Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on October 9, 2017 - October 15, 2017

A CEO once said every country needs a minister of the future. This may seem silly, but given the volatility today, it may be the right form of wishful thinking.

We are, after all, living in an era when industry stalwarts who expect to remain leaders in their fields are being upended by upstarts, companies are exercising more authority and becoming more powerful than nations and trade blocs are giving way to the inevitable force of a globally efficient supply chain.

But even wishful thinking must have some basis of justification and that is where “megatrends” come in.

What exactly are megatrends? They are a constellation of ideas about how the future may look, given the current market scenarios, global influences, political climate and consumer behaviour.

The five major megatrends that may impact our future are:

  • Societal change. Through urbanisation, you will see the creation of megacities and self-contained communities where citizens will work, play, learn and live in the same area. The population will age and infrastructure will have to be purpose-built for the elderly, and women will become a more prominent contributor to the workforce. Malaysia will have to continue to find ways to make government spending more efficient, address the strain on shared resources and promote upward mobility to maintain social cohesion.
  • So, what could our society look like? People will work mostly from pods as they will be connected virtually, and robots will carry out all the physical work. All buildings, vehicles and cities will be smart and interconnected. People will have nanotechnology chips implanted in their bodies that will clean arteries, fight cancer cells, help with memory and fight inflammation. Life expectancy will approach 150 years.
  • The environment is a big topic. Natural disasters, water scarcity and food constraints will bring more challenges, but hopefully, disruptive and new technology can drive efficiency and more certainty. Precision farming will increase yield. Malaysia’s efforts to shift from non-renewables to alternative and renewable sources of energy will bear fruit.
  • The fight for talent and shift in economic strength towards Asia will become more pressing. In addition, technology change like block-chain that connects the best small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to a global supply chain and the importance of biodiversity will serve Malaysia well.
  • We will witness a new economic order. Jobs and training challenges will emerge as experience economy and gig economy take shape. Malaysian SMEs will drive innovations in platform economy and a number of unicorns will grow in the region. Malaysian talent will be mobile and in demand globally.
  • Technology will continue to demonstrate its limitless and radical potential. With exponential growth in bandwidth, the ubiquitous availability of data and machine learning/artificial intelligence becoming reality, one question will stay relevant even in the future — how invasive technology will be in the way we live, think and communicate?
  • Big data is already in Starbucks, helping baristas propose drinks you might prefer. Big data is used by Netflix to rate movies according to individuals’ viewing patterns. Social listening is already permitting mass customisation. Finally, bots, combined with artificial intelligence, allow people who have died to stay in touch and interact in a very personal way with those they loved. All examples aside, technology will have a profound impact on the structure of economies and the employment path for individuals.
  • The governance frameworks will change. For instance, the advent of WikiLeaks will create/force a degree of transparency in public accountability and scrutiny as citizens will want to know more about everything. In addition, with budgets straining to provide fundamental citizen services, there will be an increasing likelihood of services being outsourced. China and Africa will be the new powerhouses and the United Nations will be replaced with regional organisations. While the key focus of governments will shift to safety and cyber security, Malaysia will lead in cyber mitigation as it emerges as one of the most wealthy nations in the region.

I believe that fortune will favour the bold and nimble, and as they say, the best way to predict the future is to create it. This means that we will always have the power to steer our present and the wherewithal to shape our future. Recognising and understanding the megatrends could be the first step.


Zarif Munir is partner and managing director of BCG Kuala Lumpur

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