Business Trends

There's been some interesting discussion around this infographic. Some suggest that businesses that don't actually own what they trade in are a new phenomenon. I'm not so sure about that. Throughout human history there are examples of people who connect others with ideas, resources and networks, without necessarily owning the underlying resource themselves. I think it shows 3 things, only one of which is a new and growing trend: 1. People are hard wired to be connected to each other. Any business, community, network, village, tribe, association etc that makes connection easy and worthwhile for the people involved will get traction. That's been true for at least as long as we have been gathering around campfires sharing tools, resources, food, relationships, wisdom etc. It's unlikely to change any time soon. 2. Any business that can offer a quality, customer centric service which either solves a problems, make life easier, or creates choice will be a winner. All the businesses mentioned do most (if not all of these things). That's also nothing new, and is unlikely to change anytime soon. 3. Businesses that offer 1 and 2 and can do that in a genuinely nimble and truly global way stand to make massive connections, do massive volumes of business, and therefore stand to make huge profits. That in itself is not new, there are ancient examples of global business as well. What has changed is the speed at which it can be accomplished, the amount of people that can be reached. Further the tools to achieve these kinds of results are getting more accessible, more powerful, easier to use and cheaper to access. If you had to make your business work in an environment where you couldn't physically meet your customer, they were on the other side of the world, and you had to be immediately responsive - how would you do it and what could you achieve? I expect we'll be seeing a lot more examples of these kinds of businesses arriving with greater speed and creating even more stellar results