2022 international webinar facing vuca, understanding the impact of VUCA

VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. In essence, the world of VUCA means the world we live in today, where change is very fast, unpredictable, influenced by many factors that are difficult to control, and truth and reality are very subjective. If we want to survive in today's world, we cannot avoid these changes. We will often face situations where we can only adapt and cannot change the situation. As Albert Einstein said, "The measure of intelligence is the ability to change."


Awareness of VUCA theory today encourages many people to adapt more quickly and effectively. If someone resists change, then it is likely that that person will experience various lags that are quite far. Moreover, with the rapid development of information and communication technology as it is now, any change in one place will be very easy and quickly spread to other areas.


STEKOM University as a professional educational institution with a global outlook is also trying to build an academic community that is responsive to the VUCA phenomenon. This reason is one of the reasons that prompted STEKOM University to hold an international webinar involving speakers from within the country and abroad, specifically discussing various fields related to the VUCA phenomenon. The webinar was titled "Facing the Changing Business World in the VUCA Era".


The seminar was held on October 20, 2022 with 2 speakers from Malaysia and one speaker from Indonesia. The third speaker was Mr. Priyadi, M. Kom who was the only speaker from Indonesia. Priyadi is a lecturer in IT at STEKOM University so the material presented is in accordance with his field of expertise, namely "How to deal with vuca in IT-based business and careers".


Although the understanding of VUCA has been conveyed by several previous speakers, Mr. Priyadi still conveys the understanding of VUCA. The goal is to have a common perception of VUCA because there may be some differences in the definition or use of different terms compared to previous speakers or those on the internet in general.


After finishing discussing the meaning of VUCA, Mr. Priyadi continued his explanation about the impact of VUCA. The first VUCA impact described by Mr. Priyadi is related to volatility. Decreased volatility will have an impact on fear, less willing to take risks, and a “back to basics” reaction. "Back to basics" is meant is the natural reaction of people who are afraid, namely panic that results in various reckless actions. The worst consequence of this situation is despair.


The impact of vuca discussed by Mr. Priyadi next is the impact of Uncertainty. According to him, Uncertainty will create paralysis through the tendency to overinvest but in vain. So data analysis becomes important in this context. This is one of the links why VUCA is closely related to information and communication technology.


Furthermore, Mr. Priyadi explained about the impact of complexity. The impact of complexity will create a desire to find scapegoats or black-and-white solutions to what usually goes wrong. Situations like this will never come close to a solution, but instead will create new problems, namely the work ecosystem will be disrupted.



Regarding the impact of VUCA, the last discussed by Mr. Priyadi was the impact of Ambiguity. of ambiguity according to Mr. Priyadi is to cause confusion, doubt, distrust, and the impact of decision-making and change. If the situation is left unchecked, without proper handling, the company will find it difficult to determine the direction and objectives of the strategy to be implemented.