Each year about this time we will highlight
some global trends for the future to stimulate your thinking and planning.
POPULATION
America’s population will grow 25% in the next
25 years. Four states - California, Texas, Florida, and Washington
- will account for half of the total growth.
By 2020 one in six Americans will be senior citizens.
The Social Security Trust Fund will pay out more
than it takes in by 2013.
By 2020 Hispanics will overtake Blacks as the
largest minority.
Black, Asian, Hispanic, and Native American populations
will all grow faster than the non-Hispanic White population.
By 2050 we will be a "majority minority" country.
Markets will be increasingly segmented along age
and ethnic lines.
WORKFORCE
There will be a growing shortage of younger workers:
for the next quarter century every state will grow 20-30% faster than
the number of its younger workers.
By 2020, as many workers will be in the last decade
of their careers as in their first.
BUSINESS AND TRADE
Asian contagion will subside by 2000.
Growth in the Pacific Rim for the next two decades
will exceed that in the rest of the world.
The world’s economy will grow 3% per year for
the next two decades.
Trade will grow 6% per year.
Small business will create most new jobs.
Technology will drive economic growth.
Globalization will accelerate. Supply chains,
product design, financing, risk management, and support services will
be global.
Cross-border mergers will proliferate.
The introduction of the Euro in 1999 will have
a positive effect on the European economy, which is comparable in
size to America’s.
Women will continue to launch more companies than
men.
By 2005 women will own half of small businesses
and 40% of all American companies.
The number of women executives and board members
will continue to rise.
By 2002, one-half of Americans will work from
home.
The SOHO workforce (full-time or part-time business
owners, those using their homes as a second office, and telecommuters)
will grow five times faster than the total workforce.
TECHNOLOGY
Two technological revolutions - biotechnology
and computers - will overlap for the first time in history.
More biotech drugs will be approved for use in
1999 than in any previous year. Their use will immediately raise the
health of our older population. In the long-term, our grandchildren
will live longer.
Biotech revolutions in the animal and plant worlds
will dramatically increase crop yields and improve the quality of
meat products.
Computer advances will continue apace. Applications
include real-time translation; image processing; real-time control
of distant experiments; holographic imaging; decision modelling; and
surgery at a distance.
We face a severe Y2K test on January 1, 2000,
when many computers will think it is 1900. This will cause massive
repercussions, especially for small business.
Four powerful forces will alter the telecommunications
landscape and revolutionize how we acquire, transform, and communicate
information with one another: (1) regulatory reform; (2) cross-border
alliances; (3) emerging infrastructure; and (4) technological advances.
Several ambitious satellite systems will become
operational by 2002 and provide new global telecommunications infrastructures.
Data transfer will vastly eclipse voice communications.
Phone calls will be transmitted on the Internet.
By 2005 they will effectively be free.
Nanotechnology devices will be ubiquitous by 2010,
quietly working in an information-rich, space-efficient, energy-efficient,
materials-efficient, environmental-friendly manner. Uses include
optical fiber switches, energy converters, noninvasive inspection,
chemical reactors, and point therapeutics in medicine.
Check
out what we said about 2002 and beyond.
Check
out what we said about 2001 and beyond.
Check
out what we said about 2000 and beyond.
