This is the continuing series of special interviews appearing first here in the Canadian IT Managers (CIM) forum that are highlighted in Computing Canada’s (CC) Blogged Down (BD) editorial columns.
This week we talk with top-ranking executive, Merv Adrian, Senior Vice-President of Forrester Research. On Monday we began the interview, and profiled Merv’s rich and long history in the industry. Today I put this question to Merv:
SI: Provide your five predictions of future trends, their implications and business opportunities?
MA: TREND 1: The transformation of software applications architecture to more modular, standards-based, composition –oriented form.
Implication: The history of software has been about ever-increasing levels of abstraction, where the artifacts we create and manipulate look more like what business people understand as their business processes. This continuing evolution is creating more and more collaboration between business executives and IT, and will continue to improve that dialogue as the next generation of software is released and installed in the second half of this decade.
Business Opportunity: This transformation is resulting in the creation of business ecosystems around the major platform players such as SAP, Oracle and Microsoft. Many business markets are too small for them to go after directly, so there will be great opportunity for niche products to populate these “micro-verticals” as part of the big players’ partner programs, using services-oriented architecture (SOA) as a way to bind themselves in.
TREND 2:The growth of more sophisticated Information Workplaces that put a premium on collaboration and seamless movement from task to task.
Implication: Today’s information worker – and that group is coming to encompass more and more of the work force – spend a great deal of time in task switching, looking for people, information and resources. But the economic underpinnings of that model, which was created when computer time was expensive and people were cheap, have been blown up. Now we understand that computers should serve people, not the other way around, to maximize what is clearly the more valuable economic resource – our people. Systems will transform to leverage that.
Business Opportunity: For technology vendors – finding ways to get into that stack – RIM figured it out, for example. So did Google. Their next challenge is to keep their niche if they can while cutting deals with other people to participate in the broader stack – nobody will own it all, even if they think they have enough money today to try to.
For consumers of technology – leveraging these new capabilities to build new business models. We all remember the IBM ads about people selling olive oil worldwide out of their basements over the Net. Today’s entrepreneur may be building mashups – combining Google maps with weather news and the sporting schedule to show you whether your game tonight will be rained out. Who knows? The possibilities are endless. More concretely, training employees to use these new capabilities with just-in-time learning, role-based interactions, etc. will spawn a whole new series of creative opportunities – and will let us do more in less time. It will be another step up the productivity ladder when we harness it effectively.
TREND 3: The data flood. Although there are inevitable stumbles along the way (slower than hyped takeup of RFID, for example) the world of things is increasingly connected to the net.
Implication: Forrester calls this the Extended Internet and it has enormous implications for everyone – remote medicine, device monitoring, etc along with the more mundane logistics applications like tracking goods. But it will also create a flood of data that will impact storage, networks, analytic software, operations management, and many other areas.
Business Opportunity: all of the above are markets in IT today, and everywhere you look there are startups looking at new ideas. Solving this problem will not be easy – we’re about to be inundated with more data than we’ve ever had. Will a combination of search and analytics be the answer? Sorry to answer a question with a question – I’m as eager as anyone to see what happens next.
TREND 4: Globalization
Implication: The world continues to shrink. Products need to be internationalized, distributed, marketed and managed globally – competition can come from anywhere. For many of us in North America, this is radically new. We are much less aware of the rest of the world than, say, our European counterparts, who speak more languages, are more aware of cultural differences, and are comfortable in more places where their native language is not spoken.
Business Opportunity: Learn to be an international businessperson. At an individual level, the next generation of managers from North America needs to be much more savvy about the rest of the world than we are today. Academia and business will need to step up to provide that seasoning. And there will be a great deal of opportunity for companies that learn to service those needs. Travel companies should be playing here – it’s tough to make money in the airline business, but what if you taught your customers how to live in the wider world instead of just carrying them there, or giving them a room?
TREND 5: Environmental challenges. I could talk about several – pollution, global warming, etc. – but here’s one that’s already bubbling up: power. Hardware manufacturers from chip to system are all touting their new focus on reducing power consumption, heat dissipation, etc.
Implication: Like any other issue, many of the environmental ones, and especially power, can be tackled with engineering and information. There will be huge opportunities for companies that can find breakthroughs here, and there is a great deal of research going on that is ripe for commercialization.
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Look this week for more of Merv’s insights. On Thursday, Merv will share his thoughts on the new technologies that will have the greatest impact and he will provide his comments on Space, the Oceans, and Legacy Transformation in IT.
I also encourage you to share your thoughts here on these interviews or send me an e-mail at sibaraki@cips.ca.________________________
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Thank you,Stephen Ibaraki, FCIPS, I.S.P.