Flexibility is the key to your future business

What will your organisation look like in five years' time? How will technology change your working practices, and how will it affect relations with customers?

These are questions that most IT directors will recognise, but many would struggle to find the time to fully consider.

But they are issues being addressed by some of the leading thinkers and opinion-formers of the industry. One such group is the Global Future Forum (GFF), a worldwide partnership of academics, futurologists and business leaders. Every year, a GFF panel of some 240 experts discuss their view of the near-future and how it will affect the way we live and work. Computing was provided an exclusive first look at the results of this year's survey.

Business Agility

'One of the keys to corporate success will be flexibility,' says GFF chief executive David Smith.

'We are being told that flexibility in business will be more important than operational efficiency. Overall, 62 per cent of respondents believe that we might be arriving at another age where we see the demise of some forms of business because they could not adapt fast enough.'

The study predicts that larger companies will be transformed into networks of partnerships and alliances over the next five years - 75 per cent of European experts believe this trend will happen by 2008.

'There is little disagreement that the networked organisation will emerge as the dominant form in the coming years,' says Smith.

In this new environment, the challenge for IT directors will be to establish an infrastructure that supports such dynamic business change and still allows for new technology to be introduced.

'Two-thirds of our panel believe that many organisations will be unable to effectively manage and deploy new technology due to all the rapid change and constant innovation,' says Smith.

But the big winners of this shift are likely to be outsourcing providers.

'Enterprises will need help from organisations who understand their business, understands how to deploy technology, who are prepared to be innovative and flexible in how they partner to create flexible networks of functions across the business,' says Smith.

The technology effect

The GFF panel recognise that technology is one of the most important influences on the changing structure of organisations, and says the increasing regulatory burden will only heighten the dependence on complex IT systems to manage the mountains of data created.

But the study warns that public attitudes to technology may be different.

Only 15 per cent of the experts believe there is a high likelihood that people will have accepted the benefits of technological advances and have a positive response to them by 2008. More than 40 per cent think it unlikely such a change will happen.

'Commentators now talk of "technology fatigue", of an overcrowded marketplace characterised by excessive consumer choice, of a public bewilderment that is accentuated by a continuous flood of gadgets and technology updates,' says the GFF report.

'There is much thinking to be done in re-aligning the debate about technology and people. At the moment, there's just not enough "people".'

Customer service

The relentless IT-enabled change in business sits ill at ease with the expectation that the public will remain wary of technology. Companies will need to pay particular attention to the use of personal information, says the study.

'Customers are highly motivated to protect and defend their private information and are determined to share it with potential suppliers only with their express permission,' says Smith.

'Consumers will demand highly targeted and personalised offerings from would-be suppliers, but will not look kindly on these organisations if they suspect companies know "too much" about our transactions and our private lives.'

The problem for organisations today is that data in existing customer relationship management (CRM) systems is focused on what customers have done in the past, says the report.

The need will be for systems that help understand what customers think about a company and its products, and what they are likely to do in the future.

'Sixty-nine per cent of the panel believe it is likely that real-time monitoring technologies will be employed by 2008,' says study.

'As customer needs change more rapidly and they become less tolerant of failure to deliver great service, rapid identification of customers' perceptions will be essential.'

Privacy

So, customers are wary of how companies use their personal information, but they want more personalised service. This is another conundrum, that brings the issue of privacy to the fore.

'The desire for privacy in an increasingly open digital world is raising obstacles to information access and usage,' says the report.

'Governments are legislating control of personal information back to the individual. This shift in ownership is significant - it immediately degrades the value of the contact list and associated information in corporate databases.'

The emphasis will be on building trust. The GFF experts predict that consumers will increasingly assign the right to use their data to a 'most trusted' supplier. The more any company can convince its customers of its trusted status, the greater the barriers for competitors trying to sell to the same individuals.

But the study warns of the potential downside to such an arrangement.

'Criminals look to the same technologies to perpetrate larger and more subtle identity fraud schemes,' it says.

But the successful companies of the future will be those that manage to achieve this delicate balance.

'The competitive edge will belong to those organisations who can best capitalise on consumer information, while allowing the consumer full control of how it is being used,' says the report.

'This is an almost contradictory objective, but one which is achievable if we possess the right combination of agile management and flexible technology.'