When your rivals are numerous and the competition is fierce, your spot on the red carpet is always jeopardized. The glory of the past won’t help you in sustaining your market share since your global competitors are becoming more innovative and entrepreneurial each day, and the consumers you have spoiled have gained unprecedented bargaining power. The only possible solution for keeping your glamour is keeping pace with the new trends of business. You ought to keep pace, or else you would become obsolete, old fashioned, and incompatible with the requirements of the carpet on which you have chosen to tread.

A pattern of gradual change in a condition, output, or process is what defines a trend. Since the needs, wants, preferences, and tastes of consumers are constantly changing, following the pattern of trend change is not optional. Out of the dozens of trends prevailing, I think that the most impactful ones are the following:

• Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
• Digital media and Big Data
• The Internet of Things (IoT)
• Innovation
• Entrepreneurship (appreneurship, social entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship)
• Leadership in its new forms
• Marketing in its new forms
• Trends of management, finance, and marketing, among some other select trends.

These trends shape the market mechanism and future careers, determining the products and services we consume (including the food we eat, the coffee we sip, the music we listen to, etc).

In brief, these trends sculpt our lifestyle. These trends have an impact on all the particularities of our lives and on corporate sustainability or obsolescence.

Today, the topic is more timely, crucial, and interdisciplinary than ever. Talking about these different trends will prove the point of this book and will make the red carpet more appealing. What about being trendy? Is there another choice?