In this blog series, we sit down with our experts to glean their insights on the global market – where it’s going and how you can prepare to go where you want to grow.
What do you think businesses should be thinking about as they consider their future?
Niraj Patel, Senior Manager, Columbus — Companies need to break away from traditional decision-making. The world is moving swiftly, and the conventional methods used in prior years are not enough. Design thinking needs to propel how an organization will serve its customers. Using design thinking, companies can put themselves in the shoes of the end consumer and ensure they understand their needs and meet those needs quickly. Utilizing actionable customer insights is a start. I use the word “actionable” because you need to know what drives your customers and potential customers. How do you use this data to determine what needs to happen with your product and services?
Isha Arora, Data & Analytics Senior Consultant, Centric India — Businesses need to do a few things:
- Accelerate best practices around collaboration, flexibility, inclusion and accountability (i.e., leverage new technologies like MURAL, a digital platform for collaboration)
- Rethink their employee-management engagement model
- Invest in systems for effective data management and deploy enhanced visualization tools to make key business decisions and present the facts to senior management.
Kim Howland, Senior Manager, Cincinnati — The trends I see now are around defining the “Future of Work,” harnessing the power of the Cloud, and determining how automation, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) can impact their industry and their organization.
Shiv Mohan, Data & Analytics Senior Consultant, Centric India — Organizations should leverage their employees’ skills and challenge them to new opportunities. It would be a good practice to create training cells and opportunities within organizations and provide additional incentives to participating associates. Spreading knowledge and increasing collaboration with conviction would be a great base from which to launch success.
Also, I believe that assigning ownership to team leads and enabling them with the tools they need to lead well is utterly important.
Mohit Singh, Data & Analytics Consultant, Centric India — There’s no escaping the wave of either getting digitally advanced or disrupted. Enterprises should aim to build resilient business operations with intelligence, enhance employee engagement and productivity, reskill their workforce faster, and reimagine ways of working. They must optimize the asset performance and adapt to changing circumstances with AI and IoT data.
Companies should strive to manage volatility and deliver value to customers, even in the face of disruption, so they can deliver on more customer promises.
Sean McLeod, Data & Analytics, Cincinnati — I think companies should begin thinking about a plan for sustainable growth once we are in a post-COVID world. I imagine, eventually, when COVID is behind us, most companies will see increased sales and volume. Managing this in a sustainable way will be key for companies to have enough resources while also maintaining their current culture by not growing too big, too quickly.
Natalie Bullock, People and Change Manager, Cincinnati — Companies should be thinking about enabling a remote workforce, listening to employee needs, and how they need to adapt as a company to be viable in this new normal we find ourselves in. They should focus on creative options for new ways of working that will set them apart from their competition.