VUCA was originally born from the US military in the 1990s. It is an acronym describing the Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity in the world as it appeared to be evolving. An example of volatility is how oil prices reached nearly US$155 in 2008, only to drop as low as $48 later in the year. […]
Artificial Intelligence, commonly referred to as ‘AI’ is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines. Whilst an increasingly familiar term, its roots lie with Alan Turing. He led the team which famously cracked the ‘Enigma’ code machine used by Nazis during World War 2 to pass secret communications. In 1950, he created what has […]
Manufacturing > Services ‘There is no such thing as service industries. There are only industries whose service components are greater or less than those of other industries. Everybody is in services’, Theodore Levitt, Harvard Business Review, 1972 Traditionally, many manufacturers see themselves as ‘widget producers’, with profits coming from either selling large quantities or fewer, […]
Before exploring the skills we’ll need in the next 10-20 years, it’s helpful to look at a few jobs that didn’t even exist just a decade ago in 2006. We didn’t have ‘Social Media Managers’ as the major platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – either didn’t exist or hadn’t broken free of a few college […]
The Future of Work is a multi-faceted subject. One that’s ripe for multiple books, not just a few short articles. I’d like to tackle the topic here from just a couple of angles. First, the ways in which people are working. Second, the ways in which automation and robotics will augment and sometimes replace people […]
Servitization adds a service or solution-based offer to traditional product offering. It can be lucrative. But where do you start? The Manufacturer is presenting a new webinar at 10.30am on 28 September to help manufacturers get to grips with the opportunities available through servitization. The webinar presenters, James Woudhuysen (visiting Professor at London South Bank University) and Matt O’Neill (Independent Futurist), have […]
With the arrival of the web came ‘Disintermediation’; a watchword for the removal of middle-men – dealers, wholesalers, advisors, representatives, agents etc. – facilitating producers being able to sell directly to consumers. The theory was that manufacturers could receive a larger share of revenues while prices to consumers dropped. It didn’t work out that way. A […]
What used to be the supply chain is increasingly the ‘supply network’. This is the inevitable result of the challenges facing today’s global supply chains. As organisations seek to grow and expand into new markets, they have to look at whether existing supply chains are capable of servicing these objectives. Supply chains have never been […]
Since beginning my journey as a Futurist 8 months ago, I’ve become incredibly optimistic about the power of innovation to solve so many of our challenges. In part 1, we looked at the challenges facing food production today. Here, we’ll explore some of the new developments which present solutions to those challenges. Let’s begin with […]
The UN predicts global population is set to rise by 2.5 billion by 2050. Effectively, that’s adding a population the size of China and India combined. It will require us to double our food production output. Throw in the fact that 1 in 9 current inhabitants of our planet are ‘chronically hungry’ right now, and we’ve […]
