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The big question

If your future business-self from 2030 visited you today, what would be the key skills and knowledge they would tell you to develop within yourself and your workforce to help your business thrive?

Join the conversation

@biz_cornwall /businesscornwall businesscornwall.co.uk

SAMUELE ARMONDI

Thought Quarter

I would tell my future self to focus on understanding the fundamentals of how a successful business operates – steady stream of new business, sustainable operations, engaged people, and clients who advocate for you. The world around has changed a lot in the past 18 months, and will change a lot more in the next few years. Relentless focus on the basics will help leaders and teams thrive in a changing world.

JEN KEYWOOD

ATI2

I always ask the businesses we work with what advice they would give to anyone thinking about pursuing a new business idea. They always say something along the lines of “just go for it” and “don’t stand still”. I think when we look back, we regret the things we don’t do. We regret not trying. Failure is fine as long as we learn from it. So being brave in business, less risk adverse, continuing to pursue your ideas and constantly adapting are all skills needed for 2030.

NIKKI FORWARD

Ocean Group

Skills of resilience, flexibility and adaptability, which we learnt in 2020 as a result of a global pandemic, will continue to be important throughout the next decade. We will see a continued speed of change and increase in automation of manual tasks, which will shift the focus to skills such as problem solving, critical thinking and analysis. The importance of IT skills, in both technology and data, including how we use that data, will all be key to business success.

ADVERTORIAL TOP 5 BENEFITS FOR BUSINESSES OF FAST RELIABLE INTERNET

By Paddy Paddison, chief technology officer at Wildanet

In many parts of the UK, it’s taken as a given that fast, reliable broadband will be available for businesses but that’s still not the case in Cornwall.

Every day we’re talking to firms who have been putting-up with poor internet connections for too long and are now looking for a solution. The pandemic caused an instant rethink for many as the capability of their service was quickly found out. But there are many reasons why businesses might take the leap and upgrade; new IT system, software or data-hungry apps; different working practices; customer demands.

So, as we all like lists, here’s my Top 5 business benefits of having the sort of fast, reliable internet Wildanet is already rolling out to businesses across the county.

JAMES WILLIAMS

Celtic & Co

Digital literacy across functions.

Digital experts now have the ability to respond in the moment/real time to digital campaigns, knowing how to harness what the numbers are saying and translate this into action is crucial to improve customer experience.

Being agile has never been more important over last 18 months.

Deeply understanding and responding to the ever-changing customer needs; increasing demand for ethical and sustainable products, shift towards casual and loungewear styles, and increase in mobile usage across devices.

Creative freedom against the backdrop of more tasks being automated. Arguably the most important skill in digital age. People doing what computers can’t! Tapping into and embracing individual’s entrepreneurial spirit.

AMY TAYLOR

PKF Francis Clark

With increasing digitalisation, the real question is what will set humans apart from machines in the future?

We believe it’s about relationships and the foundation of great relationships is having self-awareness, empathy with others and the ability to really listen.

Digitalisation means that we’ll have more and more information and sometimes ‘fake news’ at our fingertips so it’s vital that we’re able to think critically for ourselves and use data to determine the right actions to take to address trends and issues.

TREVOR LEE

Trevor Lee Media

That keeping up with customers will be key to success. Customers are increasingly thinking ahead of businesses when it comes to innovation of products and services, simplicity of processes, efficiency of interaction, speed of response etc.

EMMA ROBERTS

Sekoya

Emotional Intelligence: The one thing the last 18 months has taught us is the need to be tuned into what is happening around us in terms of our surroundings and people’s feelings. Being skilled in this area is key to navigating situations successfully.

In the future, being emotionally intelligent will ensure that we can create a positive atmosphere and a work place either physically or remotely that will by dynamic and achieve the desired results.

Thought Flexibility: Being able to think about multiple things at the same time will be key to effective decision making and ensuring that all the balls are kept juggling.

Innovative Thinking: The only constant as we move into the future will be change, this will mean that the keep moving forward and be ahead of the trend is to be innovative and find ways to reinvent systems and create new ways of doing things.

Learn and Develop: As chance is a constant then there is a need to adapt and respond to the changes, this means moving your own skill set and that of your team and actively learn to keep ahead of developments in the field.

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1. Superfast data transfers: The obvious benefit but a gamechanger no less for businesses looking for instant downloads, uploads and especially if working with large graphics or video files.

2. Get into the Cloud: The days when a suitcase-sized server in the office was a musthave are gone and it’s now possible for you and your staff to be working entirely on the most up-to-date cloud-based apps and data storage.

3. Flexible working: Good internet connectivity gives you options for remote working, virtual meetings and a whole lot less travelling. But don’t forget, its not just about your office connection, your staff need good speeds too. 4. Cloud backup: We’ve spoken with a business that lost years of work due to a server failure which also lost the local backup too.

Thankfully they had a nightly cloud-based backup which recovered all their work. Are you sitting comfortably? Have you got the broadband connectivity to do this?

5. Future-proofing your business:

Don’t get left behind as the rest of the business world enjoys greater bandwith and maximises this with ever-more data-hungry apps and files your poor broadband and the soon-to-be-retired copper phoneline network simply can’t handle. Wildanet is the Cornish broadband provider bringing superfast and superreliable broadband to communities and businesses throughout Cornwall. It has a range of options including discounted home connections for staff if your business is connected via Wildanet’s network. Call 0800 0699906 to find out how Wildanet’s broadband can help your business.