[ER-ENG-02] Social Megatrends
(Kröll, M. & Burova-Keßler, K.)

For example, Paula already knew that there were two established catering companies in the region that deliver food and offer party services. Paula and her friends didn’t have enough money to open a restaurant, and competition was already fierce. They also wanted to offer something special that didn’t yet exist in the region. But how could Paula and her friends develop their cooking idea into an innovative service idea?

Starting point for the creation of new innovative services and products can be the examination of technological developments, economic and social trends, values, and lifestyle models. Megatrends derive from lifestyles. Various micro-trends can be assigned to the megatrends. These micro-trends are the source of needs and, consequently, markets. Products and services are then developed for these markets. Against this background, there is the possibility that new employment potential and jobs will be created (Kröll, 2018; Göttling & Paschke, 2018).

On the other hand, certain needs can only arise on the basis of certain megatrends.

Regarding the megatrend of digitalisation, a trend of merging production (cyber-physical systems, Industry 4.0) and services (smart services) into product-service systems is emerging. In addition, the trend is characterised by the topics: Big Data in the world of work, Crowdwork, Internet of Things and , Augmented Reality (Hirsch-Kreinsen, Ittermann & Niehaus, 2018/2). At the same time, these changes influence the interaction between personnel, technology and organisation and presuppose new requirements for their design. Against this background, the need for new competences and new competence development methods arises. This has an impact on existing qualification and training offers and opens up space for new innovative services and products in the area of vocational education and training.

Thus, a megatrend can have a significant impact on supply and demand by changing needs or creating new needs and can even influence the economic and political position of entire industries and countries. In the context of the employment radar, megatrends can thus be used to identify the needs of people resulting from the prevailing trends (Mulhouse, 2015) and to derive service or product ideas from them (excerpt, self-study module “Networking Capability”, detection of social megatrends) (Kröll, 2018).