In 2035 our lives will have changed and we will find ourselves in a work environment, where not just the daily tasks have changed, but even the complete structure of companies, hierachy and work. Based on numerous studies and forecasts we have analyzed how our work, lifes and society could develop till 2035. Our report “The Future of Professional Work” reveals tendencies and potentialities how the professional world will be in 2035 and helps to envision the own position, consequences and required actions. 

Here is a short overview what you can expect in 2035: 

• You will be one of about 75.7 million people and probably living in an urban area. 
• Your house is “smart” from the ground up – literally. Together with big data, robotics, algorithms, virtual personal assistants, and other domotic technologies; your smart home of the future will automate most domestic chores, allowing residents to make the most of “me” time. Time where we can come together – mostly virtualy. 
• You are probably working in a “making sure that things work”, “making things bigger & better” or in a “creating the ´new´ ” job. 
• You will mostly work as a frelancer in project-based teams in a new kind of workspace – free and flexible.
• Meanwhile productivity software as we know them have gone. The virtual assistants will always have the right tools for the job available whenever they are commanded to do so.
• You might have an implant of an interface directly in your brain which enhances the human-machine-interaction.
• Commuting will be a thing of the past — owing to new meeting and communication technologies.
• The emerging ‘economy of abundance’ will make it possible that you only work to gain personal experiences and to follow your dreams, because essential goods are free or low-priced.

Based on our findings, we have also come up with snapshots of the futures, scenarios on what professional life for people in different countries might look like in 2035. 

Let us introduce Jasmin for example. She lives in Sweden in 2035 and designs and innovates business models, especially for communication infrastructure companies. ConnectAll was once a leading communications company offering “always on” personal connectivity services directly to consumers. Unfortunately, the business had turned into a low-margin business. To change that, Jasmin was hired to implement new business models capable of delivering higher growth. The challenge of this project was to turn ConnectAll into a service company without materially changing the company’s resources and know-how and do it in 12 months or less.

Jasmin therefore put together an interdisciplinary team of other business modelers, technologists, anthropologists, and various creative types from different places around the world. They met every week for a 8 months via Holo, a virtual presence group working space, and used SeeTheFuture, a scenario service which accesses all OpenData to build virtual future worlds to test out the business models in various scenarios.

Jasmin and the team designed and built an automated, dynamic business model that atomized personal communication functions and capabilities and re-bundled them into other platforms’ functions and capabilities in real-time. As a result, ConnectAll’s customers who owned a platform were able to better serve their customers by offering value-added, seamless connectivity as a part of the platform’s value proposition. 

To sum up, our report 1) gives a general outlook on the future and 2) focus on professional work in 2035 in 

• Germany
• UK
• Sweden 
• France

For each country we have been looking at the people, the country’s future readiness and we have created a scenario. Building scenarios such as our example is very useful for firms to retain competitive advantages and to develop a robust strategy. The key to successful strategy is to think about different scenarios that could play out in a defined future timeframe and to consider the different strategic options that meet the firm’s future goals. In our foresight projects, we often use the scenario method to articulate preferred visions of the future and to help decision-makers understand the context in which they have to act.