In 2010 I was in the middle of my business degree, majoring in International Business and Entrepreneurship.
I had started my own business at high school, which ran for six years, and was now working part time as a handyman and a “floor boy” in a supermarket.
That meant I spent my days in lectures and tutorials, writing essays and pulling together group assignments about strategy, policy, trends and forecasts.
My teachers were a mixed bag, some were excellent (shoutout to Jerome Donovan, Tony Featherstone and David Anstee), some were abysmal academics who had lost touch with reality.
I’m lucky to have spent the last ten years using my degree, in a combination of running my own business, being the first employee in a startup, advising entrepreneurs and starting new ventures in other countries.
By getting my hands dirty, I’ve seen how different the modern business environment is from the one depicted in my textbooks, and most of the changes are for the better.
Here are some of the interesting trends since 2010:

Speed
It’s cliché to say “the world is moving faster than ever”, so let’s get specific.
You can start a new business in a matter of days; registration, setting up a website, creating a logo/brand identity, social media accounts, driving traffic through ads and links, receiving payments etc.
That doesn’t mean your business will be a success, but you can try things out with minimal costs, delay or commitment.
It’s also faster to grow a business, thanks to targeted advertising, online payment gateways and scalable marketing campaigns.
e.g. if you triple your ad budget, Google can send you 3x more clicks, whereas it’s hard for a billboard company to triple your traffic overnight.
It’s also possible for a business to collapse faster, thanks to a scandal or new competitors.
Technology magnifies what you have; helping some companies and hindering others.

Decentralisation
The way to think about centralisation and decentralisation is with the word “Bottleneck”.
A bottleneck is the narrowest part of a system, which therefore controls how fast things move (e.g. a narrow highway, or a fast food place with only one counter open).
What we’re seeing today is a lot of new proverbial “roads” or “counters” opening up, which thins out the congestion.
For example, you no longer need to go to a newspaper to advertise your business, or to an accounting firm to receive tax advice.
You no longer need to go into a bank branch to make a transaction, or even need a bank at all if you’re using cryptocurrency.
New businesses like Netflix removed the bottleneck of commercial television stations and movie studios; funding and producing their own content for their own audiences.
This is great news for creators, entrepreneurs and managers, since it gives them more power, and terrible for the institutions whose value proposition was “we’re the only ______ in town”.

Democratisation
If decentralisation was explained with the word “bottleneck”, then democratisation is explained with the word “gatekeeper”.
A gatekeeper is someone who you must appease or impress in order to proceed, which makes them highly influential.
A wonderful example of this is websites – in 2010 you had no choice but to pay a website developer thousands of dollars just to get started; whereas now anyone can jump on Squarespace and build something presentable in a day (ahem).
We had a few YouTube channels and Podcasts in 2010, but now anyone can get started on creating and distributing their own content
e.g. yesterday I saw a 10 year old kid picking up his Christmas present – a “streaming mic” set.
I see this a lot in developing countries – smart entrepreneurs can set up shops through Facebook, Instagram, Shopify and eBay, without needing to appease a landlord or bank manager.
Your website/podcast/channel/store might not be very good, but at least it’s cheap and easy to get started.

Social Responsibility
I’m not suggesting that there weren’t people focused on social responsibility in 2010, but it’s definitely become more mainstream – which is great.
I recently read a description on sustainability; “we don’t need a few people doing it perfectly, we need everybody doing it imperfectly”, and I believe we’re starting to see that taking hold.
If you want a good example, look at Nike and Adidas changing their behaviour – Nike sharing innovations for shoemakers saving water, Adidas making shoes out of recycled ocean plastics.
Perhaps these seem gimmicky today, but they represent a broader movement of business gradually picking up their game.
It might be through their choice of materials, labour force, profit distribution, product recycling, or even their marketing campaigns – change is kicking in.
My sense is that some of this comes from altruism, some comes from shame.
Sites like Good On You or Twitter keep businesses a bit more honest, and customer expectations are shifting as well.

Transparency
Speaking of transparency, it’s easier than ever for questionable actions to be exposed.
Company cultures are now there for all to see on Glassdoor, customer feedback is on Google and Yelp, and corporate tax avoidance is now front-page news.
While each of these have been misused in the past, transparency is good for the industry.
Sleazes are being increasingly called out, product underperformance is mocked, and both good and bad customer service is magnified online.
This means that any founder or manager needs some PR training, since an unwise response to a customer will become permanently engraved on the internet.

User Experiences
More and more online services have replaced retail stores and physical products.
e.g. I use Spotify instead of buying albums, Netflix instead of renting movies, YouTube instead of watching commercial TV, Xero instead of accounting software on a disc, online banking instead of going into a branch, Slack instead of a notice board, Reddit instead of hobby magazines, etc.
What a lot of those obsolete services have in common is a woeful customer experience.
Buying albums without hearing them sucks, as does the video store not stocking the movie you wanted, as does lining up in a bank.
Yes, scalable platforms have huge benefits, but only if they’re well designed.
A company cannot have an awkward, disengaging user experience any more – there’s too much competition.
I have no idea what the technical differences are between MYOB and Xero, but I’ve used both and I know which one was deliberately designed to be easy to use.
Complacency in user experience design will continue to knock over established brands, our short attention spans will drive us away from clunky navigations.

