It’s that time of the year. And, it’s that kind of start for an article that deals with year-end predictions for the upcoming year. As the new year bells ring, enterprises will sift through the upcoming trends to identify where they should spend their time and energy. And, well, there’s plenty to deal with. More than you can get your hands on!

But, this one is not about trends. This is about an ‘untrend’. Yes, untrend. What’s an ‘untrend’? You won’t find it in an online dictionary. But if it did, it would be this –

Untrend

/ʌnˈtrɛnd/

noun

1. a general direction in which something is not changing.

2. not in fashion.

3. something you or your business is likely to miss, to overlook, to ignore, to pass up, to neglect and possibly fail to see (lost amidst trends).

So, as it sounds kind of antithetic to trends, let’s talk about these trends first.

Business is Changing (no argument there …)

You don’t need research and genius to know in the gut that business is changing fast, and accelerating at that. These are exciting times. Strategy and business models have never been as dynamic. Customer tastes have never been as diverse and fluid. Technology, in all its forms, has never been as accessible. Innovation has never been as commonplace. And, trends, regardless of the industry or function you’re dealing with, have never been as appealing to sift through, to glean, to dream about. There are many fast-moving mini trends under the many umbrella trends – digital, mobility, social, customer experience, artificial intelligence, process analytics, robotics, augmented and virtual reality, wearables – the list goes on.

Mobility & Social (Can you spot the latent ‘untrend’?) Let’s take mobility. While it’s easy (and not misplaced) to hail the smartphones and app ecosystems as the core to anywhere-anytime connectivity, at the end of the day it is the need for people to connect with others, and the rise of social communities that propel this trend. What’s Whatsapp without friends and families? What’s LinkedIn without those connections and their own needs and motivations?

Business Processes (Again, is there an ‘untrend’ there?) Let’s take business processes. Marketing is becoming more and more about leveraging automation and tools to reach out to people with messages and content that appeal to their emotions. Operations are becoming more and more about ensuring that automation takes away the routine and frees up the energies of knowledge workers to focus on making decisions and do what they do best. Customer service is becoming more and more about improving speed of response to customers through automation while making sure that customer reps have the context available to them through technology to address the customer needs in specific. The role of technology in enterprises is becoming as much about improving efficiency as about taking the irritants out of people’s way.

And the mega trend – digital (Well… you get the drift) Let’s take digital. It’s a mega trend that is driving consumer behaviour, business models, innovations and operational improvements across length and breadth of business segments. However, organisations have realised, sometimes the hard way, that digital is eventually only a way to connect their resources (people, processes, systems and things) better, and not the end in itself. Technology is an enabler still, making the role of people more important than ever. An experience that serves the latent needs and emotive requirements of customers is the true digital experience. Machines and digital mechanisms can help, it’s people who have to conceive it and deliver it.

Raise your glasses to the ‘untrend’ Now. At the risk of sounding boring (true to definition, but, hopefully not cliché), underneath all these trends (you may have already gotten the drift), some things don’t change. One fundamental remains as solid as ever, and gathers even more mass as we go, even more crucially as we venture into 2017. And, that is this – business is personal. Business is not B2B, not B2C, but is always H2H (human to human).

It’s not business that sells to customers, it’s people who sell to people. It’s not marketing that attracts customers, it’s human emotions that pull people in. It’s not machines that make automation possible, it’s knowledge workers who make it effective.

So, there it is. Business has always been about people. That’s one untrend that is going to rule in 2017, even more so in the digital world even as it sounds counter-intuitive.

So, all said and done, all trends done and dusted with, there’s one routine and boring fundamental that will persist. It’s the human element, it’s about people. It’s not trendy, it’s not a buzzword, it’s just an untrend that keeps persisting among trends, rather beyond trends.

In 2017, it will trump all trends single-handedly. While enterprises will continue to invest in new technologies, implement trendy innovations, and execute digital transformation, the one factor that would make the difference in real terms is their treatment of the human element. The year 2017 is going to be about how enterprises empower their knowledge workers (as against treating them as resource). It will be about how they address their customers as human (as against treating them as just another ID, another transaction).

More power to people! This is one untrend that will continue to untrend, making that difference year after year without trending.

Virender Jeet is Senior Vice President, Technology, Newgen Software

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