Over the past two weeks I’ve spoken to two groups about business changes happening in the UK and thought I’d share some of the discussion.

As we all know the past few years has been full of stories of greed, corruption and poor business practice. MP’s expenses, Bonuses for failure, phone hacking, payments to officials by journalists and even match-fixing in sport. No wonder some people wonder if the whole world in on the make!

Marketing being reviewed
So it’s come as no surprise to me that many business teams are looking at their marketing and highlighting their ethical and moral values image to customers and to each other. It includes behaviour of staff both inside and outside of work, guarantee of product satisfaction, standards of production, client handling, remuneration and so on.

Extravagant displays of wealth
But how will this translate in the future? I think that extravagant displays of wealth by companies and their employees are a thing of the past in order to avoid this reflecting badly on companies. Gone are the days when bankers will be photographed swilling Krug after their bonus payments. Not because they aren’t buying Krug or getting a bonus but because the Bank doesn’t want such photographed splashed all over the media and causing adverse comment from clients and regulators. Teams are being warned to avoid displays of wealth that may reflect badly on the employer.

Future displays
One wonders how business will display to clients in the future?
Will offices be more spartanly decorated, how much will be spent on flowers and art, whether to have leather or plastic visitors chairs for reception and how will employees dress?

I also suspect that in the future customers will favour businesses that look as if they don’t spend too much on employee comfort. This will be especially true of professional firms such as solicitors and accountants that charge fees and supply a service. On the other hand they won’t want to look as if they are short of money!

Yet I can’t see the customer abandoning their desire for the latest Apple Iphone and even the latest fashion clothing item.

It looks like being an interesting balancing act for business.

Yesterday I was talking to four university students majoring in Engineering. An essential skill if the UK is to pull itself out of the downturn we are entering. No, I did say entering because I believe that with future bank and national failures things are going to get worse for students finding a job after gaining their degree rather than better. But that’s another discussion!

The four comoplained to me that their three-year degree course could be reduced to two because the first year was so basic that they had covered most topics during their last year as secondary school. They also questioned the value of having just two lectures a week available to attend and no tutorials. They were obviously unhappy about the quality of the course.

I can understand that if education is free then one might be reluctant to complain about the frequency of lectures and tutorials but if I were paying £9000 a year then I would battering the doors down for better quality lecturers, more frequency of attention to my future. I might make myself unpopular but then I would hope that “he who pays the piper…”

How in future will students demonstrate their financial power to make their courses more effective to source the best jobs? And how long will it take univerities to listen?

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Over this past month I’ve been researching how small business teams will work in the future.

This research has led me to attend a number of conferences where I’ve listened to highly successful “web-gurus” talk about how they are making $000s through on-line selling and affiliate marketing and using virtual teams.

There seems to be a number of common threads to all the talks:

• Small teams can provide exceptional products that are often better than equivalent and expensive products from larger businesses.
  This is true and I’ve even invested in two CD’s packed with useful information for under $10, including postage.

• Work such as marketing, web design, product production and delivery, customer contact and much more can be outsourced at a fraction of the current cost.
  Again very true and if there is one aspect to the future of business that will impact even large teams in multinational companies.
  

The final message that I heard from all of them is that individuals and small teams can make $000s without much effort. All you have to do is to buy the product package the “Guru” has developed for $000s and your journey to riches begins…100% money back if not satisfied…guaranteed!

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that people still find the “instant riches” message so attractive. The Lottery, advertisers and TV game shows all contribute to this perception.

Having spoken to and observed some of the “Gurus” telling everyone how easy it is to make money on the web and that it only takes an hour a day it’s interesting that they themselves seem to work very very very hard and very long hours.

Perhaps the learning point is that: Technology makes life easier but the effort that needs to be directed towards producing and maintaining a successful and sustainable outcome for clients changes.
Those that get rich will only do so through hard work, the rest continue to delude themselves.