‘Redefining enterprise purpose’ after COVID
Entering the post-COVID era, businesses are facing the impact of significant changes and uncertainties. The report challenges businesses to reconsider the relevance of conventional thinking and to rethink their ‘purpose’ in order to maintain relevance and thrive.
The report suggests that (in a digital context) there will be 3 key strands to a strong and sustainable ‘enterprise purpose’, and businesses will need to build and maintain coherence in the following areas:
‘potential’ (realizing the full potential of digital technology in its widest context, going beyond raw technical capabilities of digital systems, processes and developments),
‘collective’ (collective and connected behaviors that reflect fair value exchanges), and
‘consensus’ (the consensus of engaged ecosystems is a critical success factor for operational trust going forward. Organizations must identify how they will achieve and sustain a ‘consensus of trust’ in the context of continually changing digital possibilities).
The importance of strength and coherence of purpose is set against the backdrop of anticipated but unpredictable game-changing disruptions, triggered by such things as: health pandemics, economic collapse, environmental crisis or technology ascendency. Such situations are referred to as “Event Horizons”, and a reshaping of business or even societal purpose may be required to successfully negotiate them.
“Going into the post-COVID era, businesses will face a “new normal”, which will be filled with opportunity and change. However there is a need to re-evaluate business relevance and impact, with a more balanced perspective on values and economic drivers in order to tackle tomorrow’s long-term challenges concerning sustainability, decarbonization, inequality, security and the ethical impact of IT.” explains John Hall, Editor-in-chief for the Atos Scientific Community.
New norm? or continuum of shifts?
As we look ahead to the post-crisis era, it remains to be seen whether businesses and society will transition to a new norm or experience a continuum of shifts that demand regular adjustments in purpose. The shifts could materialize through the redesigning of supply chains and value ecosystems, renewed approaches to data privacy regulations, new business partnership models and disruptive M&A activity. They might also include a focus on sustainability, decarbonization and circular economy models, and an accelerated uptake of technologies with a shift towards remote working and technology-enabled skills augmentation.
The new norm is likely to include a reassessment of what is considered to be essential and what might be dismissed as unnecessary luxury, leading to a re-evaluation of the core purposes that underpin enterprise, government and societal activities.
