How The Rising Gig Economy Is Reshaping Businesses

From Fast Company, Faisal Hoque discusses how the growth of the freelance economy will change how companies operate. Faisal writes:

Here’s how the rising gig economy stands to reshape businesses of different sizes:
Startups: Entrepreneurs often need to understand that they can’t do everything themselves. If they bring in a freelancer to do a specific task, they’re often getting the best possible result for the lowest possible outlay. Since freelancers are usually “management-light,” they also let their clients get on with running their businesses rather than consuming their administrative time.
SMEs: Small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) have been in a squeeze over the past decade. They don’t offer the dynamic environment of a startup, but they can’t always offer the same career-growth opportunities as the biggest corporations. In recent years, that’s made it difficult for SMEs to compete for high-quality employees. The growing influence of the “orange” world seems likely to give SMEs a little relief from that trend, helping them pick and choose the best possible talent from a growing pool of gig-based professionals.
What’s more, those opportunities will take on an ever more global cast. According to the PwC report, the “orange-world desire for autonomy is strongest in China, especially among young people, indicating a generational shift towards greater freedom, entrepreneurship, and specialist skills in this rapidly evolving economy.” Half the Chinese respondents in the study said they don’t expect traditional employment to be available to them in the future.
Corporations: Large corporations may well see huge benefits from the freelance economy, too, but for them it will require big changes in the way they manage their workflows. There’s an obvious advantage to taking on specialized talent for the most innovative and experimental projects, without big companies needing to sunder important relationships with their other major partners.
EXPECT MORE “TALENT CLUSTERS”
The global reality for many employers—no matter what their size—is that they’re losing much of the control they once had over the labor market. As gigging becomes more common, individuals themselves are driving major changes in the world of work. Yes, a paycheck is an obvious motivator, but it’s no longer the ultimate one.
One way companies can continue to survive and thrive in the new economic landscape will be to replace certain clearly defined hierarchies with looser talent clusters. As PwC researchers point out, “Looser, less tightly regulated clusters of companies are seen to work more effectively than their larger and potentially more unwieldy counterparts.”
Not only does a more robust freelance economy make that possible for more businesses all over the world, it’s also the way more people seem to actually want to work. And in that sense, it’s a win-win.