The Impact of Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is a revenue growth engine according to fifty futurists we surveyed.  Many companies are already experiencing significant benefits and gaining competitive advantages. The futurists predicted the top five impacts of digital transformation on businesses by the year 2020 will be:

1. Speed to market
2. Competitive positioning
3. Revenue growth
4. Productivity
5. New distribution channels 

Given the importance of these top-five on revenue growth and the future success of a business, who would not want to digitally transform their enterprise?  Non-believers that's who.  Non-believers, aka laggards, in our study of 2,000 executives don't believe in significant digital transformation now, or in the future.  They don't demonstrate a sense of urgency or a recognition of the massive changes happening around them today.  They seem blind to the fact companies are witnessing an increase in revenue already from their digital transformation investments.

Digital transformation-believers aka digital leaders, however, are investing significantly more now, and receiving positive ROIs on their investments already.  As a result, they plan to invest greater amounts in the future, and predict higher ROIs in the future relative to non-believers.

Based on our survey data, believers and non-believers are seeing alternative realities.  Non-believers, if they don't quickly become converts, are going to face increasing challenges staying competitive and relevant against digitally transformed competitors.

When we asked mid-level managers to list the top 10 mistakes companies are making regarding digital transformation today, they listed the following in order of rank:

1. Moving too slowly
2. Lack of clear digital strategy
3. Company has the wrong leadership for digital transformation
4. Investing too little in new technology
5. Not focusing enough on cyber-security
6. Culture that discourages innovation
7. Lack organizational structures to drive digital transformation
8. Ignoring fresh thinking from external sources
9. Not educating the entire organization on digital transformation
10. Neglecting to hire the right digital talent

This list describes the actions or non-actions we are seeing from non-believing companies.

Let's pull all our findings together and review once again:

• Futurists see digital transformation as a revenue growth engine
• Believers are already reporting positive ROIs, and as a result, plan even higher levels of investment and revenues in the future.
• Non-believers are investing little today, seeing little ROI, and are planning relatively little investment in digital transformation in the future.
• Mid-level managers report the biggest challenges are moving too slowly, a lack of a clear strategy, wrong leadership and too little investment in new technologies.
• The revenue gap between what believers and non-believers predict in the future as a result of digital transformation is significant across all industries.  Survey participants believe the bulk of the revenue gains will be achieved by the year 2020, with incremental gains continuing thereafter.  That is only 3.5 years from now. Yikes! That reflects a view that more revenue is available now for fast movers.  It also suggests a realization that a lot of work needs done quickly.  Non-believers, because of inaction and/or a lack of investment, seem likely to miss out on these early revenue gains and will suffer competitively.

Businesses must invest the time and effort now to understand the impact of digital transformation on their industry, market and company.  Once there is situational awareness achieved and a clear vision articulated, a digital transformation doctrine needs to be developed and socialized so strategies can be developed to achieve the vision set forth in the doctrine.  What technologies should believers invest in over the next 3.5 years to achieve digital transformation?  In the opinions of over 2,000 survey participants the largest business impacts will come from the following technologies:

1. Big data/business analytics
2. Cyber-security
3. Cloud
4. Collaboration technologies
5. Mobile technologies
6. IoT/sensors
7. Artificial intelligence
8. Digital currency
9. Sharing economy
10. Social Media 

When asked for year 2025 predictions, survey participates anticipate a similar list, but with even higher business impacts from each.

It is interesting that core systems like ERPs, CRMs, HCMs and SCMs were not identified as driving high business impact.  I am wondering if companies still view digital transformation as "add-on" technology?  In my view, a business' ability to convert from "human-time" to "digital-time" and operate at a real-time operational tempo requires digital transformation across the entire ILS (information logistics system).  The ILS is the master or umbrella system that manages and processes data across the entire organization to optimize business performance and customer interactions.  This ILS system includes all the core systems that today, often involve legacy systems incapable of supporting the new world of digital-time.  It is my analysis that many companies will ultimately be required to replace legacy core systems in order to accomplish true digital transformation.

If you find yourself sitting in IT and business meetings every week listening to how existing legacy IT systems will not permit new business processes, new business services, new business models and new innovations required to compete and win, then you should recognize those are red flags and things can get ugly, quickly.

When the New Year's ball drops at midnight and year 2020 comes around, will you be found among the believers?  Stay tuned for my new report on digital transformation technologies and strategies.

