The internet of things(IoT) is the word being used to describe it today. There are more possibilities the internet is currently offering and will be offering as time goes by.There are businesses and entire industries that are being disrupted and it's nothing to laugh about. If you find your self loosing your job or business because of disruption then tough luck! Anyone reading business news is very much getting a real time info about the structural change the entire global economy is going through.
Governments and policy makers have been caught off guard not because they did not see it coming but they were not prepared nor did they have an answer to the inevitble. Well having said that we are already living in the middle of the action and depending on the side you find yourself it could be bitter sweet. This is life as we have come to know it and regardless of how we feel there will always be winners and losers. I have heard big corporations crying like babies about some guy with an office in the garage or the dorm room making their lives a living hell. I find it funny when i hear big corporations crying like babies when business is no longer as fun as it used to be. It only tells me that most of them are sitting on their laurels hoping things were going to stay the same.
Being a big company comes with lots of liabilities now because they are slow to respond to changes in the market. Before they are done rolling out a long term strategy it might be too late and by the way I recently heard that Sears is hoping for a turn around(i think a turn around should have started 10 years ago or even 7 years ago). Problem is that there are lots big corporations out there with no long term strategy on how to transform their companies so they are able to compete effectively now. Agility is the key word for companies trying to stay on the cutting edge because they need it more now than ever.
Read annual reports of some of these struggling big brand corporations and you will realize the lack of a digital strategy. Just imagine how long the internet as we know it today has been around and yet this companies do not have a coherent digital strategy that will lead them into the future. Developing a digital plan is crucial to a companies survival and it has nothing to do with buying servers and internet bandwidth. It has to do with having the right team who are digital savvy and posses the right technical skills and experience to deliver substantial results. Some organizations have equated investing in heavy tech hardware and hiring techies and paying six figures to build a website is the panacea to being competitive online. Even tech companies that miss the essence of what made them great will face death sooner or later.
There is a certain drive and understanding of serving the customer that compels a startup to deliver the product or service people want. Take a company like Yahoo in its early days it did something that no one was doing early on which is search engine and online chat/forum. At some point Yahoo stopped developing cutting edge algorithm that will offer its site visitors the kind of digital experience they wanted. It left the void to be filled then google came along and took it from there and the rest as we say is history. Even microsoft is scrambling to stay relevant in the lives of its users. Its just a matter of time before they find themselves packing off the global stage.
There is a myth that all these companies keep peddling around about a lack of talent. In fact there are lots of talent but without clarity and a forward looking plan for seizing the future companies will keep floundering and loosing grounds. The question now is how do you create the right culture that will shape the psychology of the work force for the better.
For instance a struggling brick&mortar retailer can no longer adopt a mediocre digital plan and some how expect to get far. Instead it has to realize that it's future success lies in ecommerce. So rather than build new brick & mortar stores it will rather invest in its ecommerce platform and logistics that will provide a wonderful customer experience. Some government services can be delivered more efficiently online rather than requiring physical presence. Hospitals can do the same by using telehealth to interact with their patients and perhaps prevent them from having to use the emergency room for non emergency matters. Go to some public hospitals and the congestion is nothing to right home about especially for people that are uninsured. The future can be realized now if corporations and organizations go back to the drawing board and develop a coherent digital plan to delivering results rather than taking the lets wait and see what happens approach.
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