Leveraging Emerging Trends

What are emerging trends?

Emerging trends are patterns or developments that are starting to become noticeable or significant but have not yet reached their full potential. Often, these are shifts in values, an approach that’s catching on, younger people approaching an industry differently, the emergence of a new type of technology, or emergence of implications of change. Emerging trends are organized enough to tell a story, though the plot isn’t set and will continue to evolve.

Because emerging trends aren’t fully established, historical data-backed trends, some organizations will miss them during an environmental scan. They might acknowledge something like an aging population or a decline in marriage or a decline in religion (all backed by numerical data), they may not look for shifts in values, perspectives and approaches younger people are taking (that contrasts to older generations).

Examples of emerging trends

There are lots of examples of emerging trends. They’re forming, re-forming, shifting and adjusting right now. Imagine it like a word bubble that fills as data comes in. And in the world, more and more data is always coming int. Emerging trends exist around college education in the United States, meat alternatives, the impacts of young people being on social media most of their lives, communities single moms are building rather than marrying/re-marrying men, or young people forming finance-based decisions in an inflation economy.

Emerging trends versus signals of change

Unlike signals of change, which are one-off, overt and often subtle, emerging trends are more fully formed. However, just like signals of change, it’s not unusual for people to not notice emerging trends. Usually our bias allows us to miss even more outward emerging trends because we’re used to society functioning as it is. Sometimes we’ll say, ‘When did X start?” Or, “Have you noticed young people are Y?” Those are generally emerging trends. And once an emerging trend is defined and examples are given, people tend to see the value and power of understanding emerging trends.

How do we find value in emerging trends?

Emerging trends are actually easier to establish short- and medium-term strategies around. If you’re willing to understand the shifts in values and perspectives, you can develop strategies to reach consumers in new ways, such as building products and services to meet their evolving needs.

Likewise, you can also leverage the insights from these emerging trends to adjust your longer-term expectations. If consumers will start attending college less frequently, what might the future look like? Will there be less student loan debt, so consumers will spend differently, even earlier than they are now? Will they marry sooner, have children sooner, buy a home sooner? Will they travel for experiences instead of attending college, immersing in cultures rather than spending four years in a lecture hall? Will supply of trades go up? Will supply of business school-educated employees decline? These are all valuable things to consider as you’re planning your longer-term vision, especially if you work for a university or a financial institution with a large portfolio of student loans.