The consequences of technology-driven change
by Can Akdeniz, Author of MBA 2.0
There has never been a time in the history of humankind during which the nature of life and work has changed so rapidly as in the past 50 or so years. The driver of that change, more than anything else has been and will continue to be technology. The monolithic structure of corporate America, emerging after the Second World War, could never have arisen without revolutions in mass communication and statistical data analysis.
Now, we are poised at the brink of changes just as drastic, if not more so. Again, these changes are driven by technology, and again they will change the way we all live and work. In large part they already have. The era of instant communication has implications both grave and exciting for modern business. The cutting edge of the internet era has already carved huge grooves in the once smooth edifice of the corporate world, and all signs point to it continuing to do so. What will emerge from this dynamic sculpting process is uncertain, but it pays to stay abreast of these changes so you can be part of the resultant statue and not end up in the debris pile.
The Rise of Analytics
Everything we do on the internet is being recorded and aggregated by someone somewhere. Before the rise of Google and other analytics companies, it was anybody’s guess what this information might be used for. But targeted advertising is only the beginning. In the future, businesses will depend increasingly on telematics in making strategic decisions once based on intuition or abstract theory. Those who do not keep up will be left in the dust.
The future of business will be in the strategic implementation of analytics to improve decision-making, manage risk, and assess new business opportunities. Learning about and investing in analytics behooves any smart business owner who hopes to survive the coming changes.
The Productivity Problem
Employees increasingly feel entitled to spend vast swaths of work time idly surfing the internet or g-chatting friends. While this may seem like a simple disciplinary or motivational issue, it goes deeper than that. With the constant lure of smartphones and multiple social networking sites, the workplace has become irrevocably porous, with the outside world seeping in no matter which sites you block or what your policies are.
A smart employer will find ways to work with this trend rather than against it. This might take brute force techniques like paying only for piecework or more stringent hiring practices. But it could also mean more innovative solutions, like gamifying the workplace through psychologically appealing reward systems, allowing more work from home, as well as relying more heavily on outsourced or freelance work.
Working on the Cloud
Much touted for many years without tangible results, cloud computing is becoming a concrete reality. If taken advantage of, the cost-reducing potential of moving large-scale business processes to the cloud is utterly staggering. Time and money once lost to storage, backup and recovery, software integration and access issues are fast becoming obviated. Startups will be vastly easier to launch and innovation will bloom as a result. More than an advantage, doing business on the cloud will quickly become a competitive necessity.
Advertising Hypertargeting
Advertising is one area in which the changes happening will be so vast as to seem almost scary. A crop of innovative advertising startups are developing techniques and technologies to find and subdivide demographics to practically sub-molecular levels of specificity. To properly take advantage of this new wealth and breadth of customer data, business owners will have to become more niche-oriented, with more varied and data-informed product lines. It will take a lot of very individualized advertising to maintain and grow loyalty as more companies offer more finely grained services. Keeping this cost-effective and managing the strategic shifts it requires will be very challenging.
These are just a few of the ways that businesses will have to adapt to coming changes spurred by new technology. To stay competitive will increasingly require a near-prophetic ability to monitor and predict shifts as and before they happen. Just remember to stay on top of your game and keep up to date and you’ll be able to ride the new paradigm as it slides into place.
For a more in-depth treatment of the challenges and opportunities posed by technology, as well as many other topics relating to modern business administration, consider picking up my book MBA 2.0: Handbook for Modern Business. In MBA 2.0, I’ve cut out the filler clogging most traditional business literature. In its place I offer a lean, results-oriented primer geared to turn you into the kind of innovator who will thrive in the emerging economy. Using real life strategies drawn from the experiences of today’s successful entrepreneurs, MBA 2.0 is designed to help you tack with the winds of change and harness the power of the hyper-connected global marketplace. Whatever your business goals, MBA 2.0 will help you get there.
