Saturday, January 30, 2010

Terrorism and Basic Trends

"Management of an institution has to be grounded in basic an predictable trends that persist regardless of today's headlines". Peter F. Drucker

Action: Write down three basic social trends that your business is based on. Are these trends still in tact? Peter F. Drucker

Let's take just three of the basic trends from World Out of Balance (Kindle Edition)
by Paul A. Laudicina

  • Globalization--rising levels of trade, communication, and travel
  • Demographics--slowed population growth in developed countries, and increased growth in the third world
  • Consumption Patterns--increasingly diverse consumer markets, causing fierce market competition
  • Natural Resources and Environment--oil markets reaching a crisis stage, and other shortages predicted in the coming decades
  • Regulation and Activism--calls for greater regulation point to long-term business challenges

Each of these trends should be a good starting point for any of you in business.

I would love to see some of the responses, if anyone is out there, and has the time. It would also really surprise me to see if anyone at all is not subject to these trends, or has another one that impacts them significantly.

Example: I think Japan and Italy have the highest negative population growth. I can't help but think that businesses in those Geographies are feeling it. I was just through a small town in South Italy, where many of the oldest (in my view, most interesting) homes were standing empty. On inquiry, I learned (my Italian is bad, but I get the gist) that the families were no more, the last had died, and that nobody had claimed the homes. Cheap real-estate in declining population areas!

2 comments:

  1. Peter was a master at using trends to spot discontinuities. One that fascinates me is that sometime next year more of the worlds population is gong to be connected in some way than those unable to connect and the trend is moving steadily and rapidly to a connected world. Something that maybe more profound than the crusades. We do live in interesting times.

    Dr. Dean

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  2. As says the well known (I believe) Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times". So, are the attempts of the current Chinese government to 'manage' the connection, harbingers of strife to come?

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