The Managerial Challenge Of The On-Demand Economy

Are we discussing this enough?

Even though we have 12 million names for the current economy (sharing, gig, knowledge, etc.), a primary one would be “the on-demand economy.” Heck, The Wall Street Journal has even done a nice deep dive on it.

You’re likely smart enough to know what “on-demand economy” means, but it’s basically Amazon, Uber, Favor, etc. You can get what you want relatively soon after you want it. Add Tinder into that mix and we’ve put “sex” up with “groceries,” so woohoo go society.

The on-demand economy obviously creates organizational challenges, but they’re not the type you think.

What we tend to think are the challenges of an on-demand economy

Line up 100 people — “thought leaders,” maybe — and they’d probably say “customer needs are changing.” Yes, they are. That is true. However, that’s an external challenge. How you deal with customers is something that happens largely outside the walls of your various HQs.

Because processes often mean more than people, no one is necessarily thinking about the internal challenges (i.e. managing employees) of the on-demand economy. HR might be thinking about it, but I’ll go ahead and say that HR probably lacks the seat…