Established 1996
Business and technology
How work will change when most of us live to 100
Life expectancy at birth has been increasingly constantly over the past few decades and now there are more than seventy thousand people in the USA alone and substantially more globally mainly in the developed part of it. A staggering number of people are expected to live up to longer than one hundred amongst those born over the last decade. Such changes lead to newer challenges and opportunities. With people living longer, they need to work out ways to save money the best or work till a much longer stage of life. If seventy is the new sixty, then millennials need to be prepared to work till their late seventies or else the government will have to bear a massive burden. In addition, constant business innovations mean that older technologies or lines of work are getting redundant and people will need to go for skills upgrade at the middle stage of life.
Source:https://hbr.org/2016/06/how-work-will-change-when-most-of-us-live-to-100
Why Technologists should think like Biologists
We tend to think of ourselves as very rational beings and our technologies as all powerful, yet a lot of the latter are just kluges, improvisations on older methods. The world of technology is actually quite messy and thus professionals in that field have a lot to learn from biologists. One such way is to inculcate errors as part of corporate training so that one can learn from past errors or unexpected events. Netflix has created this platform called Chaos Monkey that on purpose shuts down systems so that when such an accident actually takes, place its engineers are well placed to rectify the problem. Like biologists, technologists must also use evolutionary thinking to understand processes as a lot of events are as a result of past happenings. In order to learn holistically, biologists start with small steps. They will chronicle the interactions within a specie or between a few of them before charting out the overall evolutionary or ecosystem dynamics. Similarly, technologists must also focus on intricate details before designing major objects.
Source:https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-technologists-should-think-like-biologists
4 ways in which technology is transforming business
A study conducted by the Forbes publication has identified 4 ways in which business processes are getting altered by making use of technology. In MBA institutes, students are taught to think linear in step by step pattern, yet in the real world technology changes exponentially and the present world is fraught with number of S-curves which imply overnight change in trends. In earlier times, industrial giants used to be insulated from market forces due to their scale of operations but that is no more the case. While giants such as US Steel, Kodak and Xerox have either faltered or suffered in business, unicorns such as Facebook and Google have overnight become giants. Business models would in earlier times be embedded as a sacrosanct part of corporate strategy but now these keep transforming so frequently that managers need to be on the look-out for key changes constantly. Ultimately, it is the executive level on the ground which is the face of the company and their dealings build or hamper the company image. The top management no longer has control over operations in a knowledge economy, so it is best to train the executive level to produce results as best as possible.
Source:http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/#44ee22e11514
The glory of a market economy is how quickly it destroys industries
A new Facebook chatbot could help you find your next job
Source– http://digiday.com/brands/new-facebook-chatbot-help-find-next-job/
Reimagining the workday
Source: http://www.innovationexcellence.com/blog/2016/05/19/reimagining-the-workday/
Network Revolution: Creating value through Platforms, People and Technology
The Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Klaus Schwab recently spoke about an upcoming fourth industrial revolution. He spoke about how this one is unique in comparison with the others previously recorded. A few organizations had the foresight to develop business innovations which have disrupted the way we work. World leaders, educators and economists are gearing up towards this change where all investors, customers and talent are flooding towards the digital landscape. Four kinds of businesses have been identified. Asset builders are those such as Ford, Exxon, Walmart and Boeing that create physical capital. Then there are service providers like Accenture and JP Morgan Chase that deliver value through human capital. Technology creators such as Oracle, Pfizer and Microsoft generate ideas through intellectual capital. And finally there are network orchestrators that use their network capital to deliver value via collaboration. This list includes the likes of Uber, eBay, Trip Advisor and Visa. While the highways in the USA took nearly half a trillion US dollars to build over thirty five years, Facebook achieved more than a billion followers in barely a few years. Sales growth, return on assets, gross profit margin and price to revenue multiplier all show quicker scale growths in the final category as that grows fastest.
