While the past decade ushered in new challenges that companies are scrambling to get their head around, the next decade will require that businesses make large scale changes to the way they operate. While previous large shifts in media and developments in technology have evolved the face of big business, the game stayed the same in many ways. Manufacturing advanced, the media shifted slightly but the formula remained the same. Create a decent product that serves a large consumer need, deliver enough reach and frequency to get people to buy it, rinse and repeat.
So, what’s changed now? Well, everything, and it will only keep evolving. Change may be underestimated by most and likely unclear to every business , but when looking at Millennials’ beliefs, it’s obvious that the old formula of business will not reign in the future. Millennial Inc is a real-time, two-way, customized, collaborative and merit-based business where brands and consumers form close relationships and have expectations of one another that more closely resemble those with friends or relatives than with a global conglomerate.
So how does a business evolve to become more like Millennial Inc? Here are ten core principles that successful business will adhere to:
- Enable open collaboration across the organization. Remove silos and enable
diverse cross-functional teams - Ask for more from every employee. Continually present new challenges and allow for
rapid growth for those who perform - Value ideas over experience. Seek out and recognize good ideas wherever they exist in your
eco-system, whether from the CEO, mail room clerk, supplier or even customer - Engineer humanity. Utilize technology to make products more customized, communications
more personal and consumers lives more enhanced - Don’t skimp on quality. Consumers will quickly avoid those products that fail to meet their
expectations and have megaphones to ensure their thoughts are heard - Integrate responsibility into the core of the business. Don’t give back- be a
company with a mission beyond just profits - Be genuine. Don’t hide behind celebrity personas- focus on connecting to individual consumers
and communities in ways that are authentic, relevant and meaningful - Think 2-Way. Partner with consumers across all areas of the business- live and breathe
transparency and open communication - Foster advocacy. Build products and create marketing that invites consumers to share and
leverages word-of-mouth, the most influential source of information - Change. If your business is not continually searching, evolving and finding new ways to do things,
you won’t keep up