Test your technology maturity in the evolution of 2015

© Accenture Technology Vision 2015

In February Accenture released their Technology Vision 2015, which can provide leaders of organisations relevant ideas to stretch boundaries in their journey to become a digital business. What was standing out for me in the first place, was the alliance of the trends. It shapes the ideal business. The Internet of Me is the demanding party that forces the delivery of results in an outcome economy. This economy is built in a platform-based ecosystem, that runs on software which continuously learns and adapts and is operated by a workforce that entails the flawless collaboration of humans and machines. It starts with people and it ends with people. Although society saw technology often as the evil destroying monster in the past, it is now (hopefully) starting to realise that it is in fact our salvage. The vicious circle of people can connect through ideas; innovative thoughts. Around it there are the technologies, platforms, tools, devices and interfaces that help those people operate, innovate and improve.

Funny story about a funny gadget

Let me- if you will – continue a little dramatically about our future; the world is not going down under yet, but the geek invasion is being feared. To save mankind, we need to change the world. We need to change how we do things to save our planet earth. Doing things differently means, we will create new opportunities, new education, new jobs, new hobby’s, and so on. We are sort of rebooting our society as a part of our evolution.

In the past society saw technology often as the evil destroying factor. Automation and robots will take away our jobs and mutual interaction. It was scary and we needed to keep it away as far from society as we could. We would call smart people nerds, made them the most unpopular crowd in school. They actually do understand math. So what? Let’s pretend that whatever they do, has nothing to do with real life.

Once in a while we allowed a geek to launch a tiny innovation in our world and called it a funny gadget. Making pictures with our phone, haha, look how funny. Slowly smartphones have disrupted and still are disrupting our lifestyle – private and work life. This is just one device, that started with a funny gadget. Those smart people are a lot smarter and socially skilful than we gave them credit for. We thought we held them outside our safe perimeters, but without knowing it we gave them a lot of challenges to change the world in a way that goes beyond de average person’s imagination. We need it; to save the environment, to reconnect society and to – yes really – save planet earth and our children.

Was this dramatically enough to get you attention on the subject?

Merging technologies for optimal collaboration

Let me give you another example. Do you still maintain a paper agenda? Why not use a digital agenda in the cloud that you can retrieve on any computer or mobile device? Let’s take it a step further. How about a digital agenda that is hyper dynamic? It will use location services on your phone or other mobile device to track where you are, so it can automatically notify you when you have to leave for your next appointment. Furthermore it calculates the smartest route and directs you where to go avoiding all traffic jams. Or it easily connects the fastest public transportation options needed to reach your destination. Maybe this merging of features are too much to ask for now, but it won’t take long before platforms are combined and these services will be provided.

Last but not least, Why always plan so far ahead and have fully blocked timeslots in your agenda every day? What happened with spontaneous? You want to meet with colleagues or business associates as impulsive as your idea comes up or an issue raises. Brainstorm immediately, discuss it right away over today’s lunch. Face to face or via video conferencing on your mobile device. That’s why your future business agenda needs a sort of real time agenda matcher for instant collaboration.

Wouldn’t that be great?

How is your business preparing for the ‘we economy’?

Let me quote the trends as Accenture has described them in Tech Vision 2015, their annual view on digital trends:

1. The Internet of Me is changing the way people around the world interact through technology, placing the end user at the center of every digital experience.
2. At the same time, digital devices on the edge are powering an Outcome Economy and enabling a new business model that shifts the focus from selling things to selling results.
3. The Platform (R)evolution reflects how digital platforms are becoming the tools of choice forbuilding next-generation products and services—and entire ecosystems in the digital and physical worlds.
4. The Intelligent Enterprise is making its machines smarter—embedding software intelligence into every aspect of its business to drive new levels of operational efficiency, evolution, and innovation.
5. Advances in more natural human interfaces, wearable devices, and smart machines are extending intelligent technology to interact as a “team member,” working alongside employees in a Workforce Reimagined.

This is the digital era. There is no way around it anymore. Innovation mostly starts within an organisation, but it is about people from front to end. It is always depending on a person’s bright idea (innovator), on the buy in of people (management), on the execution of people (employees) and the adoption of people (customers). Believe me, it will be the only way to successfully get on par with your competitors and meet your customers’ demands and employees’ engagement.

Accenture’s Tech Vision 2015 is a great paper to test the maturity of your organisation’s technology developments. Make use of this opportunity, download their paper.

Just wondering, in which parts of your business do you think you need to invest and innovate? I would appreciate it if you would share your thoughts and insights in a comment…

Arjen van Berkum

Arjen van Berkum is a columnist, keynote speaker and motivator, with an eye for business ecosystems, innovation and disruption. In addition to his work as technology and contract management evangelist, he is a visiting lecturer at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft).