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What to look out for in 2025

Hello, ISSIPers!

Happy New Year!

I wish I were Gartner, McKinsey, or The Economist and could share with you a world-class forecast on what to look out for in 2025. But I am not. However, as Professor of Strategic Management, I do enjoy this type of exercise, like a gym for the brain. So, on the first of January 2025, I sat at my desk with the question in my mind: what should we all be looking out for in 2025

Suddenly, I realized that this is not an easy exercise! First of all, strategy does not reside in a crystal ball. Secondly, the impacts of any strategy implemented, can only be seen after some time. Strategy is not like operations. When I make a strategic decision, I will see the results in the future. Let me explain this concept with a small-scale example. Imagine I would like to open a restaurant. Could you make a list of typologies or classes of restaurants in the world?  For example, we have Italian restaurants, Chinese, One-star Michelin, McDonalds, etc… They have a key factor in common across the array of restaurant types:  they all serve food. So, going back to my question…the answer is not an easy one…this is a strategic decision…and, unfortunately, its results will only be visible in two-three years…

Now, going back to our predictions for 2025, what we should expect from the new year – avoiding geopolitics and diplomacy, focused solely on technologies and companies. And let’s begin our hour in the brain gym.

  1. Business Models vs. Technology. I believe that 2024 and 2023 brought us new and important technology advancements. I am thinking, for example, of Artificial Intelligence and all the “branches” of it. What I still do not see is an advancement in business models that are able to leverage those new technologies. Some experiments are out there, but still at a small scale. Just to give you an idea of what I am talking about, let’s think about the Internet introduction. Before that, books were sold in shops, cinemas were full, travelers were still using maps, etc. But then…suddenly…a new wave of companies arrived leveraging those technologies and changing the business models. So, in a few years, books were available on the internet, music was almost “free” (do you still remember Napster?), Blockbuster was losing clients, GPS became a “common term.” In 2025 I would expect the evolution of traditional companies or the arrival of new companies introducing new business models leveraging those technologies. Some examples? Please, use your imagination applied to your industry.
  2. Productivity and Prosperity. In the last few years, the materials research community has shown increased interest in Advanced Materials (AdMas) that are specifically designed to substitute the traditionally used materials, not only with a view to their sustainability, sourcing criticality, or scarcity, but also to maintaining or even enhancing their functionality and performance. The use of AdMas is particularly researched in sectors where the environmental impact of the traditional materials is substantial, in terms of waste production or resource consumption. Due to their novelty and potentially unpredictable impacts, and to add further value to their application, there is an increasing interest in the safety and sustainability of AdMas. They are specially engineered to display superior properties and performance compared to conventional materials, e.g., enhanced strength, durability, and corrosion resistance, and their numerous, promising potential applications make them highly desirable. They can be composed of different structures, such as polymers, metals and multi doped alloys, electroceramics, opto ceramics, and composites. They are used for various applications, namely aerospace, wind turbine, and marine equipment, to name a few. 
  3. Human Potential and Change. Several years ago, inspired by a very good book (Leadership and the New Science) I wrote a paper on leadership and chaos theory to ask the following question: why do so many organizations feel dead?

    In the article, basically, I was presenting the idea that we inhabit a world that is always subjective and shaped by our interactions with it. So, our world is impossible to pin down, constantly changing and infinitely more interesting than we ever imagined.
    Then, my questions to you for 2025 are: how do we create structures that move with change, that are flexible and adaptive, even boundaryless, that enable rather than constrain? How do we simplify things without losing both control and differentiation? How do we resolve personal needs for freedom and autonomy with organizational needs for prediction and control?

    In many systems, scientists now understand that order and conformity and shape are created not by complex controls, but by the presence of a few guiding formulae or principles. The survival and growth of systems that range in size from large ecosystems down to tiny leaves are made possible by the combination of key patterns or principles that express the system’s overall identity and great levels of autonomy for individual system members.

 

I think that is enough for now. My gym hour has ended and it is now your turn! Send your comments, examples and thoughts to info@issip.org

I wish a new year full of peace and serenity to every one of you in the global ISSIP community. 

Next time more!

Cheers,

Prof. Dr. Salvatore Moccia
ISSIP contributing Editor-in-Chief

Flori Carroll

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