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‘The Future Formula’: Jo Caudron shares roadmap for the (digital) future during C-EATS

Today’s leaders are the builders of tomorrow. In a world changing faster than ever, staying one step ahead is crucial. ‘The Future Formula’ by Jo Caudron provides a compass for navigating the complex world of transformation. And this goes much broader than just digital transformation. At C-EATS, an executive lunch hosted by Amon on 26 September 2024, the strategist guided us through the key insights.

Who?

Jo Caudroninternet pioneer, innovation strategist and author of ‘The Future Formula’ (Pelckmans, 2023), provides a method to identify the most important disruptions of tomorrow and how to solve them thanks to sustainable innovation.

What?

During C-EATS, an executive lunch hosted by Amon, 10 CEOs from as many industries took part. Responding to ‘The Future Formula’, they shared concrete cases and insights, while Christophe VanDriessche, Amon’s managing director, challenged them with pointed questions.

Why?

In the words of Jo Caudron: “The world is at a turning point. Old models are coming to an end. Major challenges such as climate change, digital transformation and societal evolutions, are gaining such momentum that systemic shocks are forcing us to deal with unseen changes.”

The future doesn't just ‘happen’ to us

In dialogue with 10 CEOs during C-EATS, Caudron painted a clear picture of the forces shaping and transforming our society: from AI and robotics to geopolitical shifts and climate change. These forces present both challenges and opportunities. How can we harness them to future-proof organizations? That’s the starting point of ‘The Future Formula’, the search for tomorrow’s rules of the game.

A first interesting proposition here is that the future is not linear, but rather exponential. This means that the changes we see today could suddenly be much bigger tomorrow. Leaders and managers must be able to understand and anticipate this exponential growth.

The Wheel of Disruption

In this sense, ‘The Future Formula’ is more than just a book—it’s a call to action. Caudron challenges us to leave our comfort zone and explore new paths. How? By taking the time to reflect, look at the world around us and search as widely as possible for inspiration: not only in one’s own industry but also in society at large. Caudron’s ‘Wheel of Disruption’ provides a concrete and useful compass for structurally mapping those – potentially – impactful changes. It includes an overview of the main forces within one’s own sector as well as in the wider society.

Caudron’s ‘Wheel of Disruption’ provides a concrete and useful compass for structurally mapping those – potentially – impactful changes. It includes an overview of the main forces within one’s own sector as well as in the wider society.

However, many organizations today remain stuck in the innovation paradox:

“We do want to optimize and become more effecient, but why fundamentally rethink our business as long as we’re doing well?”

The innovation paradox in a nutshell

“We have no other choice,” replied the CEO of a Belgian bank. “We are obliged to grow.” Once you start looking around, in most cases you do see the need for innovation and growth. But, Caudron argues, “most companies blindly fixate on what is happening in their own market.”

Is looking ahead even possible?

“Can you look three years ahead at all these days?” a CEO from the media and distribution sector wonders aloud. However, she immediately adds: “Of course, that shouldn’t be an excuse not to do it.”. The other attendees at C-EATS were quick to confirm. The straddle between short term and long term also proved familiar to everyone: if you’re too much or only concerned with the long term, you may be out-of-business tomorrow. But if you focus only on the short term, you may be irrelevant the day after tomorrow.

“What most organizations lack is vision,” stressed Jo Caudron. Therefore, he challenged those present to look ahead to 2050, 2030 and 2025 all at once. In this way, the goal is to outline scenario planning and vision development for their own organization.

All in all, every organization needs to think about its own sustainable transformation and future formula. This transformation is, by definition, not purely digital, but transversal, which requires a holistic business approach. After all, only by thinking structurally about the future and investing sustainably in the right people, technologies and culture can organizations prepare themselves decisively for the future.

The right people in the right place

At Amon, we believe the right people make all the difference in such a holistic approach. That’s why we help organizations attract and retain top talent. Our expertise lies in finding IT specialists and IT executives with the skills and mindset needed to shape the (digital) future.

Steven De Poortere
sdp@amon.be

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