Future Focus

Vation Insights: Future Focus

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Recent Innovation Advisory Council conversations have reminded us of some valuable truths. Many senior IT leaders have started to live by the well-known Peter Drucker guidance that, "the best way to predict the future is to create it." Examples abound from Council members across industries in which today's uncertainties are being reframed as opportunities, and yesterday's failures are seen as valuable learnings to apply to an improved future state. While this focus on the future feels comfortable to most, there are trends to watch and behaviors to consider in order to optimize the outcomes.

Vation's ecosystem of Council members, tech executives, investors, entrepreneurs and all those working tirelessly to deliver solutions to customers point to a set of simple behaviors that are helping some organizations to pull ahead of the pack. Senior leaders who focus on new trends that have emerged this year and who then envision how these trends will evolve in the next five years are seeing significant opportunities ahead. Not without facing challenges, these senior leaders are focused on the ideas, models, and technologies that address today's new reality -- and pushing forward through the uncertainty to craft a future state that's optimized, more efficient, and delivers more value. These senior leaders are embracing an exploration of new tech that automates, enables visibility, provides insights, or makes everything more intelligent. These senior leaders are treating today as a unique time to gain advantages, grow share, and develop teams that are equipped for the future they envision. These senior leaders are living the idea that they can create the future, and they're decidedly focused on it.

2020 will undoubtedly serve as a defining time that will separate true innovators from everyone else, and at Vation, we're inspired by these leaders and their stories. Futurists from over a century ago heralded an age where limitless possibilities would be made real by industrialization; similarly, today's intense change and significant uncertainty is already yielding new possibilities. The behaviors that are helping some organizations accelerate transformation and welcome new ideas, in general, are tried-and-true leadership principles around envisioning the future, enabling their teams, and executing relentlessly. The key is staying focused on the future -- embracing lessons learned and pushing forward.

Vation is here to help ideate, explore, and execute as we innovate toward a better tomorrow; to learn more, please contact us.

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