Read more on digital transformation strategies here:

1. Forces Driving the Digital Transformation Era
2. Digital Transformation Requires Agility and Energy Measurement
3. A Doctrine for Digital Transformation is Required
4. The Advantages of Advantage in Digital Transformation
5. Digital Transformation and Its Role in Mobility and Competition
6. Digital Transformation - A Revolution in Precision Through IoT, Analytics and Mobility
7. Competing in Digital Transformation and Mobility
8. Ambiguity and Digital Transformation
9. Digital Transformation and Mobility - Macro-Forces and Timing
10. Mobile and IoT Technologies are Inside the Curve of Human Time

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Kevin Benedict

Senior Analyst, Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant Writer, Speaker and World Traveler

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Forces Driving the Digital Transformation Era

The words “digital transformation” appear everywhere today. I use them in discussions daily.  They describe the era we live in - an era where the rules of business, strategies and the pace of business have changed.  In this era the manner in which we operate our businesses, and interact with our customers, suppliers, employees, partners and even physical objects have changed.  This new era is different. We feel urgency for more information, deeper insights, faster operational tempos and business agility.  We recognize a need for change, but to what?

I propose that it is important to understand how we got to the era of digital transformation.  What path led us here?  What are the contributing factors?  For that purpose, let’s begin by considering how we moved over the past decade from a commercial environment full of disconnected unknowns, to the world of connected knowns. How we evolved from mass markets of faceless customers to precision markets of one.  How did we get here today? I posit that rapid advances in six areas have converged to create the era of digital transformation:

I propose that it is important to understand how we got to the era of digital transformation.  What path led us here?  What are the contributing factors?  For that purpose, let’s begin by considering how we moved over the past decade from a commercial environment full of disconnected unknowns, to the world of connected knowns today.  How did we get here? I posit that rapid advances in six areas have converged to create the era of digital transformation:

1. Hardware
2. Software
3. Networks (cables, wireless and human)
4. Societal and industry comprehension
5. Democratization of technology at scale (low costs & mass adoption)
6. Moving beyond human time to digital time 

The evolutionary path to digital transformation followed a timeline that included the invention and development of the following[1]:

1. Computers & Moore’s Law
2. Memory and data storage
3. Mass adoption of PCs and laptops
4. Local Networks
5. ERPs
6. The internet
7. Mobile networks and mobile phones
8. GPS
9. Mass global adoption of wireless devices (laptops, mobile phones, tablets, smartphones, wearables, sensors)
10. Proliferation of websites and online activity
11. Rapid adoption and expansion of online and mobile databases and search
12. Rapid adoption and expansion of online marketplaces and reviews
13. Rapid adoption of online and now mobile payments
14. The transformation from physical to digital (think retail stores to e-commerce, and now m-commerce)
15. Move from paper documents to digits
16. Rapid expansion of embedded computers
17. Rapid adoption and proliferation of mobile apps and the mobile web
18. Online gaming
19. Rapid transformation from traditional marketing to digital and mobile marketing
20. Rapid addition of smartphone enabled sensors
21. Rapid evolution and adoption of online social networks, social media sites and content sharing
22. Online classified sites (e.g. Craig’s List)
23. Rapid emergence of the sharing economy (e.g. Airbnb, Uber, etc.)
24. Rapid adoption of online education services
25. Rapid adoption and expansion of online entertainment movies, TV programs and streaming music
26. Wearables
27. Cloud computing
28. Rapid emergence of cloud based platforms for everything
29. Internet of Things
30. Industrial Internet (telematics, smart grids)
31. Proliferation of analytics and reporting
32. Mobile wallets
33. Development of advanced algorithms
34. Artificial intelligence and machine learning
35. Augmented reality
36. Robotic process automation

All of these innovations and advances, and our adoption of them, changed us.  We are different consumers.  We are different employers and employees.  Our expectations increased.  We became impatient and mobile.  We became global.  We demand immediate, accurate and real-time responses.  We want personalized and contextually relevant experiences.  We want digital experiences that are beautiful, simple and elegant.  We want instant access to all products, services, news, information and friends’ status.  We want to share our lives instantly and globally.  We want to find things, buy things, move money and complete transactions from anywhere at anytime. 

All of these innovations and our resulting behavioral changes – changed commercial marketplaces and brought us to the tipping point.  Definition of tipping point: the point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more drastic change.  That drastic change today is – digital transformation.

