Good and Service Will be the New Goods and Services in 2016

For too long, companies behaved as bastions with a single-minded pursuit of shareholder value, with brands built to defend a fixed market position.

But times are changing. Technology and consumer activism have brought on transparency, revealing the inner workings of corporations — good and bad. Today’s consumers expect a business they buy from to be more intentionally purposeful and are willing to reward them with share of mind and wallet.

Going forward, the best businesses will use their brand to place what they care about at the heart of what they do.

High-growth companies will understand intuitively that having a brand with a strong sense of purpose is more attractive to customers, employees and suppliers. They know that people buy from businesses that are driven by higher motives than bottom line and shareholder value. It’s no longer about what you buy but what you buy into.

A definitive purpose based on a fundamental human truth, a universal good or a deep-seated conviction that opens minds will put a company at the heart of the consumer’s world, making services smoother, communications more efficient and add a feel-good factor to everything it chooses to do.

Fierce competition will not be sustainable in future. Compassion will. We’ll see that business will focus on the business of life and will work for the largest client of all – humanity. And when you put humanity back in business, business will come back good.

When Apple says they exist to ‘Challenge the status quo,’ or as Uber says it wants to ‘Change the way people move in the world,’ or when SKF says it is about ‘Reducing friction for the world to move forward,’ these brands are putting their faith in the fifth gear. They give us a reason to wake up in the morning all charged for a purpose.

The future will not be what we do or how we do at business. It’ll be about getting people to appreciate why we do it. In an Olympian sense, it’ll be our saving grace.

Every business in 2016 will need a purpose. Once you find it, no force is greater.

What is yours?

Subbu Subramanyeswar is National Planning Director at Mullen Lowe Lintas (India)