Companies are adopting a woman’s touch to help them emerge from the man-made global financial crisis.

As businesses rebuild, they are focusing on the female way of working: risk-awareness rather than risk-taking, teamwork rather than power struggles and profit with principles rather than bonus-based greed.

UK trend forecaster Future Laboratory says the future of business is feminine emphasising the collaborative, lateral thinking and creative skills.

It says companies are moving away from testosterone-fuelled, ego-driven workplaces.

The New York Times reported that women were poised to surpass men on US payrolls, while research commissioned by Microsoft found the UK workplace would be dominated by women over the next 25 years.

Zoadie Lazarus, trend analyst at Lowe Worldwide Counsel, says feminine strengths, such as intuition and caution, are being recognised as more valuable for companies.

"Traditionally men have been rewarded for taking risks, which we now know to be a highly dangerous strategy," she said.

Research by the Future Laboratory, a consultancy for trend forecasting, shows that the future of business is set to be feminine, emphasising the collaborative, lateral thinking and creative skills found in the right side of the brain the side that women favour naturally.

Men favour the left side with its rational, logical, analytical qualities, which previously dominated the testosterone-fuelled, ego-driven workplace that we have come to know so well.

MX