Read more on digital transformation strategies here:

1. Digital Transformation Requires Agility and Energy Measurement
2. A Doctrine for Digital Transformation is Required
3. The Advantages of Advantage in Digital Transformation
4. Digital Transformation and Its Role in Mobility and Competition
5. Digital Transformation - A Revolution in Precision Through IoT, Analytics and Mobility
6. Competing in Digital Transformation and Mobility
7. Ambiguity and Digital Transformation
8. Digital Transformation and Mobility - Macro-Forces and Timing
9. Mobile and IoT Technologies are Inside the Curve of Human Time

 [1] Not a definitive list

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Kevin Benedict

Senior Analyst, Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant Writer, Speaker and World Traveler

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

A Digital Transformation Doctrine is Required

In my 30-years in the high tech industry I have often heard the business maxim, “Develop a business strategy first, and then find the technology to support it.” This well-worn business doctrine, I have come to believe in this age of digital transformation, is wrong and it is time to repudiate it.

Let me support my argument by first asking a few questions.  What came first e-commerce or the Internet?  What came first mobile commerce, or wireless mobile communications?  What came first the commercial airline industry or the airplane?  What came first armored knights being used as shock troops, or stirrups?  Stirrups of course!  Technology innovations have a long history of appearing first, and then doctrines evolving slowly later.  What we are learning, however, is if your outdated business doctrines are dictating the speed of your technology adoptions - you are in big trouble! The world is moving much too fast and organizations must now align the tempo of their business doctrine evolution with the pace of technology innovations and customer adoptions.

Strategy is the art of making use of time and space. I am less concerned about the latter than the former. Space we can recover, lost time never." -- Napoleon Bonaparte

Today digital transformations defined as, “Changes across an organization associated with the application of digital technologies,” are happening all around us as a result of technology innovations and fast changing consumer behaviors.  These digital transformations, welcomed or not, force new and updated business doctrines if companies are to successfully compete.

Before we move on, let’s define doctrine as, “Fundamental principles by which an organization guides their actions to accomplish their mission.”  It is a conceptual framework of knowledge and thought relevant to the environment and times.  It provides a common vocabulary for use across organizations.  It reflects an aggregated understanding of six key areas:

1. Who am I?
2. What are my objectives or missions?
3. What are my strengths and weaknesses?
4. What is the nature of my competition?
5. How do I prepare to compete?
6. What methods do I employ to compete and win?

I propose organizations today need a “digital transformation” doctrine, a DTD (digital transformation doctrine).  Without a DTD, organizations will lack a unified understanding of why they are transforming, and the role transformation plays in helping them compete successfully to achieve their overall objectives.  

Doctrine represents and codifies best practice, based on enduring principles, examples from history and validated lessons from experience and operations. An approved set of principles and methods, intended to provide organisations with a common outlook and a uniform basis for action. ~ Professor Richard Holmes, Army Doctrine Primer 

As we all know digital technologies do not just enhance and extend existing processes and models, but they open doors to all kinds of new innovations, competitors, businesses processes, strategies and even new industries.  An organization’s DTD must be capable of leading them successfully through these massive and accelerating changes.  An organization’s DTD should influence all of their strategies, how they operate and the tactics they employee to compete.  In our research, we find most companies are experiencing digital transformation, but few have a recognized doctrine to lead them on this digital transformation journey.

A useful example of a DTD is, "Ensure competitive advantages in your defined marketplaces through information dominance and by employing superior data collection, analysis and information logistics systems, which provide full situational awareness, support data-driven decision-making, automated algorithms and enable the delivery of real-time contextually relevant insights and personalized digital user experiences." ~ Kevin Benedict

Read more on digital transformation strategies here:

• The Advantages of Advantage in Digital Transformation
• Digital Transformation and Its Role in Mobility and Competition
• Digital Transformation - A Revolution in Precision Through IoT, Analytics and Mobility
• Competing in Digital Transformation and Mobility
• Ambiguity and Digital Transformation
• Digital Transformation and Mobility - Macro-Forces and Timing

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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Kevin Benedict

Senior Analyst, Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant Writer, Speaker and World Traveler

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Digital Transformation - A Revolution in Precision Through IoT, Mobility and Analytics

Fog of War

Sensors allow us to digitally monitor our physical world, and take real-time action on the data from afar.  Plant managers, in fact, can manage multiple manufacturing locations around the world in real-time via sensors and Internet connectivity.  Drone pilots in the Nevada desert; project military force by flying combat missions around the world via sensors and remote control.  Trucking companies can track and manage, via telematics, thousands of trucks, trailers and their cargo all across the country in real-time.  As automation increases due to advances in sensors, bandwidth, artificial intelligence, algorithms and machine learning - precision becomes not only possible, but also all-important.

