Uncertainty is one of the greatest obstacles facing productivity and prosperity across all industries, from aerospace and automotive to life sciences and construction. We decided that one of the best ways to support our customers across the globe was information: access to knowledge on how to deal with global incertitude relating to the future of business sustainability. It was in this spirit that we developed From Connections to Relationships in the Virtual World, an event targeted at helping its attendees navigate a changing world. We sat down with John Kitchingman, Managing Director, EuroNorth, to better understand the key themes of this event.
Why is business sustainability more important today than ever before?
For me, the facts are simple. Industries are going through unprecedented change, political, economic. And when we look at the impact of what we’ve been living and still living through COVID-19. Therefore, companies are forced to make the transition to new business models, often, digital business models, in order to stand the test of time. This is of course backed up by research. Nearly 50% of companies have changed their business model as a result of sustainability opportunities and that’s a source of business responsibility.
If we look at Nielsen, the global research company, they found that 81% of surveyed global consumers across different genders and different generational lines felt strongly that businesses should help better the environment. Here at Dassault Systèmes, we believe there’s three pillars of business sustainability: helping our clients around product and service innovation, the second around how that can evolve to help business model creation and evolution and finally, what we can’t ever forget is how we help nurture, attract, develop and retain talent in our business, and that’s the workforce of the future.
Why is workforce of the future a key theme for ‘From Connections to Relationships in the Virtual World’?
Developing knowledge and business, capturing it in a platform, making sure that it’s shared across different parts of the business, thus driving new efficiencies, often creating shorter product development cycles, will create that corporate memory for a business, and that way, it will far better attract and retain talent. And purpose driven companies see 40% higher levels of staff retention than their competitors. And long term company success relies on developing and maintaining that workforce of the future.
How is innovation critical for businesses in today’s climate?
When I think of innovation, I naturally think of the word invent because more than 80% of the environmental impact of a product is determined at the design stage, at the early part of that product life cycle. And companies in most sectors are looking to drive innovation that creates new forms of value for an evolving and changing customer expectation and customer need. Thus that enables them to capture market share, maintain that differentiation, and creates that longevity of business. And Deloitte had a very interesting report that said that sustainability leaders are more than 400% more likely to be considered innovation leaders.
What is the future role of the supply chain?
The industry of the 21st century has a human-centric approach, and this means that we have to understand our customers implicitly well. Not just the customers, but their supplier environment, their supply chain. We call that our value network. And the power of our experience, about the value to people and the rise of their using these virtual experiences for sharing knowledge and know how across the value networks. So we now have to engage differently with clients because the world is expecting something new; a transformation and that’s what we have to orchestrate, but now, in the years to come.
To discover first-hand how you can help your company navigate the future of business sustainability, click below to sign up for the virutal event, From Connections to Relationships in the Virtual World.
Alaric Moras is a Social Media Specialist at Dassault Systèmes. In his spare time, he dog sits and writes works of fiction and non-fiction.