Robert De Niro needs no introduction. We all have been fortunate to watch him deliver some of the finest performances over the last five decades. Be it as an eccentric boxer in Raging Bull, his portrayal of a young Vito Corleone in the Godfather Trilogy, or as a pensioner in The Intern where he showcased some workplace virtues that are no longer taught in business schools or practiced in boardrooms.

He also had his share of “not so memorable performances”. Even the most ardent fan of his should not feel bad if they have not watched the movie Brazil which released in 1985. It bombed spectacularly at the box-office, however the movie would eventually find its relevance more than three and half decades later in 2020. The film was one of his first sci-fi movie roles. It was about a totalitarian world obsessed with performance and productivity.

So how has the workplace evolved?

The definition of a workplace has evolved over many decades. From being a place to work without any disturbance, to a place of effective collaboration, to a symbol of what an organisation stands for. This was until 2020. This was until the world learnt about COVID-19.

Workplaces have no boundaries anymore, and they are now characterised by an environment which allows you to deliver at the requisite productivity without compromising the performance. The evolution of collaboration tools and technologies has played a major role in making the “workplace” our extended family.

Workplaces have ceased to become a physical entity; it’s become a default mode in our lives which even our children are getting used to. Online classes are their definition of workplace, but thankfully they have a long way to go before their workplaces become obsessed with performance and productivity.

Why Edge Analytics?

We, at Edge Analytics, have been pioneering the engagement model in Professional Services for some time now and have witnessed a unique phenomenon which, in our view, will pave the way for organisations to invent unique products and services catering to the shifts in the workplace.

People are eager, more than ever, to re-ignite their hidden aspirations and the result has been that people over the last 12 years have explored and/or gotten into a secondary occupation. This is the utopian world for all the polymaths out there.

“Technology now allows people to connect anytime, anywhere, to anyone in the world, from almost any device. This is dramatically changing the way people work, facilitating 24/7 collaboration with colleagues who are dispersed across time zones, countries, and continents.”

What does this mean for the Professional Services industry and how does this impact our stakeholders?

For our clients, it’s a huge opportunity and a race to evolve and transform to a vendor model purely based on the gig economy.

Edge Analytics’ Borderless Engagement Model™ (BEM) assists clients in accessing key skills in a truly pay-as-you-go model. This will enable a client in South Africa to access a Cloud Architect from across the globe who may be working part-time for a Software Network lab.

For the individuals who are looking for such alternatives to hone their skills or earn that extra buck, it’s a win-win situation. However, there is a lot of work to be done before such secondary occupations can be formalised.

Where to from here?

We are living in a world where most of the organisation’s board members want monthly, if not fortnightly improvement. Keeping that in mind, the onus lies with the leaders within organisations to step up and embrace the new workplace and engagement model.

Edge Analytics is committed in its vision to collaborate with organisations focused on continuously delivering innovative products and services, and it will require re-imagining how client-vendor relationships are managed to enable the execution for the same.

“We cannot re-write the chapters of history already past, but we can learn from them, evolve, and adapt. The new normal may even be a better normal, certainly a different normal.”