The “fog of war” describes a chaotic and competitive environment filled with unknowns, uncertainty and imprecise data.  In a not so distant past, military leaders suffering in the "fog of war," desperately sought answers to four key questions:

1. Where are my enemies?
2. Where are my friends?
3. Where are my forces?
4. What are their strengths?

These unknowns and uncertainties impacted the strategies and tactics military leaders employed. Their focus, and many of their resources, were dedicated to defending against the unknown.  Today mobile apps, sensors and analytics are reducing the “fog of war” in many industries and markets by making more of it “known.”  How then is the revolution in precision transforming businesses and strategies today?

Many companies have not evolved from antiquated business models based on the “unknown and imprecise”, and continue to throw good money after bad by following "estimate-based" models. Sears’ reported this quarter that their sales decreased, and on-hand inventories increased.  These numbers seem to reflect an estimate-based model lacking precise market knowledge.

Many companies continue to follow old school estimate-based models and business case studies that don’t incorporate the availability of massive quantities of real-time data available today.  They have yet to change their strategies and tactics to support the new precision models.

The retailer Macy’s, is also facing a challenging quarter. In response they announced a new business strategy focusing on individual customers and personalizing their experiences (read more on personalization in Cutting Through Chaos in the Age of Mobile Me).  In the past Macy’s focused on selecting inventory and marketing to “regions,” not “individuals." Macy’s regional approach highlights the challenge many companies face exploiting precision data. Edward Deming, the father of quality improvement, once said, “The big problems are where people don't realize they have one in the first place.”  But in this case it seems Macy’s recognized the problem.

Mass marketing to regions is the antithesis of precision.  It is an “estimate-based” strategy formulated in a time when there was inprecise data.  It is not a strategy for today.

Ignoring today’s “revolution in precision” is like a manufacturer ignoring the “continuous quality improvement” (CQI) movement over the past 60 years. CQI is the process-based, data-driven approach to improving the quality of a product or service. It operates under the premise there is always room for improving operations, processes, and activities to increase quality. CQI teaches the importance of measuring everything and working with precise data to document reality and to recognize progress. The American automobile industry tried ignoring CQI for many years and suffered the consequences, while the Japanese auto industry excelled at quality. In another classic quote from Edward Deming, he said, “It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.” Taking advantage of precision is a must if surviving is in your plan.

The revolution in precision we are experiencing today is the result of our ability to precisely measure, in real-time, all kinds of new things that impact our business as a result of the Internet, mobile devices and connected sensors. These developments make precise data available from all corners of the globe in real-time. Precise data today makes traditional estimate-based business models, strategies and tactics obsolete.

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Watch my latest video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi1GJC_1Ddk&feature=youtu.be
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Kevin Benedict

Senior Analyst, Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant Writer, Speaker and World Traveler

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Competing in Digital Transformation and Mobility

The C suite must understand the battle they are fighting before they can develop and implement a winning digital transformation strategy.  The commercial battlefield is data, and the effectiveness and speed of competitors’ information logistics systems will make all the difference.  The C suite’s overall doctrine must be achieving information dominance in their target markets.  

Information, however, is trivia unless it results in correct insights, which leads to right actions at the right time.  In the book, The Principles of War for the Information Age, author Robert Leonard writes, “If I can develop and pursue my plan to defeat you faster than you can execute your plan to defeat me, then your plan is unimportant.”  It’s not the ability to collect more data faster, or analyze it faster, it is the ability to understand and act on it faster.  Businesses that can “understand and act with speed” will dominate those which are slower. 

In mobile commerce, the ability to identify the mobile app user, recognize their preferences, understand the immediate context, and then to provide a personalized and contextually relevant experience fast enough to satisfy impatient mobile consumers is the winning formula.  That is a difficult job, but offers competitive advantage opportunities!  So the question is how can I achieve those competitive advantages?

