I thought I might use my time today to talk about some emerging trends, and the challenges and opportunities they present for business, with the caveat that it can be no more than a snapshot in time. The times are so uncertain, that anyone attempting to forecast business futures runs the real risk of looking a prize goose in 6 months time.

If there is a key thought I want you to take away from my presentation it's connectedness. The realisation that globalisation is not just about business – it's also about health and education, the environment, refugees, media and communication. All of these are global issues, and they, and we, are all inter-connected – and as you'll see as I progress, the emerging trends I want to explore are all inter-connected, too.

So the first trend I'd like to reflect on is the increasing isolation of business from important national, and international debates.

That isolation is the direct outcome of our intense focus on corporate governance, and our single-minded concentration on the shareholder. That's how we rationalise it in public, anyway. Corporate leaders will assert, with nary a blush, that the shareholder is king, and that maintaining and growing shareholder value is their sole reason for existence.

It's not true, of course, as any mom and pop shareholder will tell you.

The real kings are the financial analysts, whose opinions drive the funds managers of Australia's largest superannuation funds – that's who is really running the country.

But nonetheless, as shareholder value has been used as a mantra to excuse us from our community responsibilities, the downside has been that we have lost our voice on important national issues. So when we have issues we'd like to discuss in a broader context, like population policy, it's hard for us to get any traction.

So, the second emerging trend that has serious consequences for business is that when business gave up its seat at the table, that void was immediately filled by the phenomena known as community consultation.

Now community consultation has a lot going for it. As a feminist, I've engaged in countless hours of consultation with women's groups, but colleagues, at the end of the day, someone's got to do something. Too often community consultations are inhabited by people with lots of opinions, and no real knowledge – and what's scary about that is that serious Government policy is being drawn up based on these consultations.

Consultation is no substitute for leadership. Over-reliance on community consultation means populist policies that pander to peoples prejudice.

A leader needs to be able to take her people with her, and that means taking the time to explain why you're doing something that might be different or uncomfortable in order to achieve a long-term strategic goal.

In business, we do that all the time, but government now seems to be totally reliant on what the latest round of focus groups said, and that's no way to run a country.

One of the ways we could counteract this of course is for business leaders to get more involved in Government reference panels, and working groups. Because so few people are prepared to give up their time to do this, the same people keep getting asked over and over again, which makes us grumpy, and also we run out of ideas more quickly.

So the next time you get a phone call from Canberra asking you to advise on multiculturalism, or be part of a reference group for a conference on racism, or anything else, for that matter, say yes. Your country needs you.

The third emerging trend is Australia's deteriorating relationship with Indonesia. Those of us with interests in the region understand exactly how rude and heavy-handed we seem with our efforts at "megaphone diplomacy". We have the world's most populous Muslim nation on our doorstep, and the damage to that relationship via the politicisation of the refugee issue has severely damaged our standing in the region.

We know enough about cultural difference now, surely, to avoid behaving like boisterous yobbos in public, and when you consider the amount of money Australian business has invested in Indonesia, publicly lecturing Indonesia seems to be a particularly short-sighted thing to do.

And connecting back to my earlier point, if business were not so isolated from mainstream debate at the moment, we might have had the clout to intervene in a sensible fashion.

The fourth emerging trend is the increasing casualisation of the work force, and as a consequence the rise of the working poor.

This trend has been developing at a fair old clip over the years, but is just about to get a tremendous boot along by the huge drop in our incoming tourist numbers, and its immediate impact on our tourism, retail, and arts industries – all major employers of part-time workers.

In another life, I'm the Chair of the NSW TAFE Commission Board, and we always know when the economy is about to tank, because our enrolments go up – so we are one of the few organisations to benefit from a downturn.

But the fact that there has been virtually no growth in full-time employment in recent years is a serious matter for concern for business and for the Government.

While one might argue that self-managed part-time employment across a number of jobs for the individual is the way of the future, the workers involved have no security, no benefits, and are leading a very precarious existence. It makes them vulnerable to scare-mongering, and destroys social cohesion.

The fifth emerging trend is the devaluation of public education. If we do not support and strengthen public education, it will become the dumping ground of the dumb poor, and then we are all in trouble.

While the rapid growth in new Christian and Muslim schools might be interpreted as a triumph for user choice, we need to be clear that we are creating enclaves where children are exposed only to other children with similar beliefs.

The great triumph of our public education system was that it taught us to get along – to tolerate difference, to be respectful of other cultures and belief systems. For many of us, it was the first time we encountered someone from another country or culture, and I suspect that rosy-coloured view of ourselves as a tolerant and diverse society is in many cases a legacy of the public education system. We need that sense of connectedness now, more than ever, and public education is a great incubator for those values.

And the sixth and final trend I want to explore is the metrification of customers.

The rise of the customer relationship management industry means that these days we tend to think of customers in job lots.

We relentlessly measure and manage every stage of the customer relationship, and in my view, we've lost that connection with the customer as an individual.

Advertising guru, David Ogilvy, founder of Ogilvy & Mather, said famously, and to the considerable ire of the nascent feminist movement "that's not a customer – it's your wife." Political correctness aside – he had a point.

The customer is a human being, not a bunch of metrics. Relationships are organic, dynamic things – you wouldn't attempt to measure and quantify your relationship with your wife - and in 80% of cases, the customer is a woman. Now women know all about relationship management – it's our special subject. So we know when we're being "managed", and we resent it.

We know that call centres are designed to enhance customer efficiency – which is code for making us cheaper to deal with, not improving the customer experience.

We know that fewer branches, staffed by fewer people might be good for the shareholder, but it's lousy for the customer.

We know that you're only interested in us if we are profitable to manage.

So don't even talk to us about trust and loyalty, because we know you're lying.

And then you turn it around on us, and accuse us, your customers, of being cynical – so there's no point in trying.

What is wrong with this picture? Indeed, what is wrong with every scenario I've painted here tonight?

What's wrong is that we've lost our sense of connectedness. That everything we do impacts on the people around us, not just where we live and work, but around the world.

We need to acknowledge that shareholder value and share price are not necessarily the same thing. We tell our children that value is much more than the price of something – we need to demonstrate by our behaviour that we believe that to be true.

Business needs the stable operating environment that is the outcome of social cohesion.

If we lose our sense of connectedness, and become enmeshed in narrow self-interest we cut ourselves off from our customers – and then they get grumpy, and leave us.

Someone famous once said "Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you". It's the best business advice I've ever heard.

Jack Welch turned around GE by interrogating every branch of the organisation with the question "does this benefit the customer"? I'd take that question a step further and ask, "If I was the customer, is this how I would like to be treated?"

When you can answer yes to that question with a clear conscience, I promise that you will be a contented person because you will have loyal, happy customers who keep coming back to you, and that the increased revenue stream will put a smile on the face of the most hardened analyst, and your shareholders will love you.

Not a bad return for behaving well, is it?