Last week I and my elder brother had a conversation around how will future look like. We were not talking about going to moon or flying cars, we were trying to determine what in near future will become the next iPhone or FACEBOOK. This does not mean that going to moon or having flying cars will not become a reality but it is something that I don’t think will happen in near future.
Like us I am sure that even you must be thinking about the contentious point in above statement. What is “Near Future”? It can be 1 year, 50 years or even 100 years, I don’t think there is any agreed and baseline definition of Near Future. So before we go ahead let us define what Near Future means with respect to this article. Our quest was to find a product or service that one should invest in now in-order to remain relevant in next 5 years period. Considering the speed of change I think anything more than 5 years is already too much in future to contemplate. So near future in respect to our discussion is from tomorrow to next 5 years.
All of us are too much involved in our day to day routine that we don’t get time to think about what is going to happen tomorrow. The only future we known of are the never ending business meetings and probably due dates for bills. Being on vacation I had some time to forget about my meetings and think about something outside my daily routine. And this conversation I had with my brother was a very thought provoking discussion. So I thought why not pen it down so that I can come back and validate it after I have lived this near future.
Neither me nor my brother claim to be the next Nostradamus so we should not be held responsible if future does not turn up in the way it is envisioned here. The knowledge or strategy I used to see what will work in future is not something I have developed; it was shared with everyone by great management guru Peter Drucker. According to him we should look outside the window to see what has happened today and determine how that will change the future. So it is not about guessing the future it is about gaining understanding of NOW.
Although at the end of discussion we did not decide on what product or service we are going to put our bets on. However from discussion came out three themes which I think can be used to create a framework to evaluate a product or service. None of this is rocket science; I am sure after reading this you will think you already knew it and is not new. But it is interesting to see how many people miss these things and focus on something other than these facts which are out in open for everyone to exploit.
First theme which came out was “People Connection”, by this I mean any product or service that will connect people together will sustain. It is debatable if that people connection needs to be a face to face interaction or an electronic connection. My personal view is that no matter how user friendly mobile phones become but they cannot replace face to face interaction. But looking out of the window today, what I can see is group of 4 people sitting on a table and all engrossed in their phones. It should not be a surprise if all 4 of them are chatting to each over the phone other or posting photos of each other. It is a sad situation but I don’t see it changing in near future in fact all countries which are not impacted by the mobile fever will get infected by this virus soon.
However this theme is not limited to mobile applications, it will continue to grow in other forms as well. As the trend of small nuclear families increase we will see a bigger need for avenues for people to connect to other people. We will see more and more people who are neither connected personally nor professionally coming together to develop something out of the box. Trick to get riches from this theme is to create opportunities for people to connect.
A very fitting example of this theme is ZooBar in Mumbai, it is a hip bar at night but during day time it becomes a breeding place for entrepreneurs. This Hip Bar transform into a place where entrepreneurs can come together and use the facility as a work place.
Second theme which is shining bright is “Health & Lifestyle”, it should not be a surprise that we are seeing so many shops selling health supplements and gyms coming up in every nook and corner. There was a time when eating salad and soup was considered a sign of some health problem. But that has all changed; all generations both young and old are becoming more and more health conscious. After 5 pm City centre in Singapore transforms into a stadium with everyone working out and trying to burn the extra calorie one might have had during lunch, though lunch is mostly bowl of salad with soup. I am sure this is the trend in other parts of world as well, if not that is what is going to happen soon. Any product or service which is going to exploit this trend is for sure going to benefit.
Last but not the least is based on using the biggest asset that is available everywhere but is most underutilized i.e. DATA. Race between services creating data and those exploiting data seems to be a one sided with speed of data creation has left utilization of data far behind. Each one of us is creating an audit log of some form by every action we take. In some case an individual intentionally create this audit log like checking in through Facebook, and in other cases we are unknowingly creating audit log. Only way we can stop creating data is by locking ourselves in one room, however no one wants that, so let us not think of how to stop creating data. Future is going to be for products and services which will develop the capability to mine this data and exploit in the best way possible. And what is important to note is that it is not about using data within business but also about providing this data to customers. I recently saw a very good example of how Data has been used in a service, 1MG. it is a mobile application which provides information about medicines from different pharmaceutical companies having same salt as medicine prescribed by the doctor. Probably it might not be the first such service and many might already exist but the point is how this and other such applications are churning data which is already available and providing it to customers in innovative ways.
With new products and services being introduced every day, I think those which are based on one or more than one of these themes will sustain and continue to grow in future. This vacation gave me a good framework that I can use to identify where I will put my money on, what about you?
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