In this new year, there are great transformations taking place in many industries. With all of this transformation, innovative business opportunities are ripe for the picking, and those with an Anticipatory mindset are sure to benefit from them in some of the most exponential ways.
Five Industries That Boast Exponential Opportunity in 2022
This is just a starting point. Your ability to use my Hard Trend Methodology to think more critically about these industries and then use those future certainties to become a positive disruptor is an integral piece to the puzzle.
1. Sustainability and Shipping
The sustainability and green movement is a disruptive Hard Trend in and of itself, and it provides much opportunity for an Anticipatory entrepreneur or business leader in many different ways, especially when applying technology.
For example, Amazon and other online retailers have already started successful drone delivery systems in certain parts of the world, and this is a growing Hard Trend that will only accelerate. Keep in mind as you look at this opportunity, and the others I share in the article, another principle I teach in my Anticipatory Organization Model: the Both/And Principle. When applied to the accelerating growth of drone delivery, you can see that the future is “both” drone delivery “and” many other delivery types as well.
2. At-Home Fitness
There are many social benefits of going to work out with a trainer or simply around other individuals and this will grow; however, for many, home-based workouts are more appealing these days. Using Hard Trends, you can anticipate new opportunities.
An anticipatory entrepreneur might consider a business that leases at-home gym equipment, much like leasing a water softener or rent-to-own type appliances. Perhaps you set up an app and a system that allows customers to select what equipment they want and the length of the lease, and maybe this lease covers repairs for moving parts or allows you to upgrade weight as you grow in your lifting abilities. For additional revenue you could offer a health bot trainer and wellness coach that can be fully personalized by the user.
3. Travel Planning
As apps and the internet have brought us more and more ways to plan our own vacations effortlessly, the use of traditional travel agencies has been diminishing rapidly. Many did not embrace an Anticipatory mindset and instead treaded water in the shallow end, hoping that they would still have crumbs to nibble on after everything. Enter: The coronavirus pandemic, leveling all travel with restrictions and closures.
Now, everyone involved in the travel planning industry has a fresh start to leverage technology and the Hard Trend of tourist travel, which has already started to ramp up yet again. Let’s think a bit more exponentially about this for a second: People have many ways to plan a trip, but what about a personalized A.I. travel agent customized by the user that suggests other things for you to do based on your interests?
4. Remote Working
A trend that many wished would end is proving to be the exact opposite — a future certainty that isn’t going away anytime soon. Global lockdowns forced so many industries with employees who never before imagined working from home to turn their kitchen corners into a cubicle. For better or worse, office workers and teachers alike have developed virtual working systems that can be utilized at will, but will this trend expand to other workers, or will it shrink?
With the ever-accelerating spectrum of digital change happening long before the pandemic, it is safe to say that in the near future, a disruptive Anticipatory Entrepreneur might look at machine operators and other once heavily hands-on jobs in manufacturing and find a way to do them remotely. For instance, couple A.I., 5G, augmented reality and advanced mobile robots with the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and suddenly you’re seeing an opportunity for work to feel quite like a video game.
5. Cybersecurity
With so many connected devices and new ways to integrate AI machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT) and edge computing, including smart machines, into our everyday lives, cybersecurity is becoming one of the most important topics in our world. Each new, transformative technology that connects us to information faster and each other more efficiently is a haven for hackers and cyber criminals to run rampant in.
Since the dawn of the internet, we have had antivirus software that is meant to thwart these potential attacks. However, cyber criminals are becoming smarter, and already, software upgrades will not be able to keep up. Cybersecurity is often left to the IT department of major corporations, but as an entrepreneur looking to break into the field with your own business, how can you think exponentially about where the industry is heading?
Learn to Look Ahead as an Anticipatory Leader
These aforementioned industries and opportunities are growing; however, keep this in mind: We’re already in 2022. And if you have learned anything from my Anticipatory Leader System, you likely know that an Anticipatory Leader is already looking ahead to 2023 and beyond using both Hard Trends and Soft Trends to identify game-changing opportunities!
