How to become a credible thought leader.

The term ‘thought leader’ seems as much in vogue today as ‘digital media expert’ was yesterday and has quickly become a new paradigm for how businesses market themselves. Whilst the financial justification for such strategies increasingly makes sense, the route to creating effective thought leadership campaigns is becoming more complex. An over-abundance of commercial information and content, as well as communication channels to ferry these to market, means that even the most road-worthy insights and ideas sometimes don’t travel. To ensure that their ambitions to be ‘followed’ are matched by an ability to be influencers, companies need to know more about the business of thought leadership and what is involved in order to become masters of the genre.

Our new white paper on the subject covers this ground and can be downloaded here: indexB on thought leadership 9.05.12

The ‘Ones to Watch’ report: 25 companies shaping the future of business.

“From the rise of Facebook to the fall of Blockbuster, from the downgrading of U.S. government debt to the resurgence of Brazil, predicting what will happen next has gotten exponentially harder” Fast Company, February 2012.

Whilst it remains fashionable to characterise the year ahead as one laden with unpredictability, we’re not so sure. Regardless of the short-term macro-economic outlook there are powerful trends inexorably shaping the commercial landscape ahead which are perfectly visible if you know where to look. Our latest report spotlights 25 companies that are as likely as any to embody the future of business during the decade ahead. Each one is an exemplar of something bigger and broader rather than an isolated example of individual excellence.

To see what sort of firms made the final cut please download this short report: Ones to Watch (31.01.2012)

Round up of latest media coverage

We launched our ‘Ones to Watch’ report on January 20th 2012. Here’s a round up some of some of our recent publicity including coverage generated by the report. You can download further information about ‘Ones to Watch’ here.

The Guardian

From our blog: the inside guide to Israel’s start-up boom

Israel is one of the most reported on countries in the world. Yet there is an extraordinary economic miracle taking place amid the turmoil the surrounds the country that has often gone unnoticed.

The story of how this came about is told in “Start-up Nation” (TwelveBooks) by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. Since the book appeared two years ago, it has attracted great interest around the world and is being translated into a host of languages. It has not been lost on the authors that Startup Britain and Startup America campaigns have been launched by those countries’ governments in the past year or so.

We spoke to Senor and Singer on a recent visit to London to talk about what other countries can do to encourage the innovation and entrepreneurship that most commentators agree are essential for economic growth. To read the full article please click here.


indexB launches ‘Ones to Watch’

One industry that is always in full bloom at the start of every year is the prediction  business. Whilst the top trends of 2012 are now available for practically every area of business life we’ve taken a slightly different tack. Our latest report, ‘Ones to Watch’ features 25 companies that regardless of the short-term macro-economic outlook are as likely as any to embody the future of business during the decade ahead. The criteria used to select them had less to do with the specific merits of each company – not that these were ignored – but instead sought to showcase firms that illustrated some of the bigger trends that are inexorably shaping the wider commercial landscape.  In this sense each company is an exemplar of something bigger and broader rather than an isolated example of individual excellence. If  you’d like a pdf of the report you can download a copy here: Ones to Watch (31.01.2012)

The brand owner venture capitalists

As new business funding becomes an increasingly vexed issue on a global scale, there are signs that brand owners might prove to be an unlikely new source of capital for startups. Stepping into the funding vacuum that surrounds new venture ecospheres a number of global brands are not only financing early-stage companies but even going a stage further, to create ways of linking them into revenue streams and help them become going concerns. In the longer term,  this type of approach to incubating new businesses could bring much needed cheer to many economies because it might help stimulate more firms with high growth potential, which are ultimately the key ingredient of economic recovery. We look at some of the players and winners in this game here.

building corporate reputations with smarter intelligence

Bibby Financial Services has launched a ground-breaking report of the trends that are likely to shape the behaviour of UK firms during the next decade. Created by Index B, 2020 Vision spearheads a corporate initiative to spotlight some of the transformational trends in business behaviour that most firms are likely to encounter during the next 10 years.

The enquiry suggests large companies will be unable to absorb the five million new workers expected by 2020, leading to increased redundancy and many people holding multiple jobs or running businesses centered around small and medium-sized enterprise ‘hubs’. It also suggests the use of technology, the blurred line between home and work, conjoined bank accounts and the lack of physical premises will make business itself harder to identify.

Edward Rimmer, UK chief executive of Bibby Financial Services, says: “This report paints a vivid picture of the next business decade, one that sets to reform the way we work and what a typical business looks like, with as much impact as the first industrial revolution had during the latter years of the 18th century”.

Conflicts between traditional working environments and other responsibilities (eg children, elderly parents) are predicted to lead to people choosing flexibility in their work over higher wages, while enterprises currently dismissed as ‘lifestyle’ businesses will grow in popularity, with some growing into fully fledged companies. Tony Heywood and Nick Saalfeld, co-founders of Yoodoo.biz, a website that inspires people to start their own businesses and who featured in the report, believe that more people will be self-employed and working for more than one company to earn their living and working hours which suit their lifestyles.

The report also predicts a marked withdrawal of overseas banks from the UK corporate lending sector, and that banks will not lend as much as before because of the need to repair their balance sheets.

The project undertaken by Index B involved investigative journalism, market research and data analysis as well as our own network of academics and commentators to help build a 10-year business trend map. It embraces both the commanding heights of the UK economy, exploring the types of innovation likely to impact firms in the next decade, as well as the grass-roots behaviour of companies as they come to terms with new ways of doing business.

To read more about the Future of Business and receive our weekly briefing on the decade ahead please click here.