Future proofing is a popular word these days. It can be found in a multitude of contexts, especially future proofing your business.
Future proofing strategies are proactive measures taken to prepare for and adapt to future changes in their industry, market or environment. These strategies help organizations to anticipate and prepare for future challenges, trends, and disruptions, and ensure their long-term success. Their primary aim is to consider and proactively act upon possible, preferable, or avoidable futures. The aim, of course, is to help ensure that your business doesn’t get left behind and can maintain a competitive edge. Its goal is to promote a company’s ongoing well-being and future success.
But most often, future proofing is applied in areas focused on employee retention, and hiring forward-thinking employees. Other times it is about the environment, climate change, and saving money.
What is often left out of the equation
Sure, a company’s corporate headquarters has accessibility ramps for wheelchairs. DEI policies are attuned to ensuring that diversity and inclusion measures are adhered to. Mostly within the bounds of the company’s four walls. Much of the planning and work to get to where they need to be in these respects was undertaken years ago. Even decades ago. It was at that time a future need that was recognized and addressed when related legislation like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was then coming to helm. It was one that was seen not only as ‘the right thing to do’, but one that would provide an enhanced experience and provide equity across all customers, constituents, and citizens alike.
But businesses need to consider that all the work to become more digital and paperless for the bright shiny future of the business has left a gaping hole that it hasn’t yet addressed.
The future of a business and its future success will depend heavily on its ability to address digital and document accessibility. Why? Most countries in the industrialized world face the challenges posed by an aging population. An aging population brings with it a host of disabilities synonymous with the aging process. These include those related to cognitive, vision, hearing loss and some loss of motor abilities.
As such, organizations of every kind, if they haven’t already, will need to prioritize how they engage, service, and market to this segment of the population.
A formidable market segment
Without a doubt, an aging population presents significant challenges on all fronts. But these are challenges that must be met if a company wishes to remain vital. Companies naturally want to be relevant and maintain their ability to engage with an audience, as well as grow and maintain their brand. From a business perspective, the aging population presents a market segment that has immense buying power and is shaping up to be the most tech-savvy category of people that any market has ever seen before.
Planning makes perfect
But it will take a plan. And, it will take meaningful action to secure the brightest, shiniest future for any company that wants it. What’s your company’s plan? What steps are being taken today if this isn’t already underway? Where is the starting line? What are the inevitable outcomes of inaction? And, what can a company do to avoid the unpalatable outcomes of unpreparedness? These are all fair questions.
Leaving nobody behind
There are answers to these questions, and brighter, shinier outcomes are within reach. The solution lies with your digital front doors, and how you engage people in today’s modern digital world. Leaving behind such an enormous segment of your current and potential customers because of a lack of future proofing isn’t going to help your company today. Nor will it secure the viable and prosperous future any company hopes for.
And while most people don’t own a crystal ball, there are aspects of the future that are in plain view. Planning for a future with an aging customer base and catering to them in a way that accounts for and best serves their human reality is crucial. An organization’s considerations for its aging client base must invariably and increasingly focus on disability.
Because it makes impeccable business sense. In fact, this is perhaps the most important aspect to consider when it comes to future proofing a business. It also presents a lens through which saving money, delighting customers, enhancing the company’s brand and image, and opening your company’s digital front doors to all is crystal clear.
CDP Communications have been digital problem-solvers since 1984. Our advancements in digital and document accessibility are an integral part of any future-proofing strategy. In the digital world today, and in the increasingly digital future that businesses need to plan for, it is a must. Reach out to us today at ua@cdpcom.com. And let’s help you build what is undoubtedly the most important part of your plan for tomorrow. Let’s create advantages. Let’s future proof your business. Your digital and document accessibility is the most logical place to start.
