THE GIG ECONOMY

DIGITAL DISRUPTION SERIES

ACTIVITY TRANSFORMATION

2

Accelerated Change is the Future

Digital technology is rapidly influencing how project activities will be performed in the new “Gig” Economy. Many areas will be impacted, such as the supply chain, ways of working and operational support processes.

Digital technologies can make a process significantly better by transforming the efficiency or effectiveness of a service.

To reach the intended outcomes and extract the real benefits, organizations must adapt. If not, they run the risk of losing significant ground to more forward-thinking, agile companies... their competitors.

The incoming wave of disrupting technologies, such as Cloud, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet of Things, has triggered an exponential change in the scale, scope and complexity of freelance activities.

This article is the first of three in the Digital Disruption Series. It provides an overview of the Gig Economy, the drivers mandating the change, and some of the considerations of the work patterns of the future.

This growth of the digital landscape and the opportunities to transform how societies and businesses operate are fueling a massive rise in digitalization project activities.

The growth of these digitalization activities will require an influx of specialized talent engaged in new patterns of work that will change the traditional workforce model for many industries.

3

Characteristics of the Gig Economy The On-Demand Economy is the economic activity created by digital marketplaces and technology companies to fulfill consumer demand via immediate access to goods and services.

The digital world has radically changed expectations and behaviors Workers are more in control of their lifestyle in the Gig Economy. They opt to perform temporary or shorter-term contracts, rather than working directly for a single organization. Gig employees vary the amount and the type of work they do. These preferences reflect the choices of employees who want diversity and flexibility. Many enhance their earnings by participating in temporary work in addition to a full-time job.

The Gig Economy increases the autonomy of individual workers and the ability to access and rapidly assemble the capabilities needed to support challenging change efforts.

Today, freelancers can find work for just about any role or task. Labor platforms in the Gig Economy include Upwork, Cybercoder, Chronobank, and GigWalk for specialized skills. For simple short-

term jobs or tasks, there are Capital platforms, such as AirBnB, Uber and GrubHub. The Gig Economy provides a path for people to find work that matches their skills, schedule and financial needs.

The introduction of digital software and Sharing Economy platforms has spurred the growth of freelancing and is expected to comprise 75% of the workforce by 2025.

Gig Economy Temporary, flexible jobs are commonplace, and companies tend to hire independent contractors instead of fulltime employees. Freelance Economy

Self-employed workers perform specific tasks on a temporary basis.

Sharing Economy Work is facilitated by an online platform for peer-to-peer activity of acquiring, providing or sharing access to goods and services. Individuals can rent or borrow goods rather them buy them.

CrowdsourcingPertains to the acquisition of work, information or opinions from a large group of people via the Internet, social media and smartphone apps. Read more: Investopedia https://www.investopedia.com/

4

Why the Gig Economy? Fulltime, long-term employment will be less common. Future work in the Gig Economy will require flexibility and constant reinvention.

The Gig Economy is divided into two segments based on workers’ skill levels. Early work platforms appeal to commodity based workers, such as AirBnB and Uber. These relatively commoditized and undifferentiated services have had the most momentum in the Gig Economy. However, it is projected that the growth will be with highly skilled professionals who offer differentiated or specialized services. These pros are empowered by technology and use cost effective, performance based online platforms, such as Upwork and Thumbtack that weren’t available 20 years ago.

Work is being re-imagined as social, technological and attitudinal shifts collide.

100101.3

103.8

108.1

100 100.6101.9 102.5

98100

102104106

108

110

2014 2015 2016 2017

INDEXED TO 2014 WORKFORCE DATA, THE GROWTH OF THE FREELANCE WORKFORCE IS ACCELERATING, MORE

THAN TRIPLE THE GROWTH OF THE OVERALL WORKFORCE

Freelancers US Workforce

Company Benefits • Reduce transaction

costs o Labor arbitrage for

compensation and benefits

o Lower hiring cost o Shorter role

vacancies o Faster onboarding o Less idle time o Easy to downsize o Pay only for what

you use

• Reduce transaction timing

• More flexibility to access capability o High volume of

human talent o Ability to target

groupings of capability

o Scheduling

• Increase company agility o Faster delivery of

work product o Increase velocity

of efforts from idea to delivery

o Broader access to hard-to-find skills

Worker Benefits

• Higher pay • More enjoyable work • Flexible schedule • Fosters some

innovation • Ownership of career

through training and keeping up with skills

5

Significant value can be extracted for both customers and workers involved within the framework of the Gig Economy. This will enable companies to pursue new ways of working and even organizational improvements as the changes are embedded. Considerable productivity gains will be within reach to groups that are able to adapt and integrate this shift of talent usage into their workflow. Some of the expected benefits include:

• Reduction of transaction cost and timings • Flexible and rapid access to capability • A better trained workforce – expanded career opportunities motivate

Gig workers and will drive further up-skilling while they gain broader work experience.

By 2025, this change will disrupt the traditional workforce model for most industries.

What led to this?

Let’s look at how we got here. Many inventions and adoption of technology have contributed to the growth of the Gig Economy, which dates to the late 1990’s. The Gig Economy may be a massive outsourcing exercise with a key difference – the duration of many of the gigs are much shorter.

Millennials will be the most independent generation of workers to date Today’s workforce model is changing… 70% of fulltime Gig Economy workers are motivated by the freedom and flexibility afforded them by the Gig Economy* The anticipated growth of “Gigs” is even higher with the widespread adoption and availability of platforms that facilitate transactions between clients and freelancers There are now over 130 different Gig Economy professional careers Gig Economy practitioners stay up-to-date with the latest trends and training (more than traditional workers) *according to a study by the Edelman Intelligence Group

6

The growth over the last ten years is well known. Freelancer and Uber followed, which enabled the further growth of the freelance workforce. The available roles in the early sharing platforms were primarily simple, transactional and temporary activities with limited scope and complexity. This is rapidly changing with the maturing of digital technologies. In recent years, with the introduction of Cloud, growth of API's and PaaS platforms surfaced to significantly change how work activities could be grouped, assigned, managed, and assured. These technologies, coupled with work intermediation platforms were the catalyst that enabled the ease of remote working. Today, Gig Economy platforms are increasing in numbers and will continue to change how in-demand skills are accessed. The widespread adoption of digital technologies and the transformation wave will cause the greatest challenge for skills and capabilities access in modern times.

Key IT Events that enabled the Gig

Economy 1989 - Gen 1 Firewall 1990 to 1999 - Major

advances in AI 1991 - Gen 2 Firewall 1991 - The SAP R/3 Era

begins 1995 - 2005 - Growth of

Client Server 1995 - eBay Founded 1995 - Internet Explorer 1.0

Launched 1998 - Citrix released

MetaFrame 1.0 1999 - First VPN is created

by Cisco Systems 1999 - Salesforce.com - 1st

SaaS 2000 - Remote IT Tech

Support 2001 - Offshoring

presented to the World Trade Organization

2002 - Big Data - Beginning of Digital Age

2006 - Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) - 1st Commercial Cloud

2008 - Next Generation Firewalls

2008 - Rise of the Platforms

2009 - Blockchain 2009 - Internet of Things

Expansion 2010 – Windows Azure 2012 - Amazon Web

Services 2015 - Smart Contracts

7

Minimize Impact from the Gig workforce

The Gig Economy will drive significant changes for the workforce of the future, and how skills are accessed and consumed. This will enable consumers of Gig talent and platforms to realize the following benefits: • Increase effectiveness by driving productivity and cost savings. These

benefits will be realized by the adoption of select new options that are surfacing to support Gig work patterns. These productivities and saving gains will primarily be experienced in the following areas: o Reduced labor overhead (compensation and benefits) o Faster onboarding and shorter role vacancies o Decreased labor acquisition costs

• Increase accessibility to on-demand talent will allow faster ramp up and completion of objectives: o Increased velocity of efforts from idea to delivery o Broader access to in-demand / hard to find skills o Faster delivery of viable work product

Challenge – The Talent shortage will continue – Today’s workforce model is changing. Organizations must adopt these new ways of working or run the risk of losing significant ground to more forward-thinking, agile organizations.

The number of roles being created to support these new technologies are increasing along with the specialized knowledge required to deliver digital technology solutions. This is particularly true for roles in: • Applications Development and Support • Information Data Acquisition and Analysis • Technical Support and Operations (Security, Networks, Hosting) • Activity Planning and Delivery • Digital Architecture

As a result of technological change, the number of in-house professionals with fragmented skillsets will increase pressure to tap into highly specialized talent. Sourcing methods are rapidly changing and flexibility is needed in your organization’s processes. Improving the time it takes to access the skills you need is essential. Changing to simple contracts for select resource classes is one way to achieve this.

8

There are several key challenges that will shape how Digital Transformation activities dictate future operations. CHALLENGE 1 - Capability Access Access to key capabilities to support digital transformation activities is one of the biggest challenges that companies will face as they implement the solutions required to keep pace within their respective industry. CHALLENGE 2 - Lifecycle Management Another challenge to consider in your strategy and decision making for IT investment is supporting both Digital transformation initiatives while maintaining or deprecating the existing (Legacy) applications and infrastructure.

Several other Digital technologies are poised to enter mainstream over the next few years which will further influence the adoption of Gig Economy workers and platforms. Use of this new way of working will be a key to keep pace with the rate of change.

CHALLENGE 3 – Businesses demand faster delivery of technology As digitalization projects progress, executives will want increased output and faster results.

To help minimize the disruption to your organization:

1. Maintain or enhance your Digital Strategy by keeping abreast of the future roadmaps and adoption sequence of Digital Technology for your industry.

2. Prepare for major change in processes to accelerate “Ideas to Deployment.” Preparation includes the changes required in activity methods or ways of working.

3. Get started with your Digital roadmap - streamline actions to prepare for the change required.

4. Build plans to address the capability shortage.

• Maintain or enhance your Digital Strategy

• Understand the future roadmap and adoption sequence that applies to your Industry

• Prepare for major change in processes

• Increase speed and response to customer requirements

• Address the talent challenge by retraining staff and/ or implementing ways to access new skills or capabilities

• Take account of the changes required for your processes or new ways of working

• Get started with your Digital Roadmap

• Streamline processes

• Build plans to address the skill shortage

• Start your key transformation efforts, and consider your current environment

9

Will you be ready? As the vast benefits of the Gig Economy are revealed, keep in mind that the pace of change is faster than anticipated. If you don’t have a plan to access the needed capabilities, you should formulate one. Accommodating these new ways of working will stress the traditional employment paradigm.

Many platforms, such as Upwork or Freelancer, are rising to satisfy specific skill types. However, Activity Management Systems that focus on planning and delivery using these platforms are very few. Rapid growth of the Gig Economy will continue to thrive over the next ten years. Therefore, the strategy and activity plan you utilize could be the difference in your competitive advantage in the next few years.

WORLDPMO We are re-tooling activity methods and processes for project practitioners to support the Digital Transformation. The explosion of different methodologies (e.g. scrum, agile, lean, etc.) requires vigorous oversight to deliver project outcomes. Within the area of activity transformation, we see a major change in how we will access skills and capabilities to assure the right teams are assembled to deliver planned project benefits.

We are WorldPMO, a fit for purpose activity company that has experience delivering projects worldwide for the Fortune 10 since 2005. We are experts in matching capability to assure we assemble a great team every time.

We provide project integration services to support your initiatives from Ideas to Outcomes using our Clarity Assurance© methodology. We are experts in goal setting, course of action development and framing program or project activities to reach the desired outcomes.

Whether you need a local team solution or access to the latest platforms, we blend expertise and Gig Economy solutions to assure you have the right capability at the right time to complete your initiatives.

WORLDPMO – We Make Great Teams Your partner in The Gig Economy since 2005

To drive waste out of the project delivery lifecycle. We eliminate roadblocks to build momentum and achieve the desired outcome.

Project Excellence WorldPMO is a project management solutions and services company. We work closely with our clients to provide the specific actions and expertise to drive program and project delivery activities toward desired outcomes. Efficiency Redefined

Project execution is what we do best. Our Value: WorldPMO plans, initiates, manages, monitors, corrects, and assures activities across all phases of an effort. The Result: Improved process delivery much sooner and at a lower cost.

Services Project Integration Project Management Project Delivery WorldPMO Exponent Taskforce Mobilization Clarity Assurance©

10

From the Digital Disruption Series:

The author takes you through insights on Part 1 and how new ways of working will impact the way business is done. Click graphic to access video.

Find us on the web: www.worldpmo.com

sales@WorldPMO.com