Slalom 2020 Outlook: Growing with Purpose — and People
20 Predictions for 2020 | Slalom’s business strategists, experience designers, change agents and technologists share trends and predictions impacting the industry in 2020
By Kate Sweeney, Ali Minnick, AJ Iriberri, Carla Bendeich, Marian F. Cook, Mike Lewis, Natalie Resteghene, Daniel Kapcar, Troy Wegner, Ram Ananthakrishnan
I’ve always been more interested in the way technology impacts people than in the actual technology itself — and that’s really the gist of 2020: using technology to create better experiences for people. We’re amid an era of promise and peril. Most businesses are questioning both their fundamental purpose and their business models — Who are our future customers? What experiences will we create for them? How will we keep our employees happy to deliver on the vision?
We’re adapting to an accelerated pace of change — yet the pace of change will never be this slow again. Despite indicators of a recession, many leaders are exuding daringness, or at least acknowledging that you must get a seat at the table or else be on the menu. Additionally, we see leaders daring to put people first — one of Slalom’s core values — and infusing empathy into everything that they do.
Strategists and practitioners at every level are being invited to challenge the status quo, breakdown existing business models, and propose the preposterous for the sake of disruption, transformation, and growth. We’re observing a new propensity toward experimentation, vulnerability, and courage — and this shift inspired our 2020 mega theme: Grow with Purpose — and People.
Below we share Slalom’s top 20 predictions that will impact companies and the people they strive to serve this year. We’ve organized our predictions into five microtrends:
- Business transformation grows up
- Catalyzing culture for a data centric future
- Robots will set you free
- Get more people in the cloud
- AI: face your fears and fly
Business transformation grows up
1. Exploring what comes after the product mindset
Companies looking to transform or disrupt in 2020 are shifting beyond a product mindset to a customer experience mindset. This coming year, forward thinking companies will organize around ideas and experiences — not functions or departments — to realize their most transformational concepts. User and customer experience will authentically reside at the heart of all product and service design efforts, and value to the customer will not just influence, but drive business investment decisions. With expected advancements across machine learning, voice and gesture recognition, connectivity and more, companies with the right mindset, and solid operating and data foundations, are well poised to harness new technologies to deliver exceptional customer experiences. For some organizations, particularly large, traditional enterprises, the process of (literally) reorganizing around experiences in order to achieve better results faster, will be the actual transformational outcome they prioritize in 2020 to prepare for future growth.
2. Moonshot bets to disrupt or just stay competitive
2020 will be defined by companies undertaking quantum innovations to counteract the disruptive effects of paradigm-shifting business models. Quantum innovation is characterized by bold, moonshot thinking that aims to create a lucrative enterprise and requires unprecedented innovation to achieve (even if the end result is beyond the current business model). Companies will begin to make bigger, transformative moves because the opportunity cost of hesitating to is now abundantly clear and increasing with every business cycle. Over the past 3 years, only 6% of the most established brands were able to significantly improve their financial value according to Kantar. During that same time period, Amazon was able to acquire Whole Foods, launch Alexa and open its first brick-and-mortar bookstore — doubling its enterprise value in the process. Other companies are similarly making both digital and non-digital moonshot bets not to disrupt, but rather to stay competitive.
3. Closing the gap between ambition and reality
Through 2021, digital transformation initiatives will take large traditional enterprises on average twice as long and cost twice as much as anticipated. Business leaders’ expectations for revenue growth are unlikely to be realized from digital optimization strategies, due to the cost of technology modernization and the unanticipated costs of simplifying operational interdependencies. Such operational complexity also impedes the pace of change along with the degree of innovation and adaptability required to operate as a digital business. According to Gartner VP and Distinguished Analyst, Daryl Plummer, “In most traditional organizations, the gap between digital ambition and reality is large. We expect CIOs’ budget allocation for IT modernization to grow 7% year over year through 2021 to try to close that gap.”
4. Autonomous strategic planning
Many businesses and operating units still create comprehensive strategies on an annual basis. These strategic planning and subsequent funding routines cause agony throughout organizations — only to yield static strategies that will soon be, well… not strategic. But an “autonomous strategy” has an outward focus. It relies on data-based, real-time insights that keep your business tuned to ever-changing stakeholder needs and expectations. It’s more than just adaptive. It’s constantly looking ahead and around the corner. Future focused leaders will push toward a more autonomous strategic planning approach to champion a disruption proof strategy for their companies.
