Technology is levelling the playing fields

Cassio Dreyfuss

Speaking at the African SAP User Group's (AFSUG) biennial Saphila conference, Cassio Dreyfuss, Gartner's Research country leader for Brazil, said that the nexus of these four forces is "resetting the score" in almost every vertical industry - as new technologies allow companies of varying sizes to compete on more equal footing.

"It defines a new starting gate - the scores are back to zero," he told delegates at Sun City on the opening morning of Saphila 2014. "There's a new competition now in which we can all compete."

Recent years have seen a number of innovative companies - the likes of Facebook, Uber, Kickstarter, Google and WhatsApp - achieve massive scale in a very short space of time. All of these companies share the common trait of applying new technologies in innovative ways.

Dreyfuss believes that the opportunities for smaller players to reach scale will only increase over the coming years - as these four dominant technology forces continue to reshape the way business models are conceived.

"We will see the creation of new businesses, based on digital assets. We'll see unprecedented combinations of these technologies to create new experiences, and new ways of doing things," he explained.

Social change

Our understanding of social media and social principles is rapidly maturing, noted Dreyfuss. "Social tools and communities fundamentally change the way the people interact - in business practices, in our personal lives, and within broader communities."

Social media opens up possibilities to reach customers and partners in new ways, but more importantly it brings customers closer to us - to participate in our processes and create new ways of serving their needs.

Dreyfuss highlighted the importance of focusing on a specific business-oriented social strategy that is tightly connected to the organisation's business intelligence and collaboration practices. Having social as a stand-alone, isolated silo, will not lead to true transformation, he advised.

While users are becoming more and more social, they also have high expectations in terms of connectivity and mobility. The new paradigm in which we live, he noted, is one where "whatever you need to know, should flow to wherever you are".

This kind of context-aware, anytime, anywhere delivery of information means that the mobile device of today essentially becomes "an extension of our brains, and of our senses."

Digital leaders within organisations need to work with business owners and stakeholders - and develop new perspectives that show the potential of mobility in enhancing client experiences and capitalising on the features inherent in modern smart devices.

The four Vs

Big data describes the changing nature of information, and the changing ways in which we are using it. Known as the "four Vs", data is exponentially growing in volume, velocity, variety, and value.

In the past, enterprises would collect information, scrub it, discard some, and label the rest in case there is a future need to access it. Now, it is the other way around, explained Dreyfuss, where a business stakeholder may have a request, and the information needs to dynamically morph into the right format to address each specific need.

In a country like South Africa, with such incredible diversity of people and culture, big data presents unprecedented opportunities for organisations to truly understand their customers. "It allows us to capture and access a wealth of new information about people," he said.

Finally, cloud computing will undoubtedly become "the preferred way in which companies buy technology," said Dreyfuss. While there are still some hurdles to overcome (such as connectivity in many areas of the world, and security concerns), cloud-based delivery models will transform the way that enterprise IT services are procured and consumed.

Ultimately, Gartner foresees a scenario where all large enterprises have some of their own technology at the core - located in a private cloud - combined with an outer ring of public cloud services.

"For smaller companies that don't have the resources to create their own IT organisations, they can now easily buy packages of IT services," he added, noting that this allows them to become more competitive and access enterprise-grade services at reasonable cost.

While these game-changing technologies create wonderful opportunities for South African companies to challenge global leaders, Dreyfuss warned that by failing to embrace "intense digitalisation", a new chasm may start to emerge - separating emerging economies like South Africa, from the First World.

"The digital revolution is recent, and there are no clear winners yet - not in any industry," he said, emphasising the importance of digital leadership within local enterprises.

He advised organisations to assess the impact of the nexus of forces, craft their own "digital story" and ensure that everyone in the team is on board for the journey, and then develop an IT organisation that is opportunistic, flexible and capable of transforming the business to compete in this new era.