Nobody can doubt that technology has become the platform on which business runs, and thus that business executives are watching technology trends with increasing attention. But it’s important to see the trends in context – often the real business benefits area realised when multiple trends are harnessed at once.
“Technology is truly greater than the sum of its parts, so you have to look for a nexus, a place at which multiple trends converge, creating considerable opportunity,” says Nicolette Carvalho, who manages Barnstone’s SAP Managed Mobility Division. “Today, for example, three technology trends – the Internet of Things, big data/ data analytics and cloud computing – are making news, but it’s only when you add mobility to the mix that you see how to pull them together and really start to maximise business benefit.”
Big data, of course, refers to the growing torrent of data generated by the online world – a torrent that is burgeoning as technology is integrated into our lives via social media, and more and more machines are fitted with sensors. This so-called Internet of Things means that everything, from your fridge or heating system to the equipment on an assembly line or the goods in a truck, is feeding data via the Internet to various systems.
More and more, this communication is becoming two-way, so that’s possible to shut off a machine before it malfunctions or reset a burglar alarm.
All of this data is just that – pure data – and basically useless because there is just so much of it. Data analytics is the response: increasingly powerful software programs designed to extract meaning, thus providing businesses with insights that will help them make better decisions.
The thing about all this data is that it’s unstructured (that is, not stored in nice, neat databases) and it’s being generated in unprecedented volumes and at huge velocity. One article on www.bbc.com quotes an IBM figure of 2,5-billion Gb of data generated per day during 2012.
Processing these amounts of data takes massive computing power, and that’s where the cloud comes in. This new model means that companies don’t have to purchase and maintain the necessary hardware and software; they can effectively rent it from service providers like Amazon or Microsoft as needed. The cloud model also makes all that insight available anywhere, anytime—something that’s of particular relevance when it comes to mobility.
All of these are big news in themselves, but it’s the huge growth in mobile technologies that make them game-changers for business. The simple truth is that humanity as a whole has embraced the mobile phone (and its spinoffs like tablets) with fervour. It’s virtually impossible to imagine living without a mobile device, and even the poorest of the poor find a way to have one. It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that, increasingly, people regard their mobile devices as extensions of their own bodies.
This deep penetration into the fabric of social life has inevitably led to the use of personal mobile devices in business – the “bring your own device” phenomenon. Initially, some businesses tried to control this, but most have capitulated and are finding ways to manage these “foreign” devices within the corporate environment. They are doing so because the productivity benefits are so compelling.
“It’s been estimated that the average employee spends only about a quarter of the work day actually doing what he or she was employed to do – the rest of the time is spent travelling, or doing general admin,” Carvalho says. “Giving employees the ability to access corporate data and work on their mobile devices can increase productivity significantly. In other words, mobility enables a business to make all the benefits of the three trends available to employees wherever they are – more importantly, where the customers are. That’s when a business really starts to see results.”