Catalyzing culture for a data centric future
5. Culture as Infrastructure
Infrastructure used to be the ‘long pole in the tent’ for organizations trying to drive change. With the advancement of DevSecOps and movement to the cloud this is no longer the case. In the future, an organization’s culture will be the foundation for accelerating change or for slowing it down. Organizations looking to accelerate results will put equal investment into creating the culture required to realize their vision. One of the most common cultural challenges with utilizing data is the trust in that data. A Modern Culture of Data will instill the trust and prove the value of insights that can be gained from data.
6. But what is a Modern Culture of Data?
Data, tools and technology are nothing without people. And people make culture. Slalom defines a Modern Culture of Data as an environment of experimentation and innovation where everyone can and does use data to make decisions. How this looks and feels will be different in each organization and industry, but all are empowered and enabled by five key elements: a bold vision that charts a clear path; aligned ways of working that embed insights in behaviors and operations; access and transparency enabled by integrated data and flexible, scalable systems; data guardianship that establishes trust in data, tools, and practices; and, data literacy that develops the mindset and skills that drive action.
7. Data pyrite as a concept
Data isn’t always the answer. It’s not logical to say that; however, there can be “fool’s gold” in the quest for what data can do for your business. Investing in the right data initiatives versus the data pyrite will be the dividing criteria for organizations that excel ahead. And sometimes this means investing in the mechanisms to harness already available data instead of buying or creating new data.
8. The data dilemma
We define the data dilemma as the cost of using or monetizing the data you have versus the cost of having it at all. Many organizations are collecting data that consumers don’t even realize are being collected. For example, tens of thousands of companies in Europe are creating data protection officers. This is a hybrid role where they are employed by the company but are responsible to the data protection authorities. In addition, Shoshana Zuboff, Author and Professor, Harvard Business School — wrote about Surveillance capitalism (subject of her book) which is on a collision course with democracy. For instance, Pokémon Go directed people to where advertisers wished them to go to drive purchases. There is a new social inequality gap between what we know and what can be known about us.
And resentment is building across our population toward the collection and monetization of that data. The cost of a consumer feeling as though you are using data to upsell, cross-sell or directly monetize data about them can be as costly, if not more, as not having any data at all to personalize interactions. According to recent research, 70% of people would augment their body or brain if it benefited their career. Winners in 2020 will strike the right balance in the integrity of data collection, the invisibility of application of data insights and the recognition of consumer expectation for a highly personalized experience.
9. Behold the “data office”
Leading organizations will drive towards enterprise-level “data offices” that are truly oriented to the business (and don’t just pay the business lip service). These data offices will take different organizational forms (e.g., centralized, decentralized, hybrid) based on company and industry factors, but all will strive to (better) align to the business to drive innovation and agility. The days where the IT or data team can work in a vacuum without a true business partnership are numbered — as are the days where the business is only a receiver of canned reports thrown over a wall.
10. Democratized data as an accelerator for collaboration
The continued drive towards cloud-based services, coupled with business leaders’ ongoing desire for increased access to accurate, real-time, meaningful, and democratized data and insights, will accelerate the organizational need for clarity in how groups best work together, who does the work, and the skill sets and knowledge needed to do the work. Well architected and socialized function or business unit-focused journey maps (and other user-centered design accelerators like Service Design Blueprints) will help create this clarity for organizations willing to make the investment in them.
11. Data guardianship will be tested
In the face of increased data democratization and business demand for advanced insights and analytics, largely to drive personalization, the focus on data privacy (and the need to maintain it to avoid appearing on the front page of the WSJ for breach of regulations) will be paramount. The careful balance of data guardianship and appropriate access to data and systems, with the need for security and data guardrails, will be tested by these demands — with high profile examples of the boundaries being pushed likely to continue to surface as companies look for this middle ground.
