Chris Riddell

What does a business of the future look like, and what are the skills your organization needs to survive? How do you grow and ensure relevance in a world that is changing faster and faster as each day starts? Adopting a culture of deep innovation across the business, thinking and behaving like a start-up, and finding the entrepreneurs from within your business is more important than ever. Business leaders are under more pressure than ever to understand how to bring new world, blended and more agile thinking into existing businesses. Trust has taken a radically different meaning in the world after tomorrow, and it’s a new currency for businesses. How is this possible in a well-established business, and how can you create environments for ideas to flourish and create topline growth.

Topics Chris will cover in this area include:

• ‘Old World’ businesses that are growing through ’New World’ thinking
• What behaving like an ‘entrepreneur’ means in 2016 the key traits
• The new skills and behaviors businesses need today and tomorrow
• Organizational structure, decision making and being an inspiring leader
• Embracing exponential change and the power of speed
• The new normal is now creating and not following trends

What does a truly connected experience mean, and what are customers looking for? Being a successful and thriving business today, is not just about doing things well. Good is no longer good enough. It’s about having a deeper understanding of your customer than ever before. Even more importantly, in today’s fast paced world, planning for the day after tomorrow is a key skill that is critical to survival. We are now living in an era of hyper distraction, with customers being bombarded with content across platforms and devices. Advertising just doesn’t connect with Gen Y, let alone even touch the surface with Generation Z. Crafted storytelling, with a perfect blend of technology, experiences and people will be the hallmark of tomorrows business.

Topics Chris will cover in this area include:

• Creating hyper personalized and truly connected customer experiences
• Using Intelligence led real-time decision making and being responsive
• Blended Online and Offline experiences to create next gen relationships
• The next wave of trust and how technology is now invisible
• Serendipity, Passion, Community and Trust are new currencies

What are the traditional industries we are seeing rapid future growth in, and what skills do we need? We have quickly moved into an era now of using technology to lead longer and better lives. The healthcare sector is seeing rapid growth through the adoption of wearable devices. We are literally swimming in data, and have more insights into our lives than ever before in history. The democratizing of resources, assets and energy ahead mean that the way we consume everything is changing rapidly. Deep, real-time learning to create adaptive experiences and the building of solutions for specific problems, not general ones will set businesses ahead. Being able to ‘pull levers’ and embrace ‘liquid data’ is now how we will see the power balance between large businesses and small ones changed forever.

Topics Chris will cover in this area include:

• ‘Old World’ businesses that are growing through ’New World’ thinking
• What being an ‘entrepreneur’ means in 2016 and why it works
• Key job growth areas ahead
• The power of speed and velocity is the new disrupter
• Realtime A/B Testing on customers is now a new normal

Technology is fundamentally changing us as human beings, and we now live and operate in a world that is full of digital natives. Everything about our world is influenced by megatrends; slow moving large, social, economic, political, environmental or technological changes that impact us everywhere. Every business is now a technology business, it’s no longer something special. It’s our new normal. Megatrends influence a wide range of activities, processes and perceptions, both in government and in society, and they last for decades. These forces then drive trends around the world. The most successful, innovative and forward-thinking businesses are continually plugged into these movements, and use them to support their medium to long term strategies.

Topics Chris will cover in this area include:

• Our future is at risk of a population ‘implosion’ and what this means
• How Technology will become more passive in the future
• Key drivers impacting enormous change on a second by second basis
• How intelligence is reducing risk, and creating enormous growth
• Internet of Things and Data creating real-time ‘pools’ to dip into

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been changing our lives for decades, but never has AI felt more ubiquitous than now. We’ve seen some embarrassing recent examples of where AI has proved it is, in fact, more intelligent than humans, with chess grandmasters and gaming. The ‘device’ as we know it will disappear almost entirely, and this will dramatically influence how we see our world, and the definition of what relationships mean. ‘Last mile’ decision making and ethics are now being challenged, and our ability to embrace this new era will be the defining point for innovators and trend setters alike. Augmented Reality showed us in mid-2016 the possibilities of what a blended lifestyle can do, yet the Pokemon Go craze was just a taste of what is around the corner. Technology is a democratizing force, empowering people through information, and we are set for a revolution like no other over the next 5 years.

Topics Chris will cover in this area include:

• How AI is transforming the meaning of ‘personalization’ on mass
• Businesses innovation stories embracing future intelligence
• Automation & Robotics is breaking down barriers of borders and time
• What role humans have after tomorrow, and how to get ready today
• Machine Learning is allowing business to ‘self-learn’ and grow
• Businesses will be ‘superpowers’ with combined AI and Automation
• Artificial Intelligence will alter power balance between large and small business