TOP TREND: MID-YEAR UPDATE
2016 FORECAST: The Golden Opportunities trend will continue to rapidly grow, particularly as merger/acquisition and consolidation rates increase as a result of cheap money. In addition, as the global economy slows, financially strapped enterprises will be gobbled up by stronger competition. Again, in an increasingly stressful business climate, survival strategies will trump innovation by focusing on the present while sacrificing emerging trend opportunities.
On-trend businesses will identify new challenges, find market gaps and develop appropriate business models to seize opportunities. Golden Opportunities abound in 2016 — and they will be seized by innovative thinkers who identify specific products, services or experiences vacuumed out by takeovers.
TREND UPDATE
At mid-year, the foundation is squarely in place for this trend to evolve rapidly and strongly in the months and years ahead. As forecast: “After years of consolidation, product choice has been sharply limited throughout the broad business spectrum — retail, manufacturing, service, communications, etc. With economies slowing and profit margins shrinking, products with small margins and thin returns don’t make it to market. From food to clothing, from digital to stationery and hardware, if they’re not selling big, the product lines are abandoned by the majors.” (Trends Journal, Winter 2016.)
From this measured assessment, the institute identified a new trend line that would emerge; we called it the Ontrendpreneur™. Innovative, focused and skilled business leaders and entrepreneurs are now ideally positioned to fill product and services gaps created by an economic landscape driven largely by immediate-return profit margins.
In this big-box world, profit pressures compel major corporations to repurpose, aggregate and target-market essentially the same product multiple ways. These pressures have pushed major corporations further away from aggressive research-and-development pursuits. After years of frantic nonstop merger/acquisition and corporate-takeover activity, the available pool of original products, services and content is greatly diminished.
From major media to giant retail, uniqueness and value are at an all-time low. TJ