Businesses and individuals are facing challenging times, and I believe this is not going to change anytime soon. In the evening news each day we are more often than not hearing about large corporates and the jobs that will or have been cut. What I find fascinating about all of this is that everyone focuses on the employees who are losing their jobs. The media neglect to talk about the rationale behind why these organisations are making these decisions.

Don’t get me wrong, I am sympathetic to those people who lost their jobs, but for the most part, these employees are being really naive if they didn’t see it coming given the significant shifts in globalisation, technology, a more mobile workforce which gives organisation many more choices than before.

Take Telstra for example, they recently announced a cut of around 650 jobs from Sensis. Yes this is a lot of jobs, but look at it from Telstra’s perspective. They have had to reconfigure their entire business model for their Sensis operations, to move with changing times and how consumers are embracing technology. It is not sustainable for them to maintain a call centre and support services with the same number of employees that they did five years ago, when their calls received by the call centre has decreased by close to 70% due to users using mobile technology as an alternative not to mention the rapid changes in technology.

Changes in technology are completely changing how we all do business and people need to understand that businesses and individuals within them will have to constantly change in order for them to survive. These are business decisions that have to be made and employees will be made redundant. You have to try to remove the personal attachment by understanding the why and thinking about what you need to do to demonstrate both value and provide skills to your organisation.

As a consultant you need to be open to this change by constantly improving, developing and training yourself so that you can adapt and grow with the technology and businesses as they change. Look at the opportunities that could eventuate if you continue to move with this change! When the times change not only will you be presented with many opportunities, you will not only survive but thrive!