ABSTRACT
The term ‘megatrend’ became increasingly popular with businesses towards the end of the twentieth century. It allowed the strategists to move past considering the waves of trends that were prolific in the global economy and look instead to the deeper tidal forces behind them. Looking to trends that have deep and prevailing rationales allows strategists to anchor the ‘why’ of their strategies to societal changes. Because the ‘why’ is captured, the analysis of megatrends increased strategists’ potency. There are many megatrends at play across our natural and geopolitical landscape. The first megatrend is that of humanity itself – its population and its age demographics. Consumer trends are aggregated differently because of these dynamics. The growth in urbanization is accompanied by a number of trends. As urbanization continues and populations densify, the risk exposure to natural disasters of populations grows.
