Attendees of GIL 2014: Germany underline necessity for businesses to collaborate as pace of change is increasing unpredictably fast
Working and collaborating with other companies in a partner ecosystem to create new business models is the way forward for sustainable businesses of the future. It will deliver unprecedented opportunities for all involved parties while promising lower costs due to economies of scale. The importance of business partnerships ran like a common thread through presentations, workshops and panel discussions during Frost & Sullivan's GIL 2014: Germany - The Global Community of Growth, Innovation and Leadership conference held for the second time in Frankfurt am Main, last week.
Klaus Huhn, Vice President and Head of German Operations at Frost & Sullivan opened the one-day event and Partner Dorman Followwill delivered the trend-setting keynote on the future outlook for businesses which will either 'Disrupt, Collapse, (or) Transform.' Mr Followwill presented tangible examples for real world businesses models, which transformed entire markets and industries or left the companies doomed and operations discontinued. Followwill concluded that companies need to include all three types of disruption, collapse and transformation in their innovation planning to become game-changers in the future.
The conference included an interactive workshop session, in which business representatives worked in groups on new business models by combining individual industry expertise to create a strategy from scratch and present it to the audience. "Thinking about the future of the future in a small group was a lot of fun," one delegate commented. "The interactive session was the most dynamic moment of the day for me. Real-time, living collaboration amongst senior professionals across industries identifying convergence opportunities is the path to the future," concluded Mr Followwill, the moderator of the session.
While Frost & Sullivan Partner Sarwant Singh captured the attention of the audience by outlining fascinating Mega Trends shaping our future lives, senior speakers from industry leaders Deutsche Telekom Group, Fresenius Kabi Deutschland GmbH, IBM Global Electronics Industry and Osram GmbH as well as outstanding think tanks Fraunhofer Institut and CSR Europe presented their visionary strategies for their businesses.
Other highlights of the congress included TechVision 2020, a session on the top 50 emerging and disruptive technologies as well as 360 degree industry perspectives on Industrie 4.0, Energy and Environment as well as Healthcare.
The conference was concluded by the 2014 Frost & Sullivan Growth Excellence Awards Banquet celebrating outstanding achievements of companies that deliver excellence in best practices across a broad spectrum of industries.
