The Future-Ready Company

One of the leading features required for the companies to be successful in the future is to have a vision for the future and to balance it with short-term performance. No matter how difficult the conditions are, it is impossible for a company focused on today only, to become ready for the future. While trying to get rid of the fat, those who go overboard and cut the muscle, miss the opportunity to be competitive in the future. A road map to realize this vision, ie. a strategy is another must. As author Lewis Carroll said, if you don't know where you're going, any road can get you there. In fast-changing conditions, the strategy must also be dynamic. , A company trying to move forward with a static strategy, realizes after a while that it is detached from the realities. In the COVID-19 process, some companies chose to wait, hoping things would return back to normal. When this period was extended, it was understood that  business had to continue under the "New Realities" and new business models. The way to take the necessary steps at the right time without undue delay is for the organization to gain agility. It is very difficult for sluggish companies to get ready for the future. An important factor in accelerating an organization is that the decisions are taken at the lowest possible level.

One of the best ways to be ready for the future is to be an innovative company. Innovation brings competitive advantages for  today's business and is the only way to create tomorrow’s businesses. The future-ready companies should take their innovation approach beyond products, services, and processes. It may include reviewing the business model using operational business capabilities, putting  customer insights and customer experience in front of the product, finding opportunities for innovation in management, and making a cultural innovation in the company. Innovative companies are largely future-ready, as such a company brings together many positive elements in terms of leadership, culture, employee engagement, and business results. Trust, collaboration, inclusiveness, transparency are the values in a company with an innovative culture.

One of the requirements of being a future-ready and innovative company is to be aware of developing technologies and to include them in the company where it is meaningful, not because it is fashionable. Communication and collaboration applications which have been around for years and which do not require large budgets, have become indispensible with remote working. These are essential to speed up the work and to keep the team spirit and culture alive from a distance. Every company should think about their work and how to make it simpler, easier and faster for both the customers and the employees. The redesign of work should be considered before “Digital Transformation”, which according to surveys fails in 70-85% of the companies. Otherwise, you can speed up existing inefficiencies and unnecessary work.

When it comes to digitalization, the question of "who will do the work" comes to mind. First of all, will the work be done by the company's staff or by external consultants and experts on the basis of need and projects? Truthfully, with remote working which has brought the situation where “work” is split from “place” company boundaries have become further blurred. Whether the competencies for doing the work are inside or outside the organization is becoming irrelevant. Non-routine, development works are started to be viewed as projects. The definition of “work” and "job" are also diverging. Companies no longer only ask "why many of our employees do not work remotely?". At the same time they ask, "Should we keep so many people full time on our payroll?".

Another question is, should the work be done by humans or by machines? Many jobs that can be left to machines will eventually cease to be human-work. Insight, synthesis, strategy, human relations, and creativity are in the domain of humans. It is not easy for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to get in here. In a company with a future-ready participatory culture work will be shared between, highly competent qualified people and managers working in the company payroll, competent consultants and experts working with company teams, and machines. Talent management will be about pulling together contributions from a wide group of people inside and outside the company, rather than trying to get results from a limited number of people inside the organization.