04
magazine
businessinfomag.uk
The world is being shaped by a dozen
‘megashifts’ that business leaders will need
to get to grips with if their organisations
are to survive and prosper in the future. So
claims futurologist Gerd Leonhard ranked by
Wired
magazine as one of the top 100 most
influential people in Europe (2015).
Unlike paradigm shifts, which usually affect
only one sphere of human activity, Leonhard says
Megashifts arrive suddenly and transform the basis
and framework of entire industries and societies.
In his new book
Technology vs.
Humanity
, he identifies 12 megashifts
that are rapidly changing business,
society and culture. These include:
Digitisation:
everything that can
will become digital. Digitisation means
much lower costs for consumers yet
also a mad scramble for new business
models because distribution or access is
no longer an issue.
Mobilisation:
everything is
becoming mobile and, soon, wearable or ‘hearable’.
Computing is becoming invisible and omnipresent.
Screenification:
everything that used to be
physical or printed is now available on screens.
Disintermediation:
middlemen are suffering
because technology increasingly makes it feasible
to go direct. Examples include record labels
(musicians now launch their careers via YouTube)
and consumer banking, where millennials
increasingly use mobile platforms and apps to
make payments and organise their finances.
Datafication:
much of what used to happen
face-to-face is now being turned into data, e.g.
electronic medical records vs. talking to the
doctor, or the grocery delivery service that tracks
all its products.
Intelligisation:
everything that used to be
dumb is now becoming connected and intelligent,
such as gas pipelines, farms, cars, shipping
containers, traffic lights etc.. This flood of data
will give us a vastly different way of seeing and
directing the world.
Automation:
the result of smart machines
will be widespread technological unemployment.
Everything that can be automated will be.
Virtualisation:
we no longer rely only
on physical things in a room but on an
instance in the cloud, e.g. software defined
networking instead of local routers.
Augmentation:
humans can
increasingly use technology to augment
themselves. Examples include a smart
watch, Augmented and Virtual Reality,
Intelligent Digital Assistants and (sooner
or later) Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs)
and implants.
Anticipation:
software (IA/AI) can now
anticipate and predict our behaviour, changing the
way maps, email and online collaboration work.
Robotisation:
many white-collar jobs will
soon be done by robots. Robots are entering our
daily lives and homes.
Dehumanisation:
taking humans out of the
equation by cutting a complex task to its bare
bones and giving it to machines.
Technology vs. Humanity
is part the
FutureScapes series of books from Fast Future
Publishing.
fastfuturepublishing.com
agenda
Business world being
shaped by 12 ‘megashifts’
FreeWiFi not free after all
Mobile connectivity costs North
American and European businesses
at least £2.19 billion per year, when
direct and indirect costs relating to
mobile connectivity through cellular
roaming, pay-on-demandWiFi and
freeWiFi are taken into account,
claims iPass.
In its new report,
Mobile
Connectivity Cost Index 2016
, the global
mobile connectivity provider argues that
even ‘freeWiFi’ has a cost. It calculates
that the combined loss in productivity
from slow freeWiFi and the time mobile
professionals spend seeking out and
signing up to freeWiFi services can cost
anywhere between £578 and £874 per
mobile professional, per month.
Patricia Hume, chief commercial
officer at iPass, said: “The direct and
indirect costs of keeping mobile
professionals connected are more than
many businesses realise, highlighting
the need for businesses to have
greater visibility into their employees’
data usage. Cost-effective and secure
connectivity is paramount, yet free
WiFi does not provide the simplicity
and convenience that today’s mobile
professionals require.”
Patricia Hume
Gerd Leonhard
