3AW’s Denis Walter and Morris discuss online business services
Business Futurist | Foresight Strategist
If you’ve read this far, something probably connected.
Maybe it put words to something you’d been sensing but couldn’t quite land. Maybe it made something complicated feel clearer. Maybe it unsettled a position you thought you’d settled.
Good. That’s where this work lives.
Not forecasting. Not scenarios at 2050. Not more noise. What’s already moving. The shifts most organisations can’t yet see, name, or understand the full weight of. What it means. What to do about it while it’s still a possibility, not a problem. Short term and long.
Morris Misel has been doing this for 30 years across 160 industries, with boards, executive teams, and leadership groups in Australia and internationally. More than 2,800 engagements. Over a million people a year through conferences, boardrooms, and media.
If you want more of this thinking while it’s still a signal, not a headline, subscribe to Immediate Futures.
If you want ongoing access to everything I do for clients, packaged for you, with direct access to me, join the Signal Room.
If you’re considering bringing this work into your conference, boardroom, or organisation, enquire here.
Choose Forward.
The central question isn’t whether online business services are useful. It’s whether organisations are choosing them thoughtfully or simply defaulting to convenience and cost. Online business services have changed the economics of running a business, but they haven’t removed the human judgment required to select, manage, and integrate them well over time.
Start with clarity about what the service is actually delivering and what you are giving up in return. Online business services work best when handling routine, repeatable tasks with low variability. Where relationship, contextual judgment, or genuine accountability matters, the cheapest online option is usually the wrong fit regardless of the price difference involved.
Security and continuity top the list. Leaders worry about data held offshore, vendor lock-in when switching becomes expensive, and the absence of a human contact when something goes wrong at a critical moment. These are legitimate operational concerns, not technophobia, and reflect a sensible instinct that not every business problem has a convenient digital shortcut.
Online business services are part of a larger unbundling, the disaggregation of tasks once packaged inside employment or professional relationships. That unbundling creates real efficiency gains, but it also transfers risk downward onto businesses and individuals who may not fully understand what they have taken on until something fails at an inconvenient moment.
Prepare for pricing to change as subsidised growth phases end and providers seek profitability. Prepare for consolidation that reduces your options. And prepare for the regulatory environment to tighten, particularly around data handling, AI-generated outputs, and cross-border service agreements. The online business services landscape of the next few years will look significantly different from today.