The C suite must recognize speed advantages in information logistic systems; analytics, business operational tempos and decision-making will determine the winners of tomorrow’s digital era.  Competition is now focused on optimizing information logistics systems (ILS).  ILSs are all the systems involved in John Boyd’s OODA loop (observe, orient, decide and act). They include the following tasks:

1. Collecting data
2. Transmitting data
3. Securing data
4. Normalizing data
5. Storing data
6. Analyzing and reporting on the data
7. Understanding the meaning and impact of the data
8. Driving decisions based on the meaning of the data
9. Acting on the data (manual or automated) to achieve competitive advantages

Achieving speed in the first six steps can mostly be accomplished with technology upgrades and improvements, but in order to achieve speed in steps 7-9, it requires deep thinking that is codified in algorithms supported by automation. It requires augmenting humans with artificial intelligence, sophisticated algorithm-driven intelligent process automation (robotic software processes), and machine learning. 

To achieve competitive advantages and speed in these steps requires an enterprise to move beyond “human time” and into the realm of “digital time.”  Digital time can only be achieved with the augmentation of robotic software processes that work far faster than humanly possible.  When your mobile app is accessed by millions of users and the numbers of data transactions explode, supporting those apps in real-time requires automation and augmentation, i.e. algorithms.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Digital Transformation and Mobility - Macro-Forces and Timing

Economies are changing.  Industries are changing. Markets are changing. Consumers are changing and shopping differently. As competitive advantages evolve into market standards, areas of competition move. Today we see fields of competition move to data utilization and digital transformation initiatives. When considering how your company needs to digitally transform, there are three very important questions to ask:

• How am I defining digital transformation?
• What is motivating me to digitally transform?
• Why should I digitally transform now?

As a definition for digital transformation I use - rethinking, redesigning and restructuring technology and business models to more quickly and effectively respond to and engage employees, partners and customers in digital environments.

To answer the questions about motivation, I propose there are eight key forces at work today that are motivating digital transformation:

1. Real-time mobile apps and data
2. Real-time sensor data (IoT)
3. Real-time analytics
4. Real-time situational awareness
5. Real-time business operational tempos
6. Real-time intelligent process automation  
7. Real-time contextual understanding
8. Real-time personalization of user experiences

There is an obvious theme here, “real-time.”  Real-time, as a mainstream requirement, first gained importance with the advent of the Internet and e-commerce, and then exponentially increased in importance when mobile devices connected to the Internet.  Today mobile commerce represents 34% of the global e-commerce market, but by 2018 it is expected to represent 47% and these consumers are impatient.  These consumers are mobile, and the context of their mobile searches and app usage changes second by second as they move throughout their day.  Real-time context is key to a successful user experience in this environment, and businesses with consumer facing mobile apps need to be moving toward real-time now.  That is not easy.

As competition increases and the sophistication of mobile apps grow, so also does consumer expectations.  Today mobile apps needed to be personalized in real-time, contextually relevant, and mobile payments and wallets supported.  These requirements break IT. Traditional IT environments are not meant for such speeds.  Business processes are not designed for real-time operational tempos.  Humans are not capable of scaling up to process, analyze and understand millions of data transactions daily.

As businesses recognize “real-time” requirements are not going away, and that “real-time” is mandatory to compete, they must take inventory of their existing IT environments and take the necessary steps to digitally transform.

Today’s competition takes place around data and speed.  The winners of a digital tomorrow will invest in five key areas:

1. becoming a data-driven business
2. improving the quality and speed of their information logistics systems
3. achieving real-time operational tempos
4. redesigning and rearchitecting for business agility
5. utilizing real-time contextually relevant data to personalize digital user experiences

Businesses must recognize the demand for real-time operational tempos is only going to increase and this requires strategy, action and a budget.

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Fast Tempos and Digital Transformation

“What matters most is the tempo of change.” ~ John Boyd

Few businesses would argue that data collection and analytics are not important to their current and future success.  Data can provide situational awareness, enhanced customer service and more personalized experiences.  It also supports vigilance and the ability to recognize both problems and opportunities early.  The problem, however, is not many enterprises can act on the data fast enough to matter.

In most companies, organizational structures, decision-making processes, business models and business cultures aren’t nimble enough to change at a tempo fast enough to capture competitive opportunities and respond to challenges.  In today’s world of digital transformation and fast changing mobile and online consumer behaviors (see Cutting Through Chaos in the Age of Mobile Me), businesses must be as nimble as their customers, or they risk losing market share to a nimbler competitor.

