Today, change isn't slowing down. On the contrary it's accelerating and taking on systemic proportions. I believe there are several reasons for this. One is the multi-generational, multi-ethnic workforce. The workforce now spans five generations, many of whose members will retire in the next ten years. Businesses worldwide are at risk of losing a substantial portion of their know-how.

What can businesses do to share this hard-won knowledge before the loss of it negatively impacts their future? The youngest members of these generations also approach their jobs differently and interact with each other and learn and use technology in different ways. The workforce as a whole is more diverse, as more and more women and minorities make up a greater percentage.

Another factor is globalization. From customers to suppliers to partners and to organisations themselves, the world has never been smaller in terms of how we're connected, how we communicate, and how we do business. Japanese cars are made in Tennessee. Blueberries are available at the supermarket out of season because they're flown in from Chile. This presents challenges that many companies are struggling to address, such as branding and globally disparate workforces.

Yet another influence is hyper-competition. Access to world markets has shrunk to the size of a smartphone's keypad. We can buy anything, anytime, or compare prices and experiences. Hyper-competition is changing the dimensions of the customer's experience, and companies need to ensure that they are part of their value chain and treat them accordingly. The customer is now a partner.

Also in the picture is the social and mobile world of work. Mobile computing, social, and cloud technologies are enabling a new world of work, but at the same time are confounding it. When the iPad was introduced, people stood in line and the global launch was accomplished in stages over time. When the iPad 2 was introduced, it went global right out of the gate. Technology is no longer a competitive advantage; it's the status quo, that's where the bar has now been set.

How are you to cope with the way the world of work is changing?

1. Remove the barriers between in your organization. Embrace social applications, mobile computing, and cloud services to knock down the silos in your organization. Organize your business around functional groups that get things done and then disband and reform to achieve the next goal. A connected workplace with social networking running in real time removes barriers to knowledge exchange and collaboration.
2. Build the business around people, not processes. Most business processes seem to be devised to protect the business from the wants and desires of people, including customers', which is counterproductive. Find and connect people who have the right skills to the ideas, information, and to others who can help them get the job done. An environment of transparency and collaboration fosters cooperation and autonomy and gives people not just something to work on, but something to work for.
3. It's not about information anymore. In this new world, people will be your most valuable competitive advantage. Connect learning and development to the way people work and make those the centerpiece of your retention strategy.
4. Extend your enterprise; extend yourself. Understand what your customer needs in terms of training and knowledge transfer, and ensure they understand how to get the most out of your products and services. This will make them a lot less likely to want to become someone else's customer.
5. Move to the cloud. Forrester found that companies are increasingly favoring the SaaS model as they look for fast deployment, elimination of costly upgrades, and a leaner internal IT staff. And the firm predicts that more than half the enterprises in the United States and Europe will have enterprise social technologies deployed by the end of this year.

It's time to change the way you work. Once you begin to see the world in a more transparent, better-connected, highly collaborative way and start reaping the benefits, you'll wonder why it took you so long to change. When the needs and goals of people are aligned with the needs and goals of the business, everybody wins. This is the only way to compete in this new world of work.