Major Business Trends in the Last Decade

The world of business has never been wider. With interconnected cultures, the chance to enter the international business market is easier but trickier. One of the most essential factors to bear in mind is the global interchangeable tastes, needs, and challenges. It is not about fulfilling a need; it is rather the creativity and risk to create one. Being in an interconnected world, the need created by one business is a chance for another profession to grasp.

What does this mean, and how do we implement it? It means that creating a practical commodity and building rapport with your client or customer does not stop there; it is rather the beginning. That is why following major trends that will spread the market globally and nationally is not an option when building your business strategy any more; however, it is a must.

Choosing the right marketing campaign and coping with the “talk of the hour” swiftly and efficiently can boost your business beyond imagination. Trends can be social, technological, global, or national events with long-term effects or even widespread entertainment products.

Want to know more about how to use business trends or what the examples might be? Keep reading to review some of the recent decade’s significant business trends.

Business Trends Created by Entertainment Production

Creative and well-marketed entertainment productions can spread faster than any other productions. Working on turning an entertainment production into a trend is a goal for entertainment companies. Trends created by an entertainment booster are also a chance for different commodities and short-term business strategies.

Entertainment productions include movies, video games, sports events, entertainment parks, and more. Let’s review some examples to help you keep an eye on future opportunities for your business.

Barbie

Have you noticed the whole world around you turning pink? Yes, this is the effect of Barbie movie. The movie created a worldwide trend using a vast marketing campaign strategy. Using all the pink colours they could get, Barbie became the word of the hour.

According to CNN, they received an e-mail from Rosco’s Vice President of Global Marketing, Lauren Proud, stating, “The sets were being developed during a time when we were still experiencing the global supply chain issues, and the paint supply was hit particularly hard.” She added, “We delivered everything we could; they got it all. We can’t wait to see how it looks in the film!”

This anticipation of the movie created a need for consumers. Girls around the world started preparing customs to attend the movie. Companies in various productions used the movie as a chance for marketing competition. Thus, pink and nude pastels became the primary colours, especially in fashion companies. Other productions like hospitality venues, restaurants, parks, and more used the Barbie theme to join the trend.

The most exciting thing about the Barbie trend is not its success and publicity as a movie but its effect on various productions. It proves you can only build your marketing strategy if you are not living in a bubble. It will help if you acquire the flexibility and creativity to use current trends for your business’ benefit, even if they seem unrelated to your work.

Adding to that, we cannot disregard the Barbenheimer Campaign. When you think about it, the marketing competition started with the Barbie team. Oppenheimer filmmakers, on the other hand, just used the opportunity. The contrast between the two movies, even on the level of colours, resulted in social media trends and talks that, in the process, were to the benefit of both movies.

Pokémon GO Mobile Game

Imagine a mobile game that would provide a connection between the real world and the digital one. Pokémon has a special place in the hearts of the 90s generation. In 2016, Niantic released the Pokémon GO game that made the world go viral, looking for Pokémon creatures in different areas. The game reached over one billion downloads on IOS and Apple devices by 2019.

What would this trend have to do with marketing your business or production? Well, think about it. What if you managed to lure people into your Café, franchise, or even your small business looking for Pokémon? Wouldn’t this make your workplace go viral? Even hospitals used the game for marketing to lure patients to their clinics. Therefore, as a marketer, you must keep an eye on what is happening around you.

Business Trends Created by Innovations and Emerging Technologies

Since the Industrial Revolution, the world has learned to adapt to daily changes, especially on the level of technological advancement. Being in the Era of Knowledge, swift adaptation and flexibility are not a choice when managing your business. Let’s review the significant innovations and technologies that changed how business is handled during the last decade.

Smartphones

We know that mentioning smartphones might seem outdated, but looking back through the last decade, it is a trend that any business must pay attention to. When you are building your website, you must maintain a mobile version for better reach, not to mention the social media communication apps that have helped communicate and market your business but also created a massive competition to handle. Thanks to mobile phones, the idea of social media and staying connected at all times is possible.

Therefore, as a business, you must recognise the opportunities offered through smartphone business trends. Creating a WhatsApp number, for instance, or using Direct Marketing is necessary for your business to flourish.

When you think about it, as a busy client, what would be more accessible: calling to order, leaving a WhatsApp message, or using an online purchasing platform like Amazon? A smartphone provides all three options for your client’s preferences. So, no matter how small your business is, you must consider using smartphones as a marketing and communication device.

Digitalisation and Cyberspace

The invention of the internet and moving into the world of cyberspace has created the trend of turning to digitalisation strategies. Through digitalisation, you can provide value, achieve a higher revenue rate, save time and effort, and build an easily retrieved database, and all of these are among other infinite opportunities. Relying on the world digital business is not a trend to skip, no matter how small your business is.