Robots will set you free
12. Reskilling employees impacted by RPA
Amidst expected ongoing tight labor conditions in the US in 2020, more companies will see reskilling their current employees impacted by Robotic Process Automation (RPA) as a competitive and cultural differentiator. A competitive differentiator because more valuable institutional knowledge is retained with greater employee retention, with a corresponding reduction in the need to hire new. A cultural differentiator as an employer of choice for those that value ongoing growth and learning, and value investment from their employer to meaningfully grow, as part of their core employee journey.
13. Maturity in the fear factor, scaling lies ahead!
Because of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) induced by misinformation about RPA, cultural acceptance is a primary barrier to organizations widely adopting RPA. In 2020, widespread recognition of this barrier to RPA entry and adoption will occur, with leading companies in the RPA space more directly addressing FUD head on and incorporating it into their planning.
14. Getting over fear, uncertainty and doubt
New roles and ways of working will evolve as RPA usage grows and normalizes. Specialized roles that bridge IT and the business like “Bot Trainer” will become more common in 2020 in organizations further along in their RPA journey; the people in these roles and their counterparts in more “traditional” roles will both have to adopt to new ways of interacting with each other and with the processes being automated in mind.
Get more people in the cloud
15. Strategic business objectives are the boost cloud needs
More organizations will use business drivers as the vision for moving to the cloud. Many companies are not realizing the value that they anticipated when migrating to the cloud. IT decision-makers need to work closer with their business partners to see how cloud can drive corporate strategy. This will fundamentally change how some applications are designed and supported in the cloud infrastructure.
16. Companies will give customers what they want
Customers want hyper personalization and organizations will start to deliver that level of service. For the last few years, “customer-centric” has become the north star for many organizations and customers expect individualized service, recommendations and immediate responses from an organization. The customer does not care, nor should they care, how that service is being provided. Companies will need to structure their service by using new technologies, best provided through the cloud, to deliver more responsive and hyper-personalized service.
17. Cross-functional teams will drive cloud transformation success
Cloud transformations are not confined to the IT department. More organizations are starting to see how many functions need to be engaged and how a shift in teaming within IT must evolve. A cross-functional team includes, to name a few: cloud engineering, compliance, business and IT application owners, infosec, operations, IT Finance, HR, and the cloud vendor to support the cloud business office. Moving to the cloud is about business transformation which requires multiple stakeholders coming together with different viewpoints — to help drive decisions and prioritization, communications and cultural change.
AI: face your fears and fly
18. Artificial intelligence accelerates on takeoff
Big data sets and boundless cloud-based computing clout are accelerating AI’s ability to change individual jobs and whole industries. Applications — and doomsday concerns — are gaining traction, especially as AI’s capabilities grow. Powering a converging set of emerging technologies like the Internet of Things, robotics, blockchain and more, AI will exponentially expand the art of the possible.
19. 2020 will see more investment and experimentation in AI than 2019
Emerging technology education, ideation and experimentation from the Board level on down is the platform to create a prosperous and fearless future. Proactive companies will augment and amplify what their people and business can achieve through AI by knowing what it is and can do. Relentless experimentation and facing data, bias, and ethics challenges will move the needle from ignorance and fear, to assertive curiosity and absolute business gains.
AI is enabling drone delivery by major corporations investing in alternative delivery ideas. The sky is no longer the limit as Slalom recently launched (pun intended) the first commercial drone delivery service in America in Christiansburg, VA. with Walgreens and Google’s drone company, Wing. Also, UPS successfully delivered prescription medication from a CVS Pharmacy to someone’s home. The company used an M2 drone system to deliver medication to a person’s home in North Carolina and then a nearby retirement community. Such ideation and experimentation offer the unparalleled speed and convenience of ‘store to door’ delivery via state-of-the-art drone technology.
20. AI is part of the problem and solution. Are you ready?
AI and other emerging technologies and megatrends have created a time of accelerating change, complexity and ambiguity. There’s been over a 10-fold increase in private equity investments in AI over the last five years. That doesn’t include investments being made by large companies like Alibaba, Facebook and Google. It is not a matter of if, but of when, AI will have a huge impact on the economy. It appears, after several “AI winters,” where hype was high and results were low, that time is now. AI has been in our collective imagination for over 50 years. It is time to create new sci-fi stories of our own.
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