The First Law of Thermodynamics states, "energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed.”  In a business context that means if energy is being used to resist change, then it is not available for making change.  Change is difficult.  The default mode for most organizations and people is to resist change.  In order to overcome this resistance, a new reality must be created.

Companies need to transform in order to minimize resistance and reward behaviors and environments that support a fast tempo of change.  Companies that can support a fast tempo of change have a big competitive advantage, while those that can’t risk obsolescence.

The military strategist John Boyd found some fighter planes with poorer performance numbers on paper were actually better in competition because they could transition at a faster tempo.  The ability to change directions quickly trumped speed and performance.  There are lessons there for businesses.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile and IoT Technologies are Inside the Curve of Human Time

We humans have a finite speed at which we can think, analyze and make decisions.  We can only focus on a small set of data before we are overwhelmed.  When important decisions must be made, our brains need time, significant time, to weigh all the variables, pros and cons and possible outcomes in order to arrive at a good decision.  In times of high stress where making fast decisions is required, many of us don’t perform at our peak.  In addition, weak humans that we are - need sleep.  We are not always available; we require daily downtime in order to function.

Humans operate in human time, a biological time influenced by the environment and universe that we live in.  Computers, though, are not subject to these human limitations and can act on algorithms and pre-determined decision trees 24/7 in milliseconds.

Human time challenges and limitations are not going away.  As IoT sensors and mobile devices proliferate, so also does the volume of real-time data and required analysis.  Humans, already at their limit, must somehow augment their capabilities to handle the massive increases in the volume and complexity of data.  Many believe, as do I, that the competitive marketplaces of today and tomorrow will be won by those with better and faster information logistics systems.  Systems that can collect larger quantities of data, analyze and execute relevant actions faster.

The new F-35 fighter jet in the USA’s arsenal has over 24 million lines of software code running it.  Why? It requires sensors, computers and sofware just to keep it in the air. Code is required to process all the data fast enough to augment the pilot’s skills.  In addition, the F-35 comes with a $500,000 custom helmet that provides a 360-degree view of the operational environment, and displays so much data pilots have reported suffering dizziness from information overload.  We have hit the wall of human capabilities, and we are only getting started.

The late military strategist and US Air force Colonel John Boyd, taught a key advantage in air combat was to get “inside” an opponent's decision curve. That means to understand the true situation faster, and then make better decisions quicker than an opponent.  He taught that humans need a simple formula for quick thinking.  His formula was OODA (observe, orient, decide and act). He taught a continuous cycle of observing a situation, orienting or understanding it, deciding what needs to happen and then acting quickly.  He taught that competitors executing OODA cycles faster than opponents had the advantage.  The OODA quick thinking process is proven, and has now made the leap from human time to computer time via artificial intelligence.

The leap from human time to computer time has relevance in business today, especially in the age of Mobile Me, where consumer’s expectations for mobile app performances demand instant responses.   Mobile apps and real-time consumer interactions are now in the realm of the F-35.  Consumers today demand more real-time information processing, decision-making and business process execution than are humanly possible without computer and software augmentation operating beyond the limitations of human time, and into the future of computer time.

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Watch my latest video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uF2ntnskHA&feature=youtu.be.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The Role of Sensors, Real-Time BI, Big Data and Personalization in Mobile Commerce: The Report and the Video

I just completed a video that accompanies my latest research on mobile consumer behaviors, and the strategies retailers must implement.  If you design, develop or deploy customer facing apps, this content is relevant and important.


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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Human Thinking vs Technology - Digital Intrusions

In a world filled with millions of instances of hyper-stimulating digital content - thinking, learning and the development of intellectual assets suffer.  In a recent article I authored titled, It’sTime to Make Technology Disappear, I shared that technology has increasingly become a hindrance to my thinking, a distraction to thoughtful, productive work. I love technology, but it has reached the point where it has overwhelmed my senses, and I doubt I am the only one.

Thoughtful thinking, and by that I mean thinking that utilizes analysis, comparisons, judgment, creativity, planning, forecasting and imagining requires dedicated time to ponder, formulate and connect ideas and thoughts.  These activities require a mental focus void of interruptions.

I had the opportunity to manage teams of programmers for many years.  You quickly learn that quality programming requires dedicated time absent from distraction.  I read once that programmers, if interrupted, take 20 minutes to fully return to the level of mental concentration they had before interruption.  This is one of many reasons I turn off nearly all sound and visual alerts on my laptop and mobile devices.  It is hard enough focusing my own brain for long periods of time, let alone being bombarded by digital distractions. 

In our personal multi-screen lives filled with alerts, notifications, reminders, news flashes, advertisements and 24x7 communications via smartphones and social media, it is easy to lose the storyline we each want for our own lives.  Our personal storyline is our past, present and future.  It is the story we want our lives to tell.  Recognizing our past storyline, determining how we want to change, and then ensuring we are taking the necessary steps to live it, takes focused thinking and time – all things we quickly lose under the onslaught of digital glimpses and instances.

In our professional lives we often have specific and routine deliverables, plus the increasing request to help our employers innovate, create, invent and digitally transform.  Our routine deliverables and tasks often benefit greatly from technology that improves productivity (and by the way can often be done by robots), but unless we can “make technology disappear” into the background, it inhibits our human ability to think thoughtfully about important future business and digital transformation issues.  If we are to claim and protect our humanity amongst all of the digital distractions, we are going to need to figure out a way to control both our technologies and ourselves.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

It's Time for Technology to Disappear

In 2015, technology reached the tipping point for me, it moved from the efficient column, to the inefficient column, from a pro to a con, from a help to a hindrance. You can hear it in every complaint about how email messages are overwhelming our day, interfering with priorities, impacting our schedules, hurting our productivity and forcing more of us to take our work home at night and over the weekend.

In 2016, technology needs to disappear into the background, while productivity and purpose should be the siren's call. We have approximately 700,000 hours between our birth and our death. About 350,000 of those hours are spent in our careers. How many of those hours do we want to waste on poor technology experiences? I propose the following technologies must disappear, and by disappear I mean fade into the background:

1. We shouldn’t have to read through hundreds of useless email messages to find the three necessary to complete our job. Communications need to change and email must disappear behind a veil of utility and productivity.
2. We shouldn’t have to check dozens of different locations, apps and websites to communicate with our work colleagues and friends. All of these various collaboration and communication platforms need to disappear into a consolidated and efficient aggregated solution like Slack.
3. Communication technologies should disappear into the background, and the quality and utility of the message improved by technologies.
4. Email and meeting driven schedules must disappear, in favor of schedules that honor purpose and deliverables. This may mean prioritizing thinking time and mental productivity. Scientists agree that the creative parts of our minds work better at different times of the day. Those times need to be reserved, blocked and honored on schedules, to optimize their utility.
5. The requirement to develop, store and retrieve dozens of different passwords and user names must disappear. The ability to accurately authenticate a user must become more efficient and secure.
6. Trivial messages and alerts from hundreds of different sources arriving 24 hours a day must disappear. Trivial messages and an urge to immediately respond must not be allowed to negatively impact our thinking, creating, planning, sleeping, loving, relationship building, driving and the handling of dangerous equipment.
7. On-premise IT solutions, hardware and apps that serve to distract from the business, and offer no additional business value, competitive advantages or market agility must disappear into the cloud.
8. The 200+ mobile applications on my iPhone must disappear into an artificial intelligence engine (think advanced Siri) that will access their functionality and assist me even before I ask.
9. Mobile applications that are not personalized, and are not contextually relevant should disappear. I don’t care what you sell, if I am not interested, or it is not relevant to me, I don't want to see it.
10. The routine process work I do on my computer must go away. Intelligent process automation should be pushed down to individuals. An AMX mobile app should process my expenses without me. It should only alert me to exceptions, not the routine.
11. Everyone agrees that ideas, creativity and innovation are critical to the success of businesses, but technologies today are more often a hindrance than help in these efforts. Technologies and the use of technologies that hinder creativity and innovation must disappear.

In the lifecycle of technologies, there is a time when users are enthralled and distracted by the technology itself, we are there today, but these times must quickly pass and the technology must disappear into the background. In the year 2016, it should be all about making 2015’s technology disappear.  

The challenge with making technology disappear, is it is hard, time consuming and expensive.  Adding a layer of artificial intelligence, that can analyze data, understand context and personalize an experience is complex and hard, but that is how technology disappears.
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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.