Five trends guiding your direction for 2021

It is time to reflect on the important trends for the future, consider a reset and prepare a new game changing plan for the coming years.

The five long term major trends are still valid for 2021, however some trends got changed in content and priority for the coming year. And the uncertainty of the short term has increased dramatically. The five megatrends will continue to impact us and our future in our roles as leaders, citizens and companies. The trends, which we describe further below, are

• Technology Innovation
• Planet Resource Challenges
• Health, Social & Work Change
• De-Globalisation & Power Shift
• Urbanisation & Migration

We have updated insights about the trends, and for each trend we provide Curated Newsletter and Curated Podcast Lists to follow. We provide newsletters and curated podcast lists also for Leadership and Board Governanceto inspire the needed transformation processes . (This blogpost builds on an earlier blogpost “Trends for a Game Changing Plan” from last year)

As the traditional worlds top leadership event held by World Economic Forum in Davos, is just a week away, we will link the themes from the Davos event to the trends. This years theme is “The Great Reset” and it is also the first year we can all attend the WEF Davos event as it will be open and shared virtually.

For this year’s kickoff, we will keep an extra focus on some needed increased insights in Climate Strategy and on Social & Work Change through Technology Innovation.

Some of our particular challenges this year are

• the uncertainty of Covid-19 impact & recovery
• how we balance the interest of individuals, societies and businesses
• the need to refine our strategies (again), clarify our purpose with new digital business models and ecosystem collaborations
• how we deepen the incorporation of the climate and pandemic impact in our strategies
• to ensure both the physical and mental health of people, and increase the talent development
• ensure we improve data, our data handling, cybersecurity and use technology to increase all value creation

In order to handle our challenges we need to increase our monitoring and insights, and be prepared to innovate, adjust our strategies and reactions under the ongoing uncertainty.

“True security lies in the unrestrained embrace of insecurity — in the recognition that we never really stand on solid ground, and never can.” — Oliver Burkeman

While less than 5% of occupations consists of activities that can be fully automated, up to 30% of hours worked globally could be automated by 2030. The planet will continue to feel even smaller in 2030 as more people are able to communicate over the internet (90% of the world population will be able to read; 75% will have mobile connectivity; 60% should have broadband access), they will also move more. Almost all European cars will be connected to the internet in 2030

Or the book which was the result of our academic research on AI and governance ; “AI Leadership for Boards” with guidance on six focus areas to guide and supervise.

The WEF insights to also provide further inspiration are WEF theme Tech for good and WEF theme Better Business.

This year will also move insights of the underlying issues as plastics, food distribution, circular re-use and water consumptions to add to the catastrophic weather events, flooding and wild-fire.  As we will see climate impact continue to challenge us, and we urgently need to use technologies and circular and sharing economies to find solutions, and diplomacy to find agreements, for a joint livable planet.

Even if last year and the COVID19 lockdown impact made global CO2 emissions reduce with about 7%, without systemic changes these reductions are merely temporary. Average temperatures on the planet are forecasted to rise by more than two degrees before 2100, much due to the burning of fossil fuels, creating significant and irreversible damage and increasing strain on global resources. Drought and floods will impact crop yields, regional heating and many highly populated coastal areas will be in consistent trouble as sea levels rise. The global demand for fresh water will exceed supply by 40% in 2030, and water will be a stressed resource, and it seems likely that many cities will be constantly in a state of water shortage. By 2030, the loss in productivity due to the hotter climate will mean the loss of more than 1.7 trillion euros globally. The shift from oil to clean energy will be inevitable, but also how to use energy more efficiently. The coinciding trend with driverless cars will drive for them to be electric to support the climate goals.

Businesses will be increasingly required to govern and be more transparent of their climate impact, included likely more regulations. Some businesses has already started, as more than 9600 companies disclosed their environmental impact through the non-profit CDP platform, a 14% increase from previous year. But with approximately 43000 listed companies in the world and more than 100 million private companies, we still have some way to go. Environmental redesign of products will be a key sub trend impacting food, textiles our lifestyle.

Investors are increasingly becoming aware and demanding a focus on ESG, Environment , Social and Governance, as a long term insurance to profit. The value of investors applying ESG factors to decisions has almost doubled over last four years, and is expected to continue to grow.

The trend that will impact many of us will be the demographic, social change and work approach change. Many of our societies and companies are built for a different outset. We will be challenged in our welfare systems, our ways of working and our trust of societies, companies, politicians, news and each other.  And our regulations will need to become more adaptive. The world should reach 8.5 billion people by 2030 and the fastest growing demographic will be the elderly, with the population of people over 65 years old at 1 billion. Europe is still expected to be the world leaders in quality of life, but with many uncertainties. The spend on healthcare will have to be offset with support of technology, as robots becomes our best friends. The amount of information collected on every person, product, and organization will grow exponentially, and the pressure to share that information will expand.

Our perspectives on the future of work will have to be explored with scenarios as the interdependency between businesses and societies are very high, and our transformation will include massive retraining and massive shift of work approaches, and still with unclear insights into how this will be funded.

For the critical skills the fight will be anchored around the company purpose and the meaningful work provided, and the engagement in continued training. The place and virtual collaboration will at the same time put pressure on real estate and the opportunity for critical skills to work from broader geographies. We will see an increasing focus on ecosystem collaboration, with fast changing industry dynamics as a result.

Population growth drives the regional growth in Asia and Africa to far surpass Europe and Americas growth. We will experience a challenge to our globalization and we will see power shifts taking place. We are also challenged to find agreement and a more equitable and fairer world. The year gone by, with the pandemic and geo-political challenges, supported a slower globalization. Due to the pandemic the 2020 saw an average GDP of -3.3%, however with an uncertain outlook for year 2021 of +5.2% according to the International Monetary Fund and The World Bank.

The rapid urbanisation is already ongoing, with many smart city initiatives to handle the impact. The current pandemic might change slow down some of the Urbanisation trends, however it might also reverse and increase some of the regional migration trends. Some of the other trends in planet resource challenges and power shifts are also increasingly moving more people into regional migration.

Currently about half of the world’s population lives in cites and that will grow to about 60%, ranging from 81% in developed countries vs. 56% in the developing world. More mega cities will still continue to be created. Urban agriculture will need to rapidly expand.

Between flooding, heat waves, and shifts in water availability, mass migrations will be likely. Data-driven technologies is needed that make buildings, the grid, roadways, and water systems substantially more efficient.

This blogpost is shared both on the blog of Digoshen by Innovisa, www.digoshen.com, and on the blog of the Digoshen founder www.liselotteengstam.com .

At Digoshen we work hard to increase #futureinsights and help remove #digitalblindspots. We believe that Companies, Boards and Business Leadership Teams need to understand more of the future and the digital world to fully leverage the potential when bringing their business into the digital age. If you are a board member, consider joining our international board network and master programs.

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You will find more insights via Digoshen Website and you are welcome to follow us on LinkedIn Digoshen @ Linkedin and on  twitter: @digoshen  and founder @liseeng