The 21st-century workplace is radically different from the workplace of our parents and grandparents, and is continuing to evolve quickly. Increasingly, employees are either distributed across multiple locations or untethered to specific offices at companies that have embraced “hotelling.” Dedicated desks and offices are becoming less common than interchangeable and flexible workspaces; mobile technology and tablets are replacing personal desktops and laptops. Companies like WeWork level the playing field for startups, which no longer need to bear the expense of investing in real estate, and several startups such as Basecamp have systems that allow for them tap talent from just about any geographic location. Collaborative tools are the new water cooler and companies can be global from day one. No business is too big to fail and no startup too small to succeed.
Building For The Next 100 Years
China has nine of the world's 20 biggest tech companies; seven of them did not exist five years ago. Jack Ma, the visionary behind the Alibaba Group, talks about how to build companies that last 100 years. It is that long-term thinking that is enabling China to create companies that will impact the globe in the next 100 years.
We cannot build enterprises as we did a decade or so ago, when we launched local companies that eventually went national and, 10 years later, global. Companies like Uber and Airbnb (the only two companies on the top 20 list from the U.S. that weren't there five years ago) have gone global in less than five years and now have operations across the world.
Form follows function, they say. If we are to build companies to last the next 100 years, we have to rethink the way we are building them -- with data at their center and collaborative tools at their core.
Not People-Dependent, But Process-Dependent
The concept of the “company man” doesn't exist anymore. To see someone work in the same organization for more than five years is already a rarity. So how do you maintain the momentum of the company if there is constant churn within the organization and, along the way, knowledge is lost because competitive practices and insights are rarely documented?
Organizations of the future need to be built around integrated processes that, at their heart, are people-centric. With data, you can build systems that are people-centric and fair (and also intuitive). For example, if one of the team members from location A is initiating a travel request, there is no need to ask for their name, their starting point etc. Those details can be picked up from the HR directory, and if they mention the name of the client, those details can be picked up from the Marketing/Sales register and the Operations team could have a more accurate analysis of cost breakdowns as well.
Report-Less Enterprises
The amount of time and effort that managers spend on creating reports -- only for senior management to glance at them, put them away, and forget about them -- is one of the biggest bloats of modern day enterprises. We can’t do away with reports, but there should be a way to assimilate all that information when you are overseeing operations.
With data-centric enterprises, reports will generate themselves. If the enterprise is process driven and data and operations are integrated, then it becomes simple for teams to dig into insights without having to rely on data. Intelligent dashboards that allow operational managers to zoom in on insights and slice and dice data as they dig further makes not only operational bandwidth available, but also makes audits smooth.
Productivity For The Knowledge Enterprise
We still measure productivity in terms of items made -- things that ship out of the factory floor, or boxes packed and shipped. Those metrics made a lot of sense for the industrial economy, but now that automation is taking over the factory floor, how do we quantify productivity in the knowledge economy?
The problems of today are far more complex, and we are also moving towards (or have dabbled with) open offices and flat hierarchies where we are open to ideas from every quarter. However, how do we measure and keep a check on the productivity index of individuals, departments and overall business units?
With collaborative tools, and engines -- where the system tracks and logs every input and contribution of team members -- enterprises can be fair in their assessment of team members who contribute. There have been some experiments involving gamification as well, where organizations can accommodate various styles of working. There are folks who like to put in eight hours a day every day, versus some who work in bursts of energy. The modern-day enterprise and assessment mechanism penalizes such folks and hence they become freelancers/consultants. But in my view, work style should be irrelevant as long as the expected outcomes are delivered.
In an economy where talent is distributed and markets are globalized, but geopolitics are shifting towards building more walls -- figurative and literal -- companies have to create the digital/collaborative infrastructure that will allow them to leverage talent across the globe. If they don’t, then their ability to compete will be severely threatened and someone else -- probably someone from South Asia -- will fight for their spot with a cheaper, better product.
Companies and workers often worry that automation will threaten jobs. But there are things that computers and machines are really good at, such as repetitive tasks that require precision, and things that humans excel at, such as cognitive and creative tasks. If we can work together and form that symbiosis, that will be the hallmark of the Enterprise 3.0.