Let’s see how one trend has changed how people behave in the last decade and how business strategy thinking has had to adapt and encompass it as one of the major business trends in the century.

GPS Navigation

GPS navigation is one of the most innovative applications of digitalisation. It is impartial to ensure you have placed your business on the digital map. Reaching a desired place has always been challenging. One only needs an internet connection and GPS. Because of GPS navigation, mobile games like Pokémon GO, as mentioned before, are made possible.

Social Media

Of course, social media is an obvious example of the most effective technological, social, and business trends in the last decade. It has recently become not only a means for communication and marketing but also an online marketplace to perform an entire business process. New jobs has emerged parallel to the new line of work, like social media moderators, that are currently being studied in different business schools.

Online Streaming

The technology of online streaming has changed the demand for television and videotapes. People find talk shows, TV series, movies, news, and any means of video communication to be a more accessible means of entertainment. Now, you don’t have to wait for your favourite shows or series episodes to watch on your screen, as you can watch them uninterrupted on different platforms, like Netflix.

The release of Netflix has created competition in the market that cannot be missed. TV channels like Warner Brothers HBO, for instance, had to adapt to the new business trends by making its online streaming platform HBO Max. Other companies also joined the market, like Amazon with Prime TV, Apple TV, and Disney. We cannot wait to see what the market has to offer in this line of production.

Business Intelligence

The examples of technological trends mentioned above created the need for Business Intelligence (BI). BI is a technical structure that helps companies analyse, collect, and store their requied data. With a wide variety of processed data and information, it is almost impossible to use the old ways to keep track of your business.

BI provides user-friendly platforms, databases, spreadsheets, and software so people with no technical experience can use them. Thus, BI, in the process, provides accurate information, saves time and effort, and provides more time for the decision-makers to focus on business improvement and efficiency.

“These key individuals must be shown how, with a functioning BI infrastructure, they will be able to move beyond shepherding data to shepherding the organisation by concentrating on making the key business decisions they were hired to make.”

 ― Brian Larson, Data Analysis with Microsoft Power BI

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) model, released in November 2022 by OpenAI. It takes the idea of a chatbot to a new level. Imagine a program designed to answer any question you have through a conversation.

ChatGPT is not like Google search where information is gathered in one place; It is more like your personal instructor. It can be used to design, develop, and refine any idea you have as a user to your preference.

Now, the competition has never been more challenging. You are not competing against teams but against technology. One that is said to replace several jobs in the coming years, especially those jobs that depend on language communication, code development, writing in its different forms, and so on. So, updating yourself swiftly with AI, especially to upgrade your business, might save you the time to adapt to it as one of the most influential business trends in history.

Business Trends Created by Environmental, Social, and Political Events

Desperate times dictate desperate measures. The world is interchangeable, socially, politically, and environmentally. Pandemics, wars, inflation, significant movements, global agreements, and so on are all influential forces in shaping new norms. Your vision as a business owner must be flexible and open enough to embrace all these sudden and uncontrollable events and cope with ensuing recent trends in order to thrive in business.

Remote Working

Due to the rise of digitalisation and business intelligence, the idea of remote working has already been in the market for years. Therefore, when the world stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic, the option to remote working was apparent.

As the world is slowly recovering, remote working has become among the business trends valued by employers and employees. It spawns a new management strategy phase to adapt to employees’ changing tendencies and achieve employee satisfaction and company profit simultaneously.

Sustainability

The Industrial Revolution, wars, pollution, poverty, and many events, that has a negative effect on the environment that has been building for centuries, dictated a global movement for sustainable development. It is the time for the world to take a global action to fight global warming, the shortage of water, and natural landscapes and save and sustain what is left for future generations.

In 2015, the UN announced the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a global movement, aiming to achieve peace and prosperity in the present and development in the future. So, what would this have to do with my business?

Nowadays, sustainability is one of the essential values to be added to your business profile. The SDGs have three main interconnected dimensions: economic, social, and environmental. These dimensions address behaviours in all life spectra. That is why you can integrate the objective of these goals in different areas of your business.

Currency Fluctuation

These days, global currency fluctuation and inflation in the market cannot be overlooked. The world must take intensive planning and crisis management approaches to come out safely.

Currency fluctuation affects the countries’ economies and merchandise. It is not a trend in itself, but it created business trends to help preserve the currency value of your trade, like currency forward, currency futures, and currency options. Another trend is the diversification of markets and products through investing overseas.

In short, as a business owner, you cannot live in a bubble. Coping and evolving with the never-ending rapid changes in the 21^st century is critical to your business thriving and surviving. Updating yourself with current business trends might be one way to start boosting your business.