This Presentation tells the full business evolution story articulated below.

Several key drivers have positioned the next two decades to deliver a staggering – perhaps unprecedented – amount of change. The accelerating pace of business, the growing impact of digital, and several other major indicators suggest that a next generation enterprise is on the horizon. The first of these indicators is the level of societal change impacting everything from business to war. In the business world, the implications of this change can be seen in our employees, where for the first time in history, four generations of workers are in our work force. The associated challenges are coming into focus, as some of these workers are digital natives, but the vast majorities are digital immigrants. With customers, the shift of power to the individual has changed their role forever and placed them at the center of the company ecosystem. Other indicators include an intense focus on growth, which increasingly requires collaboration within and outside the four walls of the Enterprise. This growth agenda drives a new type of value ecosystem, enabling growth that in many cases is outside a company’s traditional business.

The search for effectiveness is an emerging indicator that promises to drive many future initiatives. Whereas the goal of efficiency is doing things right, effectiveness will focus on doing the right things. In parallel, and after hitting an efficiency wall, companies will focus on creating next generation efficiencies. The maturation and convergence of Social, Mobile, Analytics, Big Data, Cloud, Robotics, Cognitive Computing and the Internet of things will be key enablers. As commoditization across industries accelerates, companies will differentiate by creating consumer-like experiences, specializing, and effectively using insight. Perhaps the biggest indicator is the realization that future success is tied to Digital DNA – or those characteristics that enable companies to operate in a rapidly changing business environment. Internet Companies and start-ups have the DNA advantage and the barriers for new market entrants continue to collapse. But most companies are traditional companies and have a considerable gap to close. To do this, enshrined organizational policies, practices, processes and structures that inhibit Digital DNA will change. When we look back, this structural change will be viewed as the catalyst that enabled next generation enterprises.

The underlying driver of all of these indicators is Digital, and it has massive implications for the Enterprise of 2020 and beyond. Companies must focus on the Digital DNA required for the Enterprise to succeed in 2020. The key premise that supports this focus is the one certainty that likely drives future executive agendas: that is, in 2020, companies of all sizes must exhibit these key characteristics:

• Growth-oriented
• Effective and efficient
• Experiential
• Responsive and adaptive
• Powered by knowledge and ideas
• Emergent and resilient
• Entrepreneurial and innovative
• Powered by creativity and design
• Relationship-based
• Insight and engagement-driven
• Open, agile and collaborative
• Fast, iterative and experimental
• Flat
• Efficient
• Design thinking

No other bet has this degree of certainty, and making that next big bet is difficult for Executives today. Compressed technology cycles make it difficult to keep pace with innovation, and obsolescence is generally just around the corner. Planning cycles are struggling to keep up, and experimentation increasingly replaces planning for many visionary leaders. As a result, traditional businesses are beginning to understand that viability in the next decade drives the need to evolve. As companies transform over the next several years, enabling these characteristics should be at the top of the transformation agenda. The disparate initiatives pervasive in most enterprises must come together holistically if these characteristics are to be realized.