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The speed of technology advancement is driving the evolution of your business. Turn the challenges into important competitive opportunities. Anticipate and apply the new technologies in a smart way. The perspective of Montserrat Corominas. The whole world is in a continually escalating technology race.
This race of technology is apparent in how it took 30 years for electricity and 25 years for telephones to reach 10 percent adoption but less than 5 years for tablet devices to achieve the 10 percent rate. Digging into this race, there are four overlapping trends that affect the global marketplace:
MARKET ENTRY IS
GETTING EASIER
The speed of technology provides opportunities in markets that were not previously accessible. For example, the cost of entry was too high, sensors too expensive, the communication links were not reliable, infrastructure investment was required, etc.
The advent of cloud technologies and mobile computing allows entrepreneurs and customers to spend their time wisely and work anytime, anywhere.
ENTIRELY NEW
DISRUPTIVE MARKETS
The speed of technology also enables development in markets that did not previously exist such as wearables, e-Health, even sneakers. This year the wearable industry is set to hit $14 billion and forecasts indicate that the industry will be worth $34 billion by 2020.
DATA TRAVEL AT THE
SPEED OF TRUST
Understanding how to empower the customer, enriching his or her experience and jointly developing and improving services are key. Even if there are data concerns, they can be overcome with trust. Customers are willing to provide data when they use a trusted service.
NEW DIGITAL SKILL-SETS AND ATTITUDES
New technology requires human capital skills that constantly need updating to keep up with the challenge of newly required skill-sets. In addition, in this new age of customer empowerment, there are new service business practices and attitudes, which require companies to adapt their existing processes faster than ever before.
Ensure that your company takes advantage of events and training to enhance your team’s knowledge. The learning that events provide will help your business to stay on top of trends so that you are poised to benefit from the opportunities that arise. A great example is the New Mobility World event, which focuses on the industries of smart cities, transportation and logistics.
Even the basics of agriculture is not immune, and we are becoming independent from mankind’s first role, advancing yet again into a new era. Spread, a Japanese company, has started a new project in which only half of the workers will be human: a lettuce farm operated by robots.
No industry is immune from the speed of technology advancement.
