The Global Trends Report 2012: It's Time to Have a Point of View on the Future!

    LONDON, ENGLAND, November 01, 2011 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Accelerating global challenges are reshaping our world, from resource wars, to the democratization of everything, new playing fields of competition, and the search for a moral compass. It has never been a time of more opportunity or more challenge. But too often today executives and leaders spend their time looking at the world from inside their organizations and responding to short-term pressures. This report argues that it's time for both businesses and societies - they are interdependent - to build a perspective on the future, to establish direction and start taking action today to shape the future.

The Global Trends Report 2012 analyses three key areas of change (resources, organizations and communities, shapers and influencers) to offer a wealth of analysis and information on the key trends reshaping our world from natural resource pressures to sovereign debt, to blurring boundaries between countries, markets and industries, to the shift from industrial to knowledge work, the rise of the empowered individual and the rapid growth and influence of social media.

It also identifies and analyses four accelerating global challenges for businesses and societies:
- Resource wars: As the world enters a period of natural resource scarcity, the scramble is on to secure future supplies of critical raw materials, leading to geopolitical as well as commercial competition and even conflict. At the same time digital resources are opening new arenas of potential conflict, e.g. cyberwars, while the battle is on to see who can build the capabilities, e.g. educated workforces, to win the resource wars.
- The democratization of everything: People have a rapidly increasing array of choices, and they are making them, often with friends, communities or networks. The impact of this growing democratization is being felt from politics to purchasing to the way we seek knowledge. Everything can be influenced, thus relevance and legitimacy are increasingly important success factors. As this power grows, the question is how we balance it with appropriate responsibility and accountability.
- Redefining the playing fields: The world is moving away from competition within traditional industries and business models - among firms that look, think and act like each other. In the future, the trend is toward redefining the focus and basis of competition itself - or the playing field - around consumers' needs, ones that exist today or those that will constantly emerge in the future. The center of this world will be consumers with power and choice, not the traditional industries that shaped our past.
- Searching for a moral compass: In a world of communities of choice, of growing individual power, of shifting digital identities, we find ourselves in a world of competing and conflicting laws and regulations, codes of conduct and traditions, where morals and ethics are hard to define, where corporate purpose and legitimacy is questioned. In society, there is a new war taking place to shape the attitudes and behaviors of individuals, even as they search for a moral compass to provide meaning and identity.

Tracey Keys, Director of Strategy Dynamics Global Limited, said: "This is a must-read for leaders and their teams, who need to move from data overload to understanding, insight and action around the changes reshaping our world. Only by staying ahead of change can organizations and societies hope to tap into emerging global opportunities and address global challenges." A director of a leading consumer goods company added: "The Global Trends Report 2012 demonstrates a high level of professionalism and insight, and is as such extremely valuable."

It's time to have a point of view on the future!

Strategy Dynamics Global Limited publishes www.globaltrends.com and works with executives and companies across geographies and sectors, to provide insights, research and consulting services to help them navigate a complex, interconnected and uncertain world and stay ahead. Our clients span sectors including consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, utilities, B2B engineering, consultancy and the public sector. We also work with leading academic institutions and not-for-profit groups. Our articles, reports, blogs and tools are read and used in over 145 countries worldwide, by executives, researchers, academics, journalists and individuals interested in translating trends into positive action. For further information and a copy of the Executive Summary, please contact [email protected].

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