sumer and industrial confidence from quarter to quarter make
investment decisions more uncertain and more complicated.
Businesses tiptoe into growth.

Products Become Commodities

Customers are increasingly sensitive to the differences, or the
absence of differences, between products. Suppliers try to respond
to this sensitivity by constantly offering new releases with new
features, but competitors replicate them so quickly there is little
time to gain market advantage. As a result, product life cycles are
shorter. Customers want truly differentiated products that offer
not simply marginal technology improvements, but real respons-
es to the business challenges they face. Fragmentation is the mar-
keting cry in most major organizations. In the absence of clear
value-adding differentiation, customers treat products as com-
modities that should be bought on price alone.

Employees Demand Growth and Development

Command-and-control management approaches are giving way
to collaborate-and-cultivate techniques that recognize and devel-
op individual talent. Most industries depend on younger workers,
and they are discovering that “Generation Y” workers, in partic-
ular, demand recognition of their individuality and involvement in
their personal development.

Employees Resist Change

While it has always been true that employees prefer stability and
predictability, resistance to change becomes more problematic as
the pace of organizational transformation increases. More
change is required more often. Companies now struggle against
natural and understandable inertial behavior by employees. In
response, some companies have begun focusing their selection
process on candidates’ ability to learn and embrace change, in
addition to the key skills and competencies associated with a par-
ticular position.

Context Is Everything

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