The year is 2050. You step outside your doorstep and a driver-less car cruises by, then a dragon flies past your head and over the treetops. You look down at your hand and see the ring on your index finder is flashing red –an air quality warning. You grab your breathing mask, and as you step down to the sidewalk an animated creature greets you and offers assistance.
What is real? Can we tell anymore? Has VR become so embedded into our brains (and technology so embedded into our bodies) that we can not tell the difference between what our eyes see on their own and what has been generated for us to see?
It’s somewhat terrifying to think about the hazards of the future, but it can also be exciting to think about the possibilities. Whether we dread it or we can’t wait for it get here, we need to think realistically about what it might look like. For an organization to be in business 30 years from now, it needs to look that far ahead (at least sometimes).
The challenges of the future are unknown, but the companies that make predictions and adaptations are the ones that survive. It’s important to invest time in exploring new avenues and also reassessing old processes and supply chains.
Take Apple for example: it’s looking to vertically integrate all the way down to the extraction of precious metals from mines in the Congo (npr.org/2018/03/15/594062903/how-cobalt-metal-affects-big-tech-firms-like-apple). The strategy isn’t as much about the expected demand for Apple products as it is about the expected demand for electric cars and therefore a scarcity of materials to make Apple products. This is pretty forward thinking; and a great example of looking at the big picture (beyond its own industry).
So how will VR, implanted technology, and battery production affect your business? You might want to think about it!