Measurement
A lot of people would use the word “data” here, but I feel like that revolution hasn’t yet trickled down to business owners in a meaningful way.
That is, you can give them all the data you like, but data alone won’t help them grow their business.
Instead it’s the increased measurability that helps – be it tracking a number of fans, likes, clicks, impressions, sales, leads, time spent on page, episode downloads, survey responses or shared links.
These let people track their performance, receive rapid feedback, and understand trends over time.
That allows us to design better products, target our desired audience, fix issues as they arise, see what content is resonating, test new concepts, etc.
It also allows for more meritocracy – let’s try the ideas of the boss and the intern, and see what gets the better result.
Peter Drucker said “what gets measured gets managed”, and now we can manage opportunities and threats with pace and objectivity.

(a step towards) Equality
We definitely haven’t reached a point of equality in a lot of areas, but we’re closer than we were in 2010.
At the risk of stepping on landmines, I’d look at gender equality, LGBTQIA+ acceptance and racial bias as areas in dire need of progress.
We have a long way to go, and I’m proud of the improvements made in Australia over the last decade – and feel that both of these views can be held simultaneously.
We will (and should) cringe at past behaviours of businesses as they alienated their staff and customers, and celebrate the improved behaviours we see in the coming years.
Quotas and hiring practices are a start, but the more important change is that bigoted behaviour is no longer tolerated.
Please note, I do not celebrate a company’s marketing campaigns – if you post about International Women’s Day on LinkedIn but also excuse sexist leaders, you’re not genuine.

New Tools
Business owners have a wealth of great tools available for free online, many of which are free to use and share.
This goes for Strategyzer tools like the Business Model Canvas or Test Card, Google Analytics, Facebook, PayPal, Shopify, etc.
Larger companies have also invested in their own apps, an expensive gamble that can pay huge returns.
While the apps of 2010 were basic and the apps of 2015 were clunky, the apps of today are smooth and intuitive.
The same goes for retail – expensive Point of Sale systems can be replaced by a tablet and a card reader, massively reducing the setup costs of a new store.

Psychographic Tribalism
I see a trend toward people drawing their sense of “tribe” from their worldviews rather than their location.
It’s easier than ever to fill your feeds with content that matches your beliefs, connecting in with others from all around the world to trade ideas and encouragement.
This is both charming and dangerous – you can find support from people who understand your perspective, and also create an echo chamber.
This means a business can create entire brands, campaigns and products that are only ever advertised to a specific tribe, so your favourite companies would be completely unfamiliar to all of your neighbours.
Your market is not necessarily your neighbourhood, you can build a business that sells to people who actually want your help, as opposed to trying to sell to the unsellable in your town.

Distinctive Branding
Psychographic Tribalism splits the market into many smaller pieces, which makes room for niche brands to serve those groups.
That means fewer campaigns for the “mass market”, and more tailoring each message for its different recipients.
Services like MailChimp let you easily carve your audience into specific groups, so that you can create more relevant communications based on their needs and wants.
This is the basis of Customer Centricity – trying to understand your audience in great detail so that you can design things they will love, or at least which address a valuable need.
It also means your company won’t be creating content by a committee, not going for “lowest common denominator” messaging that everybody understands or appreciates.
It’s also why people follow brands on Instagram – they enjoy your content to the point that they’ll watch it for fun.

Acknowledgement Of Mental Health Issues
Again, we have a long way to go, but there have been changes made by companies (or governments) in the interests of improved mental health.
These include support services for customers and staff, changes to leave policies in larger companies, naming of issues like stress, anxiety and burnout for founders, and even changing their platforms to reduce harm.
The most interesting recent example of the latter is Instagram’s decision to hide the number of likes a post receives, allegedly designed to reduce anxiety.
Instagram is still a bad place for people who compare themselves to an edited showreel of others, but decisions like these weren’t so common in 2010.

Personal Branding
Gary Vaynerchuk describes a personal brand as “really just another word for reputation”.
More and more people are building their personal brand/reputation in their particular field, and companies are gradually learning how to use these effectively.
A founder/team member with a personal brand becomes a huge asset, or they can partner with an influential person to create new content that gives the company credibility.
Celebrity endorsements have been around forever, but now we have fewer middlemen and agents, fewer gatekeepers and more distinct tribes, so it’s easier to do it well.
Instead of expensive ad campaigns, we have paid partnerships and native content, which can be tested and measured without a huge commitment from either party.
Personal brands can be managed proactively or reactively – dissatisfied customers can write about you in a number of formats, and if you’re not there to respond or generate good news stories then your reputation begins to sink.
People do business with people, and they do business with people they like.

A lot of these changes came from the internet, but in some ways the internet opened the door for better design and better treatment of people, and that created the change.
Business that mistreat people are becoming extinct.
Managers who become complacent are vulnerable to competitors.
Rudeness is exposed for all to see.
Founders who care about their customers are rewarded with loyalty and repeat business.
The tools of this decade gave us greater power, but they mainly benefit those who are serious about growing their businesses.
Some of what they taught us at university is obsolete or incomplete, but the principles remain the same – if you don’t care about your field, you’ll lose to someone who does.