New South Australian Early Commercialisation Fund (SAECF)
On Friday the State Government announce the re-branding and relaunch of a $10M venture South Australian Early Commercialisation Fund (SAECF)
It’s the End of the world as we know it! (Not a US election post)
It’s the end of the world as we know it! (Not a US election story)
A confluence of events is going to fundamentally change the way IT products and services are consumed by business and the people who deliver it over the next 18 months.
The half life of technology has been decreasing at such a rapid rate that now one can expect a fundamental change in technology, and, therefore business delivery not once in one’s lifetime nor even once in ones career but even across one job. By way of example the fastest method of transmitting a wri tten document for business purposes was for 350 years by mail, then by telegraph 150 years then by Telex for 60, them by fax for 30 then by email 15 and now instant messaging and groupware make the underlying technology moot.
The delivery of IT infrastructure, once the domain of engineers and knowledgeable IT types putting tin on the ground, has now moved to a service delivery model where it is no longer a technological decision but a business decision based mostly on access levels and service level agreements. This year sees the launch of various desktop as a service initiatives which I would argue means within 18 months there will not be an IT decision that can’t be framed solely as a business decision around cost versus service levels. We are now used yo buying Software as a Service (Saas) and even Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas). The Australian government now even certifies various cloud based infrastructure for use by government agencies. To make this move to everything as a service (EaaS) complete Microsoft Continuum, by the time version 3 is released, will make the movement of desktop work-loads between local devices and the cloud-based infrastructure totally seamless and invisible to users.
Thirdly, there has been a fundamental change in the way business to business commerce is conducted and a change in the sales cycle. Whereas historically the sales cycle and flow of information has been controlled by the seller, now it is usual for a buyer to have 80% of the information they need prior to contacting any seller. This means to be successful, sellers now need to be top of mind to a potential buyer before they have any idea that a selling cycle has commenced. This has led to the rise in importance of social media channels, event-based marketing and most importantly (although sometimes overlooked) the ability of organisations and the people in them to generate long-standing mutually beneficial relationships as the keys to sales success. Greater success will come to those who have the best sales automation and relationship management.
Fourthly, we have the continued vertical integration, by all the major vendors, so that all the usual line of business applications are available in one stack, in the cloud, sold as a service. Whether its office productivity, groupware, customer management, accounting and resource management, project management and planning, an enterprises entire data set and operations are available with the scale and convenience never before seen.
This integration becomes important when we examine the next factor, which is the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning to the lines of business in this vertically integrated stack. Already a couple of the major CRM vendors provide the option to apply machine learning tools that will suggest on sells for particular customers based on observed usage patterns. The real advantages will come into play as increasing amounts of data become available in each IT vendor is stack. We will see continued consolidation until there are only three or four major players in the game, as a vital path to success will be the capture and analysis of as much data as possible.
What does this all mean when looked at as a whole? Businesses will be looking to purchase their line of business applications in a flexible as needs basis, able to scale up and down as short-term and long-term business cycles dictate, that they will not be tied to any technology or set of technologies and that greater success will come to those businesses that can apply automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning across their business operations and business data.
For example enterprises that rely say on a legacy CRM system on a piece of hardware under the accountants desk will be no match for an equally sized company that has three users all using cloud-based solutions, that automates social media marketing by looking at clues in potential customers social media feeds, targets them for an event invitation, then using business intelligence gained across the whole sector and available through the cloud-based CRM is able to target a phone call at the precise time that the customer is most open to making a buying decision, with a list of subjects that should be talked about.
The launch of Microsoft dynamics 365 Suite in November this year makes this scenario inevitable for most businesses within 18 months. Other vendor’s will be following quickly with their own integrated vertical stacks of line of business applications backed by machine learning and artificial intelligence as those who don’t will not be able to offer value to client bases they may have dominated for the last 30 years.
To me this makes inevitable the demise of the standalone IT consultant and consultancy businesses. What are now IT decisions or cost centre decisions will simply be a business decision based on a set of contracted services against service availability against price. Technical considerations will be at least two or three levels beyond end-user customers, mainly be made by people who run data centres and applications in them. The IT guy or gal for most businesses will now be the business analyst and relationship guy or gal and where not organic to a business will probably be part of a full-service consultancy based around an accountancy practice. The implications for both the IT industry accountancy practices, and management consulting firms are both huge and fast approaching at a rate that many will not believe until they are overrun. We are in a game of musical chairs as various IT vendor’s align themselves with various line of business applications to provide complete stacks to their customers and is single service IT companies and accounting practices start seeking partnerships with each other. You wouldn’t want to be the one left standing with orphan line of business applications or being a single service practitioner when the music stops.
It is the end of the world as we know it. I’m lucky enough to have a foot in both the tech and business camps, so as the song says, I feel fine but I do think the rapid acceleration of the rate of change in the way technology is applied to business is going to leave a lot of people gasping.
What do you think?
The End is Near – well not quite.
Do you want to come live, work and or invest in a place that has a climate like southern California, 27km of unbroken white sand beach, three world class wine regions within and hour and a bit drive, where a bad rush hour lasts 20 minutes and the airport is 10 minutes away from downtown?
How about a region that is in Lonely Planet Guides to 5 regions in he world? Lets throw in the worlds second largest Fringe Festival, (and the huge Festival and arts culture that goes with it) and a spirit of innovation and inventiveness that has brought you WiFi, the photocopier, the Black Box flight recorders, Wine in a box and Sunscreen amongst many other things.
If any of this is of interest to you right now – just ask me how!!! PS. We have universal healthcare and a thriving capitalist market based economy too.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-25/lonely-planet-ranks-sa-in-top-5-regions-in-the-world/7964920
http://www.migration.sa.gov.au/