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bigger role for urban dwellers. The
work-life choices that employees make
prioritize family and relationships over
status and materialistic values. “People
are seeking higher meaning at work
and in their personal lives. This will
impact the success of sustainable busi-
ness practices,” Bilardello comments.
Adding the human factor
For Bilardello, one thing is clear when
understanding future scenarios.
“Technologies will always adapt
to future environments; the key to
sustainable growth is for humans to
be at the heart of everything we do.”
Stenros agrees: “In elevator and
escalator design, we identified the
shift away from B-to-B toward a
human-to-human user experience.
We’ve noticed that so called ‘first
movers’ or young people are already
sending signals of moving away
from living in a hyper-connected and
a monitored world. Instead, these
early adapters want to be more out-
of-reach and they are seeking a life
where personalization and human
touch have a central role.”
Multidimensional thinking
For KONE’s R&D, the emerging
macrotrends call for a somewhat new
approach to monitor the surrounding
world. This translates into finding ways
to listen to the customers and end
users.
“Once a year, KONE organizes a
People Flow Day in more than 30
countries with the aim to keep our
finger on the pulse of the needs of our
customers and building users. This is
a great opportunity to better sense
the future directions and individual
aspirations and we see ourselves taking
a more active role in these events,”
Bilardello says.
Being there for society
Competition is expected to continue
and the industry bar will be high for
future innovations. According to
Bilardello, winning means truly being
there for society and creating innova-
tions in a sustainable way. “To me,
profitable growth equals sustainability,”
he says.
Enhancing life results in the need to
rethink R&D. “Instead of focusing too
much on R&D management as such,
one crucial focus area is to secure versa-
tile talent within our teams,” Bilardello
says. Cultural and educational diversity
will become an asset. ”In the future, our
teams will consist not only of engineers
but also of human scientists, futurists
and sociologists. These interpreters of
society are capable of thinking horizon-
tally and seeing bigger trends.”
Co-creating people flow
Openness, transparency, partnerships
and trust will be an essential part of
innovation processes. “In order to turn
the complex trends into a real advan-
tage for society, we need our customers,
employees, local authorities and other
stakeholders to get together to create
sustainable solutions.”
Already there are companies who
have opened up their innovation
portfolio to local and global innovation
communities with the objective to
create solutions that adapt to local
conditions, Bilardello explains.
n
As growth in China’s coastal cities slows, inland
cities like Xi’an are the new focus of urbanization.
PEOPLE FLOW |
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