Transitional acting: XL defines the trends of 2010 and beyond

2009 was a year of turbulence. Everyone felt the economic downturn, at a personal level or by means of organisational changes. The force and speed of the setback indicate that instead of recovering from a ‘normal’ recession, the world is at the forefront of a transition. The year 2010 will be an essential one in the sense that all companies have to ask themselves: do we try to return to our comfortable past or will we take the first steps towards the transition of the complete organisation?
We will not experience the same growth rates that we were used to as long as this new transition is incomplete. Several research studies show that consumers are not in despair; quite the opposite. They change their behaviour to adapt to new realities. Extend Limits defines seven trends that are important to understand this transition and to be able to take necessary action. Organisations that act on the transition use 2010 to investigate their current business by assessing every aspect for it’s usefulness and purpose. Future value is completely different from historic views on value. New laws in communication, consumer behaviour and technology force us to reinvent current markets, while completely new markets will make their entrance.
This also means a fresh approach to define the competition and a redefinition of many business models. According to Extend Limits, the following seven trends will play an important role in 2010.

1. Redefinition of growth
We have to learn to look at economic growth from a different perspective. Increasingly more companies will not only define their growth in terms of profit and turnover, but will report increasingly on client satisfaction and corporate social responsibility (CSR). This switch will result in a new economic attitude: profit as a consequence instead of profit as a goal.
Winners will be the organisations that start with the transition while organisations trying to return to ‘business as usual’ will loose eventually.

2. The start of the ‘bid economy’
The rise of the ‘bidconomy’ supports a final move from product-oriented mass supply towards demand driven micro supply. Consumers will actively market their demands in the increasingl;y virtual word and organisations try to facilitate this. This will mean a transition from Customer Relationship Management (CRM) towards customer managed relations (CMR). It is the customer who is in charge of all contacts. Laws that regulate opt-in/out and phoning consumers at their homes are an extra support of this development.
Eventually, consumers will express their needs and wants online. Next, organisations can propose a solution. As a result, organisations will be the markets of clients and no longer will clients form the markets of organisations. Companies that already experiment with the principles of the bidconomy will be able to transform their current clients into loyal ambassadors (fans).

3. The rise of the co-sumer (cooperative consumerism)
Consumers change fundamentally, especially with regards to their attitude towards companies. Consumers organise themselves, supported by their (digital) peer groups, to realise personal goals. Developments in communication and technology only add to the importance of this development. The new consumer is not scared by the recession and will find different ways to fulfil their needs, whether by means of barter trade, lending or do-it-yourself. Consumers act with the speed of light by means of their peer groups, but also by creating ad-hoc networks in order to reach a specific goals as quickly as possible.
Co-suming will make consumers even less dependable on organisations and it shows that the real risk is increasingly on the side of companies. This will result in a needed shuffle in marketing thinking. Listening to consumers becomes an essential marketing skill, besides the traditional use of media to send messages. Organisations will have to learn to detect the signals to be able to react as quickly as possible to a certain need of (a group of) consumers.

4. Acceleration of the review economy (re-conomy)
In the ‘re-conomy’ it is normal to express your opinion on and share your experience with products, services and entire organisations. Increasingly, consumers will record their conversations, e.g. as an audio file, and share it with others. Dissatisfied clients will not hesitate to show their discontent. The impact of these impressions is gaining in importance exponentially. Both in terms of reputation (and as a consequence on future revenue) and control. If complaints and problems are handled by fellow consumers, companies lose control of service and their complaint processes. The risk of this lies in the fact that each contact initiated by the company, is possibly seen as just another unwanted marketing or PR-trick. Thus, relevance is of the utmost importance in each consumer dialogue. New kinds of websites (the social web) improving the support of review processes will feed the re-conomy and increase the mutual, online connectedness between consumer groups.

5. The revaluation of authority
Established authorities slowly loose the respect they always took for granted. Governments, doctors, scientists, journalists, managers and even supervisors are only a handful of groups that can no longer rely on historical authority and respect based on their title. Peers are more important to consumers and authority is determined by the extent to which a person or an entity is recommended by others. Authority with regard to past performance is no longer.

6. Sustainability as survival kit
Sustainability and social responsibility are key concepts for the long-term survival strategy for any organization. Sustainability should not only be looked at from a marketing perspective but should be embraced by the entire organization. The only way to survive this turbulent era for organisations is to see sustainability as a core activity and not as a short-lived marketing campaign.
The survivors of the transition are those organizations able to fully redefine processes from a sustainable and social responsible perspective.

7. The need for chaos management
Chaos Management is the management competence to continuously question and redefine aspects of the company while dealing simultaneously with ‘business-as-usual’ to survive. The environment of organisations is characterized by chaos and turbulence forcing management to let go of existing mind frames. Expectations of both customers and employees with respect to products, service, durability, work environment and - from a broader perspective - meaning, change constantly.
New generations of workers give themselves a much more active role at the company they work for in order to create positive change. Employees will use all technology that they know. They respond quickly to developments they observe in the customer base, creativity gets a central role in this. Also, traditional entities such as research and development must become an integral part of the organization. Ongoing ‘trial and error’ experiments are common practice in next-generation organisations.
Allowing for uncertainties, risks and potential wrong choices is a core competence of managers in the coming years.

This trend list is authored by:
- Tony Bosma (Ordina)
- Sven van de Riet (Giarte)
- Jorgen Sandig (Jorgen Sandig Consultancy)
- Maurits van Wijland (Quovide, the social media company)