2025 Trends in Business
Operations and project managers face daunting challenges in 2025. The challenge most people are clamoring about is the rapid rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the workplace—
Is AI going to take your job?
How can AI be used for competitive advantage in your organization and your career?
At the same time, there is the age-old challenge of managing risk and being as resilient as is possible. Should we stock up for another two-year pandemic or return to lean just-in-time operations? How to best manage somewhere in between?
In his January 4, 2025 Forbes article, Supply Chain Trends for 2025, Ashok Viswanathan poses three major supply chain trends for the year—
- Value Realization from Artificial Intelligence
- Risk Management and Resilience
- Freight (Tech) Forward
Here we explore the first two trends. Operations science offers direct guidance for navigating those trends. At the same time, operations science provides strong benefits for dealing with the accompanying challenges as mentioned above. Even better, the benefits are not restricted to supply chains, they apply in any service, production, or project operations. Operations science applies everywhere.
Benefit #1: Informed Intuition with Operations Science
The increasing adoption of AI throughout the world promises to revolutionize operations through innovation and optimization. Mr. Viswanathan writes, “However, the next leap requires moving from interaction with technology to trusting AI-driven decision-making. This shift demands a harmonious balance between gut and data-driven insights—a profound experiment in organizational effectiveness.” Indeed. What is also profoundly worrisome is that the vast majority of AI-related hype seems to be focused on data-driven analysis. Concurrently, little or no attention is paid to whether people’s intuition is well informed enough to evaluate AI “insights”—are they useful insights or hallucinations?
Our experience[1] is that there is widespread confusion on fundamental operations science relationships which makes people more susceptible to turning AI “insights” into performance disasters. In 2021, Zillow had a $304 million inventory write down because its machine learning algorithm led it to purchase homes at higher values than estimates of future prices.[2] Preventing disasters such as this is where operations science comes into play.
Operations science provides a foundational understanding of the underlying principles that govern complex systems. By applying these principles, professionals can develop informed intuition, enabling them to:
- Identify potential biases in AI models
- Recognize when AI-driven insights may be misleading or incomplete
- Make more effective decisions by combining data-driven insights with operational expertise
AI should not be treated as the enemy; it should be treated as an indispensable tool. In the era of AI, operations science provides powerful, practical science so your intuition is equipped to make better decisions faster. You won’t be faster than AI at analyzing complex data. However, a well-informed intuition means those “gut-instinct” decisions about how to best use AI and AI analysis results will provide much faster progress for professionals and their organizations.
Benefit #2: Better Risk Management and Resilience through Operations Science
The past few years have underscored the importance of proactive risk management in industry. Operations science offers a fundamental framework for managing risks and building resilience. By understanding the relationships between variability and its buffers of capacity, time, and inventory, professionals can:
- Identify potential vulnerabilities in their supply chains, operations, and projects
- Develop strategies to mitigate risks and absorb disruptions at least cost
- Design more resilient supply chains, operations, and projects that can adapt to changing conditions
Operations science provides a structured approach to risk management, enabling professionals to move beyond mere visibility and toward powerful insight to best manage risk and creates resilience that absorbs business “shocks” and quickly recovers from disruptions.
Conclusion
As industry and technology continue to evolve, operations science plays a vital role in unlocking success. By developing informed intuition and applying operations science principles, professionals can navigate complex systems, make more effective decisions, and drive business success.
Update your or your team’s skillset with online operations certification at learn.opscience.org
Identify and sustain performance gains and establish a powerful legacy by training and certifying your organization’s own operations science trainers. Contact the Operations Science Institute at info@opscience.org for more information.
The Operations Science Institute (opscience.org) provides training and coaching for leaders and workers in all organizations at all levels. We have mastered an approach to teaching the concepts for adult learning so the science can be quickly absorbed and put to work. Operations science principles and applications provide the practical science to cut through complexity, reduce conflict, and unite efforts to accelerate performance of any organization’s operations. For more information, contact us at info@opscience.org
[1] See operations science video (8 min) for more detail— https://bit.ly/3D6lgjX
[2] https://www.cio.com/article/190888/5-famous-analytics-and-ai-disasters.html
