The CR Series - Launching Sept '24

Now, of course you could say we're biased in our view on this but, Business Change is still often an afterthought (albeit less so than it used to be). In times of difficulty (I.E. the past 12/18 months in Consulting, and the world more generally), Business Change becomes a 'nice to have', one of the first victims of cuts to a programme budget, a similar story for Marketing in a wider organisational context (sorry Marketing, I personally value you greatly). This isn't the way things should be, in my view, but I understand it. After all, "It's a doggy dog world", as my younger cousin would say for years until we had the heart to correct her. Difficult times mean difficult decisions.

The reasons for Change often being overlooked are pretty well documented, for the most part, so this series isn't going to focus on that but rather on my prediction for what is to come over the next few years. Hear me out...by the time the next global economic downturn hits (if we ever get out of this one for long enough), Business Change will be less Marketing and more Finance and Sales (again, sorry Marketing, I value you greatly). I'll spend the next seven months (only one article a month, don't worry) convincing you of this by diving into the following seven topics as part of our Change Revolution series:

1. AI and the importance of Humans, after all, Change = Humans
2. Other rapidly advancing technologies and innovation cycles
3. Increasingly complex organisations and increasingly complex people and their needs
4. The impending surge in internal business model transformations and a likely increase in M&A activity linked to this
5. Ever increasing competition and the focus on customer centricity
6. EDI, ESG, Sustainability and whatever comes next
7. The increasingly valuable role of data in decision making (at all levels)

The Change Revolution is coming, even some of the most technical folk respect Business Change as an important profession these days and are starting to champion it (at least to my face). Stay tuned...

- Harry Rawson