The race for Tech Talent isn’t a Marathon, it’s a Sprint
Talent recruitment for the IT and technology industry is facing several challenges. Solutions that worked yesterday no longer seem to be viable today. The world of management especially marketing has undergone enormous change with technology increasingly influencing business. Thus the business world is vying for the same limited pool of talent as is the IT industry. Digitization is changing the face of academics even with IT companies consulting universities on marketing curriculum. Until this circle is fully completed, students graduating from campuses will continue to lack practical orientation. Solution providers are also seeing change as several operations once outsourced are now being included back in house at companies. This business research conducted by Accenture clearly reveals that companies are in a rush in order to grab the best of technology talent but this gap will need to be filled quickly. Source:http://www.cio.com/article/3050657/careers-staffing/the-race-for-tech-talent-isn-t-a-marathon-it-s-a-sprint.html
How Marketers are dealing with the growth of Tech
Technology is increasingly playing greater role in business functions especially the marketing aspects. To deal with such wholesale changes, the role of the CIO has been elevated to strategy level. Business consulting giant PwC has conducted a market study with the aim to understand the usage of technology to actual revenue generation. It concluded that maximum new functions created under this domain were part of content strategy followed by digital transformation and then mobile based platforms. Indeed majority of marketers polled have affirmatively answered that social media and customer experiences were linked with each other and are essential parameters of business plans. The greater degree of coordination between CMOs and CIOs is now essential.
Source:http://www.emarketer.com/article.aspx?R=1013715&RewroteTitle=1
The 4 Stages of better technology Adoption
A management consulting forums has divided the evolution of technology’s role in business into four stages. At the first stage is the paper reliant business where technology hardly plays any role at all. Technology comes as aid in some processes at the next phase where piece-by-piece some operations are automated. Then business move towards the phase where many operations are literally paperless and technology is used across the board. At the concluding stage, one finds business that are industry leaders within their respective domains plus they are continuously growing.
20 Basic life skills that are dying out as the Digital Age leaves us dependent on Tech
Due to excessive digitization some basic life skills are dying out. We are instead using their digital variations. People cannot properly read maps these days. They can’t use the compass. People would rather type than hand-write something. They prefer not looking up for information from books, rather simply use online searches for the same. That even includes information on relatively simple stuff like baking bread. The imperial system of feet, inches, pounds or ounces is now a fading memory. Even tougher is converting them to the metric system. Instead people now need to worry about online privacy settings for fear of leaking business intelligence to competitors. This has enabled online banking to flourish. Even job searches have become reliant on online modes.
Source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/technology/20-basic-life-skills-dying-6214224
21 Disruptive Trends in Technology & Society
Technologies that have disrupted society have been identified in a study. First of all there is Slack that has revolutionized communication within organizations rendering emails as less relevant now. User generated content is replacing the expert opinions written from the ivory tower, thus democratizing content. The startup culture has gained credence with 2015 heralding what may be termed as the age of entrepreneurship. The Paris Summit on the Environment did bring some progress in terms of countries accepting joint responsibilities. Powerful algorithms in use now mean that business intelligence is capturing enormous amount of information about each one of us. This is also being aided by the use of wearable technologies. Artificial Intelligence or machine learning is also increasingly becoming mainstream. MOOCs is facilitating Executive MBA programmes to flourish. Open source tools are gaining popularity and Cloud based computing is increasingly being used by technology platforms. We are getting increasingly conscious of cyber security and privacy. Apps are fuelling what can be termed as technology addiction. Customers are making use of digital wallets and mobile payment services to complete transactions. And then there is video which is making inroads hooking customers more readily.
Source: http://bestthenews.com/article/21-disruptive-trends-technology-society-2015-sun-12132015-1857.html
‘People first’ wins in Digital Economy
Business consulting giant Accenture has undergone a study to understand technology trends that have been fuelled thanks mainly to the ‘people first’ approach common for the digital economy today. Automation is increasingly becoming a part of work especially marketing efforts utilizing capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI), augmented reality and robotics. Workforce is now in a more liquid state with flexible schedules commonplace. Certain business models are being devised to cater around specific platforms. Then there is the concept of predictive disruption which leverages capacities from across industries to predict next wave of business trends and act accordingly. And of course the ‘people’ first approach’ also provides organizations with what is known as digital trust. It enables improved digital ethics and better cyber security.
The as-a-service Economy is Untapped
The ‘as-a-service’ business model is one where various capabilities in an enterprise are merged using cloud based technologies. Accenture which is a management consulting leader, says that certain business are reaping benefits of this model by reducing costs substantially while at the same time improving servicing levels. Deutsche Bank has implemented this business innovation in their procurement process while Rio Tinto has diversified its information systems using this model. As number firms have gaps in their existing talent pools, they can utilize the cloud based resources to deliver results on certain procedures. Services can be accessed more quickly using ‘plug-in’ methods to reduce time lag from months to weeks, maybe even days.
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