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Millennials to put pressure on enterprise


Johannesburg, 21 Sep 2016
"Millennial customers and millennial employees are becoming an increasingly important factor impacting the way in which businesses operate and go to market," says Val Moodley, senior manager, Enterprise Cloud Solutions, MTN Business.
"Millennial customers and millennial employees are becoming an increasingly important factor impacting the way in which businesses operate and go to market," says Val Moodley, senior manager, Enterprise Cloud Solutions, MTN Business.

The rise of the millennial may be one of the biggest emerging trends impacting on enterprises in the short term, says MTN Business.

Cloud, consumerisation, big data, IOT, software-defined everything and the wave of FTTX roll-outs across the country are all changing the face of business today. But, possibly the biggest environmental change set to impact business is the rise of the millennial, says Val Moodley, senior manager, Enterprise Cloud Solutions, MTN Business.

"Millennial customers and millennial employees are becoming an increasingly important factor impacting the way in which businesses operate and go to market. The millennial need for instant gratification and their tendency to readily adopt every new disruptive technology and business model will put growing pressure on businesses to become truly agile," she says.

As this new type of workforce comes to the fore, enterprises are confronted with the millennial tendency to constantly seek better ways of doing things - quickly.

Moodley says: "The millennial says: 'If you want something, just download an app.' They want the latest technologies, access to all information, anywhere, and they want it now. Consumer apps have taught them that they should not have to wait for the tools they need to be productive. What you don't want is a proliferation of alternative apps and systems, because enterprise apps haven't kept up with changing demands. So a key challenge enterprises have now is to meet this demand from a new generation of employees."

Organisations have to adapt quickly to become nimble and flexible, and position themselves to take on future disruptive technologies, says Moodley.

"Enterprises need to take a very broad view and monitor all changes happening within and beyond their environment. For example, five years ago, the transport sector could not have predicted that a mobile app could disrupt their business - and now it has. Competition and disruption could come from anywhere, and forward-looking enterprises must monitor all developing trends and position themselves to adapt to whatever comes."

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