The dawn of the thin enterprise
In my role I get involved in lots of client discussions.
People look at me to bring ideas to life that help tackle the disruptive
challenges on their horizons. In supporting this we’ve created ‘The Future
Enterprise’ a view of what an enterprise, city or government department will
look like in five to ten years’ time. This explores the business drivers,
technology enablers and the things to think about to prepare for the future.
One of the themes called out is the Dawn of the Thin
enterprise. This effectively represents
the movement of an organisation to focus on the core value proposition or sticking
to your knitting. It explores what an
organisation will look like if it outsources, crowdsources, open sources and
digitises all of its non-core activities.
In this world digital will be the primary transaction
channel, leading to more automation and targeted business process outsourcing.
A place where robotic process automation will be widely used to replace
repetitive tasks performed by humans and where many enterprises move their non-differentiated
development to Open Source.
Going back to your youth
But how do you actually do this and what do you need to be
in place? A component for this is the socket to which these blocks can be
plugged. It’s very much like the digital equivalent of the Lego blocks we all used
to play with. In the digital domain these are known as APIs or Application
Program Interfaces. A set of routines,
protocols, and tools for building software applications. Once common API standards
are in place there is huge potential for the development of useful apps.
Thinking about the skills necessary to take advantage of
this transformative power I’m inspired by the likes of Calvin Harris and Avicii,
DJs who can mix and blend numerous channels simultaneously, monitor music via a
laptop dashboard, and respond to audience (customer) requests on the fly. They
crowdsource energy and channel it leaving fans wanting more.
Reinvention versus
invention
Top DJs can take home more than the musicians whose content they
are reinventing. The ability to take the available digital building blocks or
APIs and quickly plug them together in a mix and match manner is powerful and highly
valuable.
Add this capability, to the impact of Ray Kurzwell’s Singularity
Theory and Moore’s Law and you have an incredibly powerful transformative moment. We have a scenario that applications and
products that a year ago weren’t economically feasible are now perfectly doable.
APIs are everywhere. They are physical and virtual, hardware
and software. We can wear them, implant them and plug into them. They are
fuelled by data. See my recent Big
Bang Data Post.
APIs are the path to digital transformation and the thin
enterprise. How are you remixing them?
