Considering the ever-changing world of commerce, digital platforms, and consumer preferences, there’s always the need for managers to strategize anew to compile the best possible decisions to make their businesses succeed in a dynamic and changing market. In this article, well focus primarily on three key trends that are set to become more important in the 2020s. These trends – areas that will impact your business over time – are places in which you should invest to be ahead of the curve, taking advantage of long-term insights to power your company’s development.

Data Skills

There’s no doubt that data and the worlds of meaning and opportunity that it creates should be situated at the very top of your agenda when it comes to investment. There are hundreds of ways in which you can specifically invest in data, including:

• Hiring employees with skills in data analysis, or training employees to use the SQL date format in their work with data and datasets

• Bringing in software that gathers and collates data for your workers to understand and draw insights from

• Finding ways to extract ever-more data from your business process and your customers – all of which will be rich in profit-making insights

With data skills at a premium in 2020, this is the time to invest in the skills of your workforce – either by finding new employees to start work on your projects or by training up your current workforce to use data effectively in their roles.

Green Movement

The environmental movement received a large shot in the arm in the second half of the last decade, drawing global attention to one of the most pressing issues of our time. For businesses across the world, there’s a stark choice in this coming decade: make changes to accommodate the demands of an increasingly irate base of eco-friendly consumers, or face the consequences.

By choosing the former, you’ll be future-facing, streamlining some of your processes to allow them to operate in a greener fashion. Whether this means investing in green energy, recycling processes, or other operational changes, it’s a move that’ll save you cash in the long-run, and polish your reputation in the short-term.

Creative Skills

With the arts and humanities facing crisis point, with fewer and fewer students choosing courses in creative arts, there’s a great business case for investing in creative talent when it strolls into your interview office. These are the disruptive employees of the future – the people who will come up with the big ideas that’ll change your company for the better.

To search for these kinds of human resources, you need to advertise for positions that specifically stipulate that you’re looking to invest in youth, new ideas, disruptive presences, and the worker’s ability to think outside the box. Make your recruitment drive about creativity and artistic skills to bring a new face to your business and solve problems you didn’t know were hampering your progress.

These three areas are the key places in which your investments will see the best returns in 2020 – helping your business grow effectively over time.