The world is growing at a faster pace than ever before. This change is being led by rapid advancements in technology, and their impact on everything we do. We see it in our children, who for many of us have become advisors on how to use the multitude of apps on our smartphones and tablets. We see it in the way we gather and share information. And we see it in our expectations of others to react promptly to requests.
Keeping pace with these changes is essential to our ability to grow and remain relevant as professionals and as businesses. It is estimated that every day we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data; more than 90 percent of the data in the world today has been created in the last few years. This ‘big data’ comes from all kinds of sources: sensors used to gather climate information, posts to social media sites, digital pictures and videos, purchase transaction records, and mobile phone GPS signals, to name
just a few examples.
What’s more, data is now reaching us in both structured and unstructured ways. How we wade through this mass of information and weed out what is important for us to thrive and grow is an important factor in our success. There is so much more expected of us now than ever before, and despite the massive amount of information and tools out there to help us do our best, more often than not, budget responsibility dictates we must try to achieve a little more, to be a bit more competitive.
Threat levels
The opportunities for, and threats to, our businesses are also changing because of this. We always consider our peers as our primary or biggest competitive threats. However, advances in technology, the volume of information available, and the internet are putting a wider range of businesses in a position to threaten our markets and growth prospects. But they also create opportunities to build new partnerships that can propel us ahead of our competition.
The massive amount of information that mega-retailers and search engines have accumulated, if appropriately catalogued, can support not only their own customer and market research needs, but those of businesses in a wide range of fields worldwide. In finance, fintech companies are finding ways to revolutionise the way the industry operates. Banks and other financial services companies are also paying close attention to stay relevant, as are businesses in need of financing.
The agriculture industry is increasingly technology driven, due to the requirements of efficient production and modern delivery processes; through the use of drones, traders can follow the harvest they purchased months earlier from thousands of miles away. Online stores and logistics companies are high-tech automated businesses enabling next-day delivery on orders and, in some cases, same-day delivery. Mechanics now work with online diagnostic tools that can, in one hour, tell them more about a car than they could find out in a week just 20 years ago.
No matter what business we are in, to be successful in the future we have to be technologically astute. While we can’t adapt every technology and trend that crosses our path, it is important that we find those that present a threat to our business and determine how we can convert them into opportunities, or, at the very least, determine how we are going to remain relevant and competitive. For instance, to compete with online shops, brick-and-mortar shops have opened their own online offerings, giving shoppers the best of both worlds – online convenience and the walk-in shopping experience. With email’s impact on the volume of letters being posted, postal services companies have repackaged themselves to be highly efficient parcel delivery services.
Embrace the change
The growing borderless economy means that, even if you have a modest-sized business, your potential threats are no longer limited to local competition. Customers want the best quality at the lowest price. Whether it is sourced from China, Nigeria or London is not important, as long as the deal is right. Multinational online platforms like Amazon and Alibaba are examples of this. They are not just shaping the retail e-commerce landscape, but have become the model for B2B e-commerce. It is no longer sufficient to have any old website; your website is your electronic business card and it needs to sell your brand, if not your products and services.
Payment trends can, if not anticipated in your cash flow modelling, put you out of business before you really get started. At Atradius, we are constantly assessing the market to determine the risks and how we can address them in a positive way, not just for us as a company, but to provide the best, most effective solutions for our customers. Credit insurance is not just about protecting businesses from payment defaults by their buyers, it’s about helping enable trade. We make a point of getting to know our customers, building an understanding of what they really need from us and using modern technology, where appropriate, to deliver solutions tailored to their needs.
Within Atradius, we do this as a team, because we understand that together we can achieve far greater things for our customers than we can individually. Being recognised by European CEO as Entrepreneur of the Year, Insurance (Western Europe) for 2016 was as much a recognition of our team’s success as it was an individual achievement.
This is one of the most important principles a manager should remember; that he or she is a part of a team. Your team is interacting with prospects, customers or the competition. They need to be flexible and nimble, as do you. Strategically, your people are extremely important. They experience changes in the market, and how technology is impacting it. They receive direct knowledge about how you can improve your business. This expanded knowledge base is a fantastic tool for keeping your business up to date and relevant to your customers.
Understanding and therefore embracing the team concept has helped Atradius to introduce some important advancements in our offering that are keeping us ahead of the curve in delivering high-quality service – tools that are helping us enable trade and maintain an edge on our competitors. No matter what type of business you have or how big your business is, teamwork and keeping pace with ever-changing technological advancements, in particular their current and potential impact on your business, are going to be among the key determinants of your success.