Expressing a purpose through both their culture and their products & services will be the main factor that sets successful organisations apart from the competition in the future, a report by creative business school Hyper Island has predicted.

The paper Changes of Tomorrow charts trends in human behaviour, talent, technology and business. In the business trends the rise of purpose-based organisations is cited as the most significant.

This roughly translates to organisations that offer products and services that can “express a clear purpose and set of values”, according to the report.

Other factors the report predicts will drive business success in the future include speed/agility, transparency and the ability to attract top talent. It advises business leaders to consider “work-life integration instead of work-life balance” for employees.

It cites Google as one of the companies that does this successfully by offering top benefits to its staff. And although most organisations won’t be able to offer this due to not having the tech giant’s resources, employers are able to put together a “compelling, well-rounded offering that goes beyond base salary”.

Whether it’s flexible working hours, sabbatical programs, or a clearly defined mission; archaic corporate policies are worth revisiting to cater to the needs of people today,” the report reads.

Away from the narrower business world the sharing economy and code literacy are two trends that the online paper predicts will blossom in the future.

Hyper Island learning designer and facilitator Alex Neuman explained that the process behind the report involved an “industry forum” involving 100 industry leaders.

“Structured collaborative processes are powerful ways to harness the collective intelligence of a large group of people,” he said.

“Through a process like the Industry Forum, we get more than just the individual perspectives of more than 100 industry leaders. We get 100 perspectives multiplied by hundreds of interactions between those individuals as they discuss, debate and generate ideas together.”

Neuman added that the report “suggests a shift in focus from more technology-oriented trends to more organisation-oriented trends”.

“The ‘new cool thing’ is no longer to be on top of all the new technology,” he continued. “So businesses need structured processes for innovation and change, but perhaps more importantly, they need to cultivate cultures where those things happen constantly in informal and ongoing ways.”

Further reading on trends: Women with £1m income up 29% in 12 months