Kathy Gibson reports from Dell Innovation Day in Copenhagen – Technology is the cornerstone of innovation, and plays a key role in unlocking the potential of millions of people around the globe.
“Innovation takes many forms,” says John Swainson, president of Dell Software. “There is innovation around logistics, business models and social innovation these all come together to create the society of the future.
“But we believe that technology is underlying all of them. Technology is the catalyst that is fuelling a change in the way we are thinking about the world, the way we work and the way we communicate.
“Innovation is likely the way we will unlock the human potential of billions of people – and technology is at the core of that.”
He says Dell taps into innovation with its 8 000 engineers coming up with new ideas that can be turned into the technology that underpins the solutions that customers can use to unlock their own potential.
“Technology has changed our world in the last decade,” Swainson says. “In the past we talked about IT, about the automation of current business processes. Now we are talking about new ways of delivering almost every product and services in ways that are faster and more responsive to the needs of customers.”
He points out that, in the 1970s, technology was expensive and limited, used largely to automate the back office. In the 1980s, the PC became pervasive and was used to automate front-office processes. In the 1990s, the Internet opened up businesses to e-commerce.
Then, in the 2000s, social media connected all customers, and smart devices were introduced to drive mobile commerce. And, in the 2010s, the Internet of Things is being used to connect all assets.
“What is fascinating about this transition is that we have moved from doing existing processes better to doing new processes that we could never have imagined before,” says Swainson. “The ability to rethink business models gives us incredible opportunities to do things we could never do before.”
To be innovative, companies have to think about technology as enabling the business, rather than just being in the back office, he adds.
“So there is a re-education of people going on in the business world. There is also a new influx of people coming into the business: the so-called millennials don’t have to learn about technology – they have an incredible advantage. Dell is trying to take advantage of these people, bringing them into the business to re-imagine how business can be done.
“Companies can only be as innovative as their understanding of technology and what it can do for them.”
As an example, he says, companies need to take advantage of all the sensors throughout the business and connect them together.
“The price of technology has come down dramatically – something like 60-times over the last few years – while the reliability of high speed communications has gone up,” says Swainson. “But connecting everything does no good unless you can manage and secure all the devices; and process the information at a point. You have got to figure out what the important data is, bring it forward, do in-place analytics and improve the process.
“So we need to connect the devices, also create new business insights by knowing exactly what’s going on.”
Swainson says Dell believes there are four enablers to this new business model. These are the data centre itself and its move to convergence, virtualisation and cloud computing; the notion of connecting people for better productivity; the explosion of the data available and our ability to make productive use of that data; and protecting the data, devices and people.
“These are the areas we are focusing our innovation dollars,” he says. “And our customers need to start planning how they will use technology in the future.”