6 minute read
According to MIT/Sloan research, 63% of executives revealed that the pace of technology change in their organisation was too slow. “A lack of urgency” was mentioned as a main obstacle for digital transformation. That should ring a bell, when world enters to new networked or digital economy.
Knowledge
is money
“The major technology disruptors – mobile, cloud, Big Data and the Internet of Things – have become intertwined with social workflow and communications,” said Vanessa Thompson, Research Director, Enterprise Social Networks and Collaborative Technologies at IDC. “This will continue to have a dramatic impact on the way we get work done and ultimately how we connect with employees, customers, partners, and suppliers.”
Information flow significantly increases its speed via the Internet of Things contributed by daily objects and Big Data contributed by every one of us. Therefore, all innovations and solutions are meant to ease the communication. As a reason and a result at the same, the time needed to make decisions is shortened influencing the speed of all processes.
Today’s economy, Business-to-Business working model is transforming into personalised Peer-to-Peer. Started as a collaborating platform, like Napster, it has evolved to the whole new business model. Not just one form of cooperation, but very profitable one. Namely, AirBnb, space rentals between individuals in 34,000 cities and 190 countries, or Uber, car rentals and taxi service between individuals.
It is a new Networked economy, which is extremely transparent thanks to the Internet. Companies and people feel more responsible as all their moves are visible and archived in the server (to read more about Social Responsibility rise in our article click here). Consequently, with responsibility rises the trust. Digital economy’s main processes are connection and collaboration. It is an evolved business model focused on knowledge sharing.
With the 21st century, we entered the ages, where nothing is impossible, where the line between real and virtual blurred itself withing a decade. There are just a couple of names for this change – creative or economic disruption. Totally breaking the way we used to think and to do things in order to invent innovative solutions responsive to a new digital environment.
Rule #1 Activate
All physical processes evolve into virtual. When your clients are online and you are not – you do not exist. And it is not only about clients it is about working processes overall. “Technology has impacted not only markets”, says Brian Solis in his study, “but also customer and employee behaviours, expectations, and the overall digital journey.” The processes have to become more efficient, collaborative and effective. In other words, to become digital: marketing, sales, production – basically, everything. Communication online with consumers creates a value and trust to the company, its products, and services.
“When we think about ourselves, we think about constantly innovating and staying ahead of the curve”, says Bridget Dolan, VP, Sephora innovation Lab. Sephora is a great example of a company, who haven’t missed the opportunity to digitize. Being one of the first beauty retailers[nbsp]to launch the online store, Sephora’s mobile app “Sephora to go” is recognized by L2 as a “best-in-class example of cross-platform loyalty club implementation which also incorporates omnichannel strategy.”
Rule #2 Optimize
Collect the data from your team, from the customers, from the market and you get a real time situation. Analyse data and get insight on where you can improve. The results of new a business model are remarkable: reducing the cost and the waste, optimising internal operations and logistics. Digitality improves agility, which is extremely important in a fast-changing environment. What is more, with right data-analysis you get a chance to predict and foresee the market.
Siemens implements its slogan “From Integrated Engineering to Integrated Operation – Discover the Potential of Digitalization” through full digitalization of its plant. Using integrated solutions, Siemens presents how integrating individual process steps over the entire plant lifecycle aid continuous optimisation, cost reduction and, therefore, rises company’s competitiveness. “In order to implement the Industrie 4.0 project in the process industry, we are focusing on three action fields: the digital plant, modularization and production optimization,”[nbsp]explained Eckard Eberle, CEO of the Process Automation Business Unit and stand manager of the Siemens booth. Generating the “smart data” from the Big Data, XHQ Operations Intelligence software helps its users to make well-informed[nbsp]decisions, and, thus, reduces operating costs by 8 percent. Also, Siemens[nbsp]sees new digitalization opportunities in the automation of bio processes, which takes us to the next rule.
Rule #3 Innovate
Tim Hood, SAP: “In the networked economy…Retailers must embrace the opportunities and manage the challenges in order to be successful.” That’s where things get interesting and promising to lead the market. R[&]D, talent acquisition, investing in or acquiring startup – are blessed by a Networked economy. The main idea is to be focused to create a value for society, ease its processes and maximize the impact. And here are two examples of the companies, which implemented their ideas to help companies to find each other in global digitalization world and do not stop and achieved:
Digitalised
network
The knowledge-based world stands on heads of those who can dream and create. Taking advantage of Networked economy, Ariba, an SAP company, a cloud-based business network connecting businesses all around the globe has a business network for its procurement functionality that is 1.7 million companies and transact nearly $1.92 billion in business commerce. Ariba is a great example of utilisation the possibilities given by globalisation and tech innovations. The Alibaba is another representative of effective procurement B2B services. Founded in 1999, by March 2015 site has 350 million active users and gross merchandise value of its retail marketplace with $270 billion. Both companies have no physical store and no own product, they succeed by providing the network that connects the global business community in a hub.
