A new year brings new opportunities, no matter what industry you work in but along with those opportunities it brings a brand-new set of challenges. You need to be aware of the opportunities and avoid stagnation of your business by tackling the challenges. Here are a few things to keep in mind in your pursuit of operational excellence in the coming year.

It is predicted that in the near future, automation will affect a small percentage of jobs, estimated to be about 3% globally. However, within the next 10 to 15 years, that percentage could rise significantly with the onset of technology capable of autonomy, professionals from all industries should carefully think about this trend. By the mid-2030s, one-third of the workforce may be automated. Some of the critical patterns are discussed in our vision 2020 & beyond. The dynamic nature of people and processes are centred around the challenges faced by the industry.

People — The most important resource that will drive the future

Probably the most daunting challenge for businesses would be to convince their people and make them believe in the organization’s philosophy. No matter what cause your business is supporting, you will find it difficult to earn the support of people because there is a lack of trust. You will have to build trust and establish a stronger relationship with your people in order to get them onboard for a positive cause.

Fast Changing Processes — The way things would work in future

Instead of micro managing your employees and giving them a message that you do not trust in their capabilities, it is better to delegate work to others and stop the activity of micro managing them. The more freedom you offer your employees, they will have a stage to showcase their talent and achieve their true potential. This will also increase their productivity and efficiency.

Challenges - that would affect people and processes

1. Scaling without compromising on culture — Non-negotiable

Ask any business, whether big or small, they will tell you that they want to expand their business operations, what they don’t realise is that there are some things that are of more importance than scaling their operations and one of them is company culture. You won’t be able to afford to grow your business at the cost of your company culture.

2. Upgrading Technology — A must

This is a no brainer, for successful survival of an organization it must adopt new technologies, this is the bottom line, any successful organization has to master it. Big data, an analytics technology can perform analysis of large amounts of complex data computationally. Similarly, Augmented and Virtual reality are emerging technologies that can be implemented to ease the modelling and presentation process. A remote connectivity and monitoring system can be established by the use of Internet of Things. Adoption of such technologies can be the area that makes a lot of difference in increasing the productivity and efficiency of organizations.

3. Continual Innovation — The secret weapon

Businesses are cautious about taking risks in the current economic climate but innovation is important to keep your business relevant in today’s world. The ability to resolve key problems depends on new innovation. 84% of executives say that their future success is dependent on innovation. Many businesses have already found that by being innovative through the last few years and staying ahead of the game.

4. Increasing output while staying lean — A roadmap to cost effectiveness

Most businesses think that increasing output is the primary objective that they have to achieve to make it big, after all, they are in business to make profits. For this purpose, the real challenges businesses will face in 2020 and beyond will be to increase output while staying lean.

5. Communication — The interaction life line

Most people advocate the benefits of communication tools and they are right too. Communication tools have their advantages but if you go overboard with their use, they can cast a negative shadow on your productivity. For information to flow from one end to the other communication tools are used. Workplace communication is vital for increasing worker productivity, efficiency, employee job satisfaction and can have a positive effect on turnover rates if performed in an organised way. Functionality wise, “Whatsapp” groups created in the organization is a popular adaptation in this category.