This is the fourth instalment of the (Re)Design Your Life series which explores how the lives of individuals across the globe are getting on, how their lives have changed, what their coping mechanisms are and insights into what the future holds for us.

Australian retailers may be scrambling to whip their websites into shape ahead of the Amazon avalanche but the secret to their survival may lie in perfecting customer service at their physical stores, a leading futurist says.

The rise of the "algorithmic advisers" requires a change in attitude and mindset from the financial advice and planning communities. Futurist and chief executive of global consultancy firm Tomorrow, Mike Walsh, told the 2017 Financial Planning Association Professionals Congress that sweeping technological change driven by complex algorithms is nothing to fear as it's simply "not unique."

Businesses need to figure out how to engage millennials or risk having their market share snapped up by more agile companies, according to futurist and author Mike Walsh.

Speaking at an event hosted by realestate.com.au in Melbourne on Friday, Walsh said businesses need to be investing in new tools and technology now in order to not get left behind.

Law graduate Mike Walsh endured 10 rounds of interviews and an exhaustive series of tests before he was offered the prize of a job with McKinsey & Co. It was 1999 and this was to be his ticket to a bright future – but he turned it down. Instead, he jumped on a plane for the United States, enthralled by the possibilities offered by the development of the internet. In that heady time of start-ups, it took little time for lunch in New York with a friend to be converted to an offer to head the Australian office of research company Internet.com (later, Jupiter Research).