Written by Michael Thieberg, Consultant, Arche Value Management, Inc.
Michael Thieberg, Consultant, Arche Value Management, Inc.
George Colony, Chairman & CEO, Forrester Research, kicked off the 2013 SIIA Summit by prognosticating three “technology thunderstorms” social, business and demographic changes fueled by emerging technologies that will change the information industry in the near future. The occurrence of tectonic shifts is due to the fact that societal factors (e.g., capital markets, culture, talent) lag the growth rate of technology innovation. Every 7- 10 years, a new computing wave comes along personal computing (1980s), desktop internet computing (1990s), mobile internet computing (2000s) causing digestion issues when mass adoption finally catches up to technology. In order to survive these technology-led thunderstorms companies will need to evolve or risk becoming disrupted.
Thunderstorm #1: Death of the Web
Colony predicts the Web’s demise, becoming the “AM radio of digital” as performance improvement in processing power and storage capacity outpaces the growth rate in network speed. As a result, there has been an emergence in portable peripheral devices around the cloud (e.g., smartphones, tablets) that leverage the Internet and Apps, defining a new platform Forrester has coined the “App-Internet”, being led by Apple, Google and Amazon.
Thunderstorm #2: Enterprise Social
As the customer audience is changing, along with the workforce, large companies will need to embrace social media to enable better interaction and solve for that common denominator. Each generation show very different media consumption habits from its predecessor, but brands don’t understand the unique requirements of the younger age group (e.g., Generation Y: ages 18-28) including their preference for “multichannel” experiences including instant messaging, social networks and gamification. More importantly, senior management has little affinity with this demographic, as the average age of CEOs at the top 100 global companies is 59, according to Colony. So, instead of blocking social media in the workplace, companies need to espouse it, if they want to hire and retain a workforce that is predominantly Gen Y.
Thunderstorm #3: Mobile Engagement
The proliferation of mobile devices will to continue to grow in terms of processing power and sensors and is poised to become the de facto system of engagement for customers, partners and employees. To remain vital, enterprises’ current systems of record will need to be upgraded to become systems of engagement. Consumer behavior data will be captured by adaptive learning technologies and used for predictive analytics in “context-aware” apps to provide real-time insight on what the customer is going to need. Instead of launching applications, in the future, users preferred apps would alert them and make recommendations based on explicit preferences and past activities.
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Michael Thieberg
Michael Thieberg is a independent consultant at Arche Value Management (AVM), a corporate finance advisory firm. Mr. Thieberg has over 15 years of strategic financial management experience in corporate development, investment banking and private equity investing with industry expertise in the B2B information and marketing services sectors.
