Jimin Lee
Title: Trends of business, what will it be?
Jimin Lee
In the book “Future File” written by Richard Watson, the author says that “Predicting the future is a dangerous work. But it’s more dangerous if we do not predict the future because of low accuracy.” In other words, it claims that predicting the future is hard but has more than enough credit for it. “What if I know what will happen tomorrow?” I remember that this kind of thought has been in my head for some time and I really hoped for it. If I could than I will be able to play the market and have no rival. In the field of business knowing the trends which will occur soon takes very important role in making the profit of company. Since economy is directly affected by business and it is not exaggerate to say that the future wealth of the world depends on predicting the future trends. Futurologists William Gibson said that “Future exists at this time. It just didn’t spread itself.” Just like his words, we need to construct the future out of what we know now. This is a work which depend a lot of parts in imagination but with what we earned from past and now we are able to glue some valuable predictions out of it. The first trend which I think will affect the business entities is the increase in people’s expectation about the morality of the company. As the capitalism develops companies will gain more and more strength. We can see this by a lot of examples. Bill Gates, the president of Microsoft has property which exceeds the one year budgetary of a nation. And McDonald and Coca Cola is already conquered big part of human life. Business power is starting to press the original power the society had. Samsung the largest group in Korea is not touchable by the public power because it takes a huge part in the economy of Korea. A company is now gaining more and more power in the politics. The cozy relation between politics and business is causing corruption in justice. We do not have to consider big issues like Microsoft or Samsung. We can feel that in our lives that the company has a huge amount of affect in our normal lives. Large amount of jobs are subordinated to companies and we are living by the payment from the company. This makes our lives partially dependent to the company. So I think it’s not hard to say that people’s human nature is affected by the company’s attitude toward society. Companies do not only affect the human nature of workers but also has a huge affect to the local society. Abbreviated word NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) and PIMFY (Please in My Front Yard) shows that company can have good and bad affects. For example, the oiler’s outflow of oil in the front ocean of Tae-A peninsula made the local citizen to starve because of suspension of the marine commerce. This kind of situation makes the concept of company’s responsibilities arise to have the company handle some social chores. This kind of social pressure will change the mechanism of business directly. Business functions on the basis of capitalism as well as market. Planning a strategy for the market of a company depends on the profit and loss. But these social responsibilities need to be shown like voluntary to citizen. Despite that the fundamental basis of this responsibility is the “profit”, but tangibly it needs to be voluntary work. In order to convince citizen the company, the responsibility should be shown tangibly specific way. The company needs to bring their workers to the volunteering field and make the name of the company look more morale. Companies should understand that the wealth they earned should be returned to the society because it is accumulated by the sacrifice of
Jimin Lee
society. They could achieve this by donating to orphanage, give scholarships and etc. The second important trend is the business management considering environment. Global economy has developed rapidly since the industrial revolution without thinking about environment pollution. But since the late 1900’s the world has been considering the environmental pollution seriously. Kyoto protocol is a good example of the concern. This treaty is intended to achieve "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." The Kyoto Protocol establishes legally binding commitments for the reduction of four greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride), and two groups of gases (hydro fluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons). Environmental management is not, as the phrase could suggest, such, but rather the management of interaction by the modern human societies with, and impact upon the environment. The three main issues that affect managers are those involving politics (networking), programs (projects) and resources (money, facilities, etc.). The need for environmental management can be viewed from a variety of perspectives. A more common philosophy and impetus behind environmental management is the concept of carrying capacity. Simply put, carrying capacity refers to the maximum number of organisms a particular resource can sustain. The concept of carrying capacity, whilst understood by many cultures over history, has its roots in Malthusian theory. Environmental management is therefore not the conservation of the environment solely for the environment's sake, but rather the conservation of the environment for humankind's sake. As with all management functions, effective management tools, standards and systems are required. The ISO 14001 standard is the most widely used standard for environmental risk management and is closely aligned to the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS). I think now is the time individual companies or entire industries start to adapt the ISO standard. And companies should make restrictions about their range of environmental pollutions. And should understand that restricting is not a loss but a profit in the future. Companies should be aware that keeping environment clean is a duty, not a choice for them. They need to try to develop ways like making manure equipment to make less pollution even it takes them some cost. Third, the trend is science technology. The main events happened in twenty and twenty-first century can be mostly accounted to the development of science technology. Science technology especially in the field of biotechnology, information technology has made enormous improvement within two decades. Consumer, market and company’s structure changed enormously by the development of Information Technology and most of all the marketing operation changed directly by the development of Information technology. We know by experience that the marketing strategy is now mostly about TV, radio, newspaper and finally, the Internet. Internet is now the main source of business. Now there is a lot of marketing procedures. E-Procurement is a good example. E-Procurement is sometimes also known as supplier exchange) is the business-to-business or business-toconsumer or Business-to-government purchase and sale of supplies, work and services through the Internet as well as other information and networking systems, such as Electronic Data Interchange and Enterprise Resource Planning. Typically, e-procurement Web sites allow qualified and registered users to look for buyers or sellers of goods and services. Depending on the approach, buyers or sellers may specify costs or invite bids. Transactions can be initiated and completed.
Global Initiatives Symposium in Taiwan 2009
Using internet at the field of business is very efficient so it keeps taking bigger and bigger parts as time passes. Companies need to be aware of their usage of network and use it efficiently in order to become the winner in the challenge. I choose three future trends which seems to have biggest influence in business; Social responsibility of companies, considering environment and using internet. Examining trends are important for the persistent growth of economy. Roughly speaking, business is a game of prognostication and planning. Whoever makes a better anticipation wins the game!
Find the Next Wave to Ride On - New Business Strategies in the Changing World
Jimin Lee
Global Initiatives Symposium in Taiwan 2009