The Rise of the Millennials

The previous articles discussed the various aspects of strategy and how businesses can use different strategic options to respond to the multifarious needs of the 21st century business landscape. An aspect that is of crucial importance is the rise of the millennial generation or those born between 1980 and 1995. As this generation enters the workforce and becomes a consumer segment in itself, businesses have to strategize on ways and means to adapt to this generation. These strategies can involve targeted marketing, workplace adaptation, and other societal aspects of reaching out to the Millennials.

Marketing to Millennials

If we take the first aspect, marketing to Millennials can be quite challenging as they have attention spans in the seconds rather than the minutes that earlier generation used to have when viewing advertisements or making up their minds. This means that marketers have to deal with the concept of packing in as much information as possible within the 30-second slot for ads and ensure that the message is conveyed. This also means that marketers have to ensure that their message is not drowned out in the information overload that the Millennials are exposed to.

The Millennials and the Workforce

The second aspect of making changes in the workplace for the Millennials is that they are much more tuned to technology and social media in particular and the expertise that they have with technology means that the organizations have to become high tech themselves if they are to accommodate the Millennials in their midst. For instance, it is the case that many organizations use technology largely. However, the crucial aspect here is that organizations have to start using social media as well extensively if the workplace is to be challenging to the Millennials. In other words, the organizations have to move beyond Web 2.0 and mere IT and use tools like virtual reality to ensure that they are able to attract and retain the Millennials.

The Future is More Jobs!

The third aspect relates to the extremely crucial aspect of societal forces being more amenable to change and that too at a rapid pace. We have seen how the millennial generation is hitting the streets in protest across the world when they are not satisfied with a particular outcome whether it is related to business or politics. Concentrating on business alone, we find that the Millennials are feeling let down by the lack of job opportunities and the prevailing gloomy economic scenario. Hence, the task before business leaders and CEO’s is to create as many jobs as possible for this generation to ensure that their energies are channelized in a positive manner instead of in a negative manner.

Closing Thoughts

Finally, the Millennials are entering the workforce at a time when a historical shift in the way business operates is happening. Hence, the implications for businesses are that either they leverage the opportunities presented by this fundamental transformation or let go of the chance and waste the opportunity.