a reckoning.

Executive leaders must acknowledge these six changes to reconsider how business will get done.

The threat of recession
Although Covid-19 was the visible impetus for the economic volatility we have seen in the last several years, the reality is that the markets were already fragile and precarious.

What we have found, though, is that actions you take now are critical to your success during a downturn and beyond. Success requires early, decisive action by every function in the organization to manage spend, secure talent and accelerate digital.

Systemic mistrust
Even before the events of 2020, global consumer and citizen trust was at an all-time low. Now, the ripple effects, such as supply chain and talent shortages, and overall brand mistrust demand a relentless focus on customer value. Often building a more tailored and personalized connection to the individual’s needs can help overcome consumer distrust and frustration.

Poor economic productivity
The digitalization of work, coupled with the adoption of hybrid and remote work practices, has created a renewed focus on the fundamentals of workplace productivity. Once detached executives are starting to peer down through delegation layers and into the details to find out-of-date technologies, bureaucratized practices and process inefficiencies.

You must rethink how work gets done and who does it to enable responses to disruptions and change. Failure to re-evaluate these fundamentals will exhaust already taxed employees and make them less willing and able to stay engaged, while being productive.

Sustainability
Now that it’s not overshadowed by the pandemic, sustainability is once again a mainstream concern for CEOs.

Customers, investors, regulators and employees now expect business leaders to focus more on environmental sustainability, and a sustainable business is seen as an opportunity to grow efficiency and revenue.

A talent shortage
Organizations find themselves with a unique challenge – keeping the in-demand talent they have and finding the competitive talent they need, especially when staff budgets are contracting or staying flat.

To combat the tricky combination of an economic slowdown and the talent market squeeze, the best leaders will enact creative methods to acquire new skills and capabilities without hiring new full-time employees.

Emerging technologies
Emerging technologies will have a large, disruptive effect in the coming decade. Adaptive AI, the metaverse, platform engineering, sustainable technology and super apps will change how organizations and societies operate. To capture the opportunities, it is critical to understand what, when and how key technologies will impact your strategic ambitions in the coming years.