Convergence of Technologies: Crashing of the entry barriers

The globe is shrinking. Politico-economic and cultural boundaries are breaking. We are living in unprecedented times, witnessing profound changes in business, regulatory and personal lives all across the planet, driven by a never-before spread of technology, information, and information technology, at epidemic proportions. By themselves, technologies related to data/information processing and audio, visual and data communication have enough potential to dramatically change the way we live and work. Advances in data processing technologies and telemetry helped develop solutions for industrial automation, thereby improving productivity and allowing more to be done with less. Advancements in communication technologies have driven most of the planet into a state of ubiquitous connectivity ensuring high availability of communication channels from anywhere to anywhere at costs affordable even to populations of developing nations. Advancements in technologies have opened up multiple channels of communication between individuals and corporations, culminating in a huge, resilient, multi-modal network of connectivity encompassing the Internet, the wired communication network for public telephony and the wireless networks of cellular and satellite connectivity. Technology has had a huge impact on the way content is created, distributed and accessed too.

All of these technologies are converging rapidly into an inter-operable global system wherein, for example, it is possible to get connected to the Internet with the cell phone as the interface device, control and monitor business parameters remotely and reach out to millions of customers and prospects across the planet in a matter of seconds with personalized, customized messages unique to the individual's specific requirements. You can be at 30,000 ft above the surface of our planet and still be monitoring in real-time the progress of a crucial project in some remote corner of the globe.

This unprecedented availability of inexpensive (or rather cost effective) real-time, multi-modal connectivity has opened up immense opportunities for large corporations and also for small businesses. Though written off as an enthusiastic over-reaction to technology possibilities, the dot-com boom and doom towards the end of the last century certainly opened up huge possibilities of leveraging the power of round-the-clock, real-time connectivity. Despite all the back-lash and apparent writing off of the dot-com model, almost every organization worth its name has a website now, and a web-marketing strategy, which proves the inevitability of the internet as an indispensable medium. Use it wisely and there is billions of dollