California Investment Network


Recent Blog


Pitching Help Desk


Testimonials

"I made several great connections through your network. In fact, I was able to over fund my project. I also listed with another network that cost 3X as much and the leads were nowhere near as solid as the investors I met through this network. I will definitely only be using this network in the future. "
Jason A.

 BLOG >> Recent

Researching Trends [Future
Posted on February 17, 2016 @ 09:05:00 AM by Paul Meagher

A useful recent book for studying global trends is No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Global Forces Breaking All The Trends (2015) by McKinsey researchers and consultants Richard Dobbs, James Manyika, and Jonathan Woetzel.

In this book they identify 4 global trends as the ones to watch out for:

  1. Economic growth is occurring most rapidly in emerging cities in China, India, Asia and Africa. As people continue to move from rural areas to cities and urban clusters, they create demand for infrastructure, goods and services. Multi-nationals like Coca Cola, Frito Lay and Unilever report that most of their revenue growth is a result of growth happening in these markets. When looking for global growth opportunities do research at the city/urban region level rather than the region/country level because it is the cities where growth is most evident.
  2. The effect of technology on business is accelerating. This is no surprise but it does have implications for what needs to be done to keep up to date on technologies and skills in our businesses. It can represent a threat or an opportunity depending on how technology acceleration is managed.
  3. The aging of the population around the world is creating significant problems and opportunities. The world will need to adapt to this new normal with new products and services aimed at the elderly, increasing the retirement age, becoming more resource efficient in the delivery of health care services, re-employing retired workers to retain skills and workforce, etc...
  4. We are becoming more globally interconnected in terms of trade, capital, people and information flow across national boarders. The positive aspect is that it is easier for businesses to expand their markets across borders. A negative aspect is that our business can be disrupted by new entrants outside our borders. Either way it is difficult to ignore this trend and businesses will need to develop strategies to cope with and exploit this increasing global interconnectedness.

Where I would use the book is as a tool for researching trends. If you are doing work on a business plan you will often have to look into the crystal ball and identify trends that affect the viability of your product or service. None of the trends identified in this book constitute radically new insights but what might be new are some of the numbers, graphs, and references assembled to characterize these trends. The book can be paired with the McKinsey Global Institute website as a credible resource for trend information you can use for big picture business planning. Some numbers you may need to obtain from local data sources but the characterization and analysis of big picture trends can be found on management consulting websites like McKinsey Global Institute. It should be noted that a precursor to the book was published on their website that focused specifically on the technology disruption trend.

The book does not spell out the methodology they use to make trend projections and often they seem to be simple linear extrapolations from present trends. An example would be this trend graph showing the ratio of retirees to children.

Alot might happen between now and 2050 to that could change these graphs so we should have some measure of skepticism regarding them. At the same time, those reading business plans often want to see numbers and graphs and simple linear extrapolations from present trends may be as justifiable as other methods of predicting the future.

Permalink 

 Archive 
 

Archive


 November 2023 [1]
 June 2023 [1]
 May 2023 [1]
 April 2023 [1]
 March 2023 [6]
 February 2023 [1]
 November 2022 [2]
 October 2022 [2]
 August 2022 [2]
 May 2022 [2]
 April 2022 [4]
 March 2022 [1]
 February 2022 [1]
 January 2022 [2]
 December 2021 [1]
 November 2021 [2]
 October 2021 [1]
 July 2021 [1]
 June 2021 [1]
 May 2021 [3]
 April 2021 [3]
 March 2021 [4]
 February 2021 [1]
 January 2021 [1]
 December 2020 [2]
 November 2020 [1]
 August 2020 [1]
 June 2020 [4]
 May 2020 [1]
 April 2020 [2]
 March 2020 [2]
 February 2020 [1]
 January 2020 [2]
 December 2019 [1]
 November 2019 [2]
 October 2019 [2]
 September 2019 [1]
 July 2019 [1]
 June 2019 [2]
 May 2019 [3]
 April 2019 [5]
 March 2019 [4]
 February 2019 [3]
 January 2019 [3]
 December 2018 [4]
 November 2018 [2]
 September 2018 [2]
 August 2018 [1]
 July 2018 [1]
 June 2018 [1]
 May 2018 [5]
 April 2018 [4]
 March 2018 [2]
 February 2018 [4]
 January 2018 [4]
 December 2017 [2]
 November 2017 [6]
 October 2017 [6]
 September 2017 [6]
 August 2017 [2]
 July 2017 [2]
 June 2017 [5]
 May 2017 [7]
 April 2017 [6]
 March 2017 [8]
 February 2017 [7]
 January 2017 [9]
 December 2016 [7]
 November 2016 [7]
 October 2016 [5]
 September 2016 [5]
 August 2016 [4]
 July 2016 [6]
 June 2016 [5]
 May 2016 [10]
 April 2016 [12]
 March 2016 [10]
 February 2016 [11]
 January 2016 [12]
 December 2015 [6]
 November 2015 [8]
 October 2015 [12]
 September 2015 [10]
 August 2015 [14]
 July 2015 [9]
 June 2015 [9]
 May 2015 [10]
 April 2015 [9]
 March 2015 [8]
 February 2015 [8]
 January 2015 [5]
 December 2014 [11]
 November 2014 [10]
 October 2014 [10]
 September 2014 [8]
 August 2014 [7]
 July 2014 [5]
 June 2014 [7]
 May 2014 [6]
 April 2014 [3]
 March 2014 [8]
 February 2014 [6]
 January 2014 [5]
 December 2013 [5]
 November 2013 [3]
 October 2013 [4]
 September 2013 [11]
 August 2013 [4]
 July 2013 [8]
 June 2013 [10]
 May 2013 [14]
 April 2013 [12]
 March 2013 [11]
 February 2013 [19]
 January 2013 [20]
 December 2012 [5]
 November 2012 [1]
 October 2012 [3]
 September 2012 [1]
 August 2012 [1]
 July 2012 [1]
 June 2012 [2]


Categories


 Agriculture [77]
 Bayesian Inference [14]
 Books [18]
 Business Models [24]
 Causal Inference [2]
 Creativity [7]
 Decision Making [17]
 Decision Trees [8]
 Definitions [1]
 Design [38]
 Eco-Green [4]
 Economics [14]
 Education [10]
 Energy [0]
 Entrepreneurship [74]
 Events [7]
 Farming [21]
 Finance [30]
 Future [15]
 Growth [19]
 Investing [25]
 Lean Startup [10]
 Leisure [5]
 Lens Model [9]
 Making [1]
 Management [12]
 Motivation [3]
 Nature [22]
 Patents & Trademarks [1]
 Permaculture [36]
 Psychology [2]
 Real Estate [5]
 Robots [1]
 Selling [12]
 Site News [17]
 Startups [12]
 Statistics [3]
 Systems Thinking [3]
 Trends [11]
 Useful Links [3]
 Valuation [1]
 Venture Capital [5]
 Video [2]
 Writing [2]