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Future Skills & Technologies for Future Managers Part I

Dear All,

You all will agree to me that the best way to learn anything is by writing about it. We have known thisstrategy from our childhood days when we were being punished by our teachers to write the table of 9 ten

times. So I force myself to write on varied topics despite so many constraints whether it's time, health, jobpressure etc. Also I do not have any other reasons to talk with a vast community of people with whom

have worked or being in touch directly or indirectly once upon a time in my decade long corporate careerSo I try to kill two birds from single stone. Trying to pen down learnings from whatever I am coming acrosor reading and developing reasons to engage with you in some kind of small discussions through thi

wonderful marvel of 21st Century "Internet".

Coming to our today's topic Since last 2 weeks I was contemplating about which skills would be imperative

for managing businesses in future. As a result I started tracing the challenges that would come up in futurby observing some very faint footprints in today's time. Many of these challenges and problems have seed

roped in today's business environment. Though the future challenges would be totally different imagnitude from what they are today but we can see that seeds are being sown today for many of them. I

may not be fully clarify how the human individual complexity will mutate with information overload &information technology to create challenges of what magnitude or complexity in near future. But I certainl

feel that some of these challenges can be handled by choosing right skill set to be developed in ourselves.

To my mind following are the few major skills needed by the future corporate managers: Iinvite yoursuggestions to include or exclude it from this list (from the perspective of Marketing, Business

Development and Strategic planning Managers)

1. People Management & Relationship Management Skills (downward, upward or horizontal) - Thetopmost perspective to be developed in our minds.

2. Data Analysis for effective business decisions- Using Business Intelligence Tools, KnowledgeManagement tools, Analytics tools and capability to visualise patterns and hidden insights in

massive amounts of data being collected from all sources (Internal data from CRM, ERP etc orExternal data like Industry surveys,perspective surveys etc)

3. Online Collaborations - Understanding collaboration intensive knowledge workplace, Conducting

online meetings, interactive workshops, Webinars, elearning concepts etc4. Project Management - Realtime Global resource management, Contact Management, Anytime-

Anywhere-Anytype information access, understanding Concepts of Cloud technologies and how you

can take advantage built in to your style of functioning.

5. Social and Business Networking - Networking is a critical skill to master by future managers andleaders. Managing word of mouth marketing, Managing your Customer, business and personal

resource network is critical to your future success.

6. Internet Enabled Marketing The future of Marketing and Advertising precise, measurable and tothe point. Understanding the intricacies of promotions of your business or yourself on this future

medium.These skills are not limited to any sector of business or any specific roles they are ubiquitous in nature. Let

us first begin with first two today.

People Management and Relationship Management Skills

This is the most important and essential skill to have in managers and all other skills will fail unless yohave this in you. Understanding the complex human behavior, its hidden flaws in brain, its strength and

behavorial science are very much important to proceed ahead in any domain in future. They are veryimportant today also but there will be a greater need in future as teams will be hard to form and sustainin

them will become even harder. In future (even today) every manager has to take on the role of HR personnot only to keep his team intact but also to strengthen it further.

The demand in people lives are rising exponentially at every level whether it is emotional demand or the

physical demands and it is being fueled further by technologies which multiplies the effects. On the otheside our capacity to full-fill that demand is diminishing every day. As a result the way we are working in

not going to work anymore. Gen-Y people -born after 1980 whose outlook are developed by TV, Interne

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and ambitious parents demand more flexibility, meaningful jobs, professional freedom, higher rewards and

a better work life balance then the older generations. They are not interested in killing themselves fowork.

Human beings are not meant to operate like computers continuously running at high speeds

running multiple programs for long period of time.But the way organizations are functioning anthe way we ourselves are forcing us is to operate like computers will create severe problems of unknown

gravity. The chasing it all & multitasking is a bad habit but still we can't resist it whatever may be thereason with you. Our bodies are not designed to operate in this unnatural manners. We will not be able to

change the physiology of our body and minds which we had developed in thousands of years.

Few great thoughts has been penned down by Tony Schwartz President and CEO of The Energy Project inseries of blogs that he write in HBR. Latest is Productivity Paradox on this subject. He has also writte

books on this subject like Manage your energy, Not your time & The Way We're Working isn'Working.Click here to listen to his podcast.

Whether you operate in a industrial, consumer, manufacturing or service sector your success is heavily

dependent and affected by the level of relationship that you are able to develop in your circle. It is a nobrain-er that relationship takes time to develop but can be destroyed by ill-considered or sarcasti

comments or any of your thoughtless action. Relationship management skills are not only essential tmanage your team inside the organization but also to manage effective and long lasting relationship with

key stakeholders of your project, your vendors & your key customers etc.

Data Analysis for effective business decisions

This skill is going to be the most important skill for any business manager in the next decade to comeThe ability to explore the data from multiple perspectives and extract value from it and then visualize an

communicate it is going to be hugely important skill in the next decade. As we are living on a informationsuper highway we are churning out huge data every day. Every action of us is generating a trail o

data everyday and someone is watching it very closely. Whether you know or not but even your deviceare churning out data. Currently the rate of churning out of data is very slow as compared to future (may

be 1/100) of what we will churn out 5-7 years later. Even your car, mobile, internet usage, DTH usageyour credit card, your electricity consumptions, your grocery shopping's, your IT returns, your investment

Your health checkups, your air travel or train travel every action of yours is generating datpoints. Currently these data streams are created and maintained in silos and are no

interconnected with each other. And very soon your movement outside, or your home devices likfridge, your LCD or Microwave etc all will start churning out data about you. Everytime you log in to you

gmail (email) from your home or from your office or from your mobile device somebody is geo-trackingyou. Which sites you visit, what key word you search and what information you download is being closely

watched and converted to a stream of data to analyse your behavior to use it to design customized offerscustomized product, customized information delivery for you only. As we are progressing we will start to

see the internet of things seamlessly interconnected with each other on a information super highway innext decade.

These networks are not going anywhere nor we will be closing our networks to allow you to catch up. It's

24X7 up and running. As this networking is increasing there would be a scarcity of analytical capability toanalyse the massive amounts of data coming out of it. So be prepared for it.

We live in a world where every thing fall to ground but still we still make it possible to fly a 400 tonnemachine in sky. We are incredible in our capacity to deal with complex challenges. Hence no worry ou

future managers will be able to handle these challenges creatively. More on this later from my side and it

now to you to send me in your thoughts on this subject.

Thanks & RegardsDharmendra Gupta

www.dharmendragupta.com

Disclaimer: The above are my personal views based on my related studies, observations of Marketing and BusinessDevelopment related functions closely. Above views are in no way indicatives of my assignments, roles, and mrelationship with my current & past employers

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