Future-ready organizations, what are they made of?

Abstract

This master thesis researches what it means and takes to be a future-ready organization. Since it is a relatively new concept, many interpretations and ideas around this term exist but an uniform understanding of this concept is still missing. This research aims to provide this uniform understanding by presenting multiple perspectives into this topic and unite them into one, creating a new conceptual definition. Following this definition, a list of organizational characteristics is made to use as a foundation for a model where organizations can assess their level of organizational future-readiness. Incorporating evidence from literature, expert interviews and a multiple-case study, this research defines what a future-ready organization is. The analysis of the design of other measurement models and their characteristics showed that organizations need to be measured on certain dimensions consisting of different maturity levels. A future-ready organization is one that has a high level of maturity in 4 dimensions, Adaptability, Digitalization, Culture and Strategy. With their underlying sub-characteristics, these dimensions are capable of positioning an organization’s ability to be prepared for what is about to come. The case studies evaluated the model and the characteristics and concluded that the model and characteristics were accurate and usable. Therefore the conclusion is that a future-ready organization is an organization that is capable of dynamically adapting to a constantly changing business environment while maintaining its ability to innovate and deliver value to its stakeholders. The organizational future-readiness is dependent on their ability to adapt, digitize, develop culture and strategic alignment.