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Microsoft
How Big Data Will Change Your Sales' Departments More Than Your IT One?
The borders between industries are already fading. Manufacturers–say, car maker –have been using and integrating software for a while, as have banks and retailers. However, in the past decades, the gains came mostly in the form of internal efficiencies and product innovation.Over the coming years, big data analysis has the potential to bring external benefits, improving the way companies interact with their customers, and their very business model.
Public and private marketplaces will enable companies to package their processes and knowledge, if they so choose, for re-sale or sharing. In other words, we can expect businesses to shift from being technology users to technology providers - a transformation somewhat similar to what many businesses saw in the ‘80s.
Public and private marketplaces will enable companies to package their own processes and knowledge, if they so choose, for re-sale or sharing
Healthcare or manufacturing groups may start to sell their coded processes in the form of industry applications; education firms and retailers may offer aggregate trend data on student or buyer behavior. For the new digital companies, this will be a change in business model.
Once that happens, competitiveness will likely hinge on the ability to combine different processes and insights effectively, build and maintain trust, and act with local relevance. Older sources of competitive advantage will likely lose relevance. Instead, companies will probably thrive either when operating at large scale, or at the far end of the long tail of specialization.
The result may well be comparable to the evolution we see today in the financial and medical fields, where personal information has to be safeguarded but raw data, risk ratings, and even credit ratings can and often must be shared. As in the case of drones and self-driving cars, it is likely that ethical questions will arise. The legal framework will also have to be adjusted, and industry associations will have a vital role to play to ensure it does so in a way that preserves ethics while supporting the changes.
Business will also have to restructure from within. Relying on data could transform the way products and services are designed, with the potential for smaller, more frequent adjustments. This could mean less reliance on board-level decisions and more delegation to the front lines. Other areas, such as customer support and marketing, will also shift towards either more centralization– where the data is analyzed–or more de-centralization–where it is available. Different companies may explore shifting in either direction.
It is possible that our approach to risk management will also be revisited and systemic risk –anything from labor safety in construction to financial solvency in insurance –becomes more codified. This may be beneficial overall, but increase the risk of “black swans,” so strong checks and balances will be needed both at company and industry level.
Needless to say, safety will continue to be key– security, privacy, compliance, and transparency, among others. In this context, ledger technology and its successors are likely to increase in relevance.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is a leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to realize their full potential.
