Would you rather lead or lag?
dubai — Almost every industry today is being faced with disruption as a result of new technologies. The challenge now, is for companies to foresee how their industry will be impacted and then react with a plan that lets them adapt to the change, often in real time, experts say.
“You must remember that if you don’t do it, then your competitor will,” said Stefan Van Der Zijden, research director at Gartner, at an event in Dubai.
The danger, he said, comes not only from large corporations, but can just as easily come from small startups with a breakthrough new tool. Many times, a project might not even need any physical infrastructure to be a major disrupter in the market — an example of which is Uber, he said.
“Uber was quite a different business model that ended up taking quite a significant amount of business share,” he pointed out.
“Every organisation has to ask themselves if they want to be a leading organisation, or one that trails. We think that for every dollar spent on innovation, there are at least seven dollars spent on existing systems. So there, is a lot of investment required to transform the business to adapt to the latest disruptions,” he added.
He also noted that IT departments need to facilitate the use of technology platforms when it comes to digital business. However, a common challenge is that organisations have an existing application portfolio that they already find challenging to maintain and use. This puts IT under a lot of pressure because they are now being asked to look into new applications across multiple platforms.
Ian Cox, research director at Gartner, also highlighted how chief information officers have a key role to play in ensuring their organisations are ready to respond to both the impact and the opportunities that disruption will bring.
He spoke about how Gartner had recently interviewed several CIOs across different industries and asked them what the top performing digital companies are doing differently, and which technologies will play a greater role when it comes to disrupting the market. He listed augmented reality, bots, the Internet of Things, and blockchain systems as examples.
Asked how companies can prepare themselves for disruptions in the market, he revealed that one of the ways is by having an active research and development section.
“Before, it was mainly source your technology from outside, but the leading companies in the world today, all create their own designs, systems, and projects. This helps to ensure that they remain in a leadership position in the market,” he pointed out.
Another way, Cox said, is by actively working with startups that have their finger on the pulse of all that is new, and are often more agile when it comes to planning on how new technologies can affect and industry. In addition, it is also worth looking into the data that a company accumulates.
“Having a data-driven business
Every organisation has to ask themselves if they want to be leading or one that trails Stefan Van Der Zijden, Research director at Gartner
Having a data-driven business is very helpful, especially if you can start monetising the data Ian Cox, Research director at Gartner
is very helpful, especially if you can start monetising the data,” he pointed out. “Often, a company will have the data, but have no idea on how they can analyse it and then start using those results to help their business.”
— rohma@khaleejtimes.com