Just how much time do you spend scanning the horizon for technology? We have all seen the stats – the size of the internet is quadrupling in size every three years. There are more than a billion websites now and every minute there are 204 million e-mails sent, 13.8 million WhatsApp messages, 75 hours of video uploaded to YouTube and four million Google searches. The top four internet businesses made $141,780 in the minute you just read that sentence.
This horizon is not just busy, its overcrowded, so what should you be looking out for?
Start with your clients. What tech trend is going to rock their world the most? Maybe a coming development will make their business a whole lot easier. That’s a mixed blessing as it might herald the arrival of new market entrants. Maybe a tech trend is going to upturn their operations model. How can you help them through change?
What about your own business processes. How will the emerging technology simplify what you do? How will it enable you to take out costs (that usually means people, by the way)? How are you dependant on last year’s technical solutions, or last decades for that matter?
Megatrends. Everyone has heard of at least half a dozen big trends in technology. What impact might the following have on your sector in the next few years
- Robotics
- Voice Controlled Systems
- Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems
- Internet of Things
- Automated supply chain
- People-free delivery and transportation
- Virtual presence
What about the deep future? Will businesses in your space even exist? If so, how will the “work around the work” change?
Technological change is exciting for entrepreneurial optimists. If you would like to think about these issues for your business, well you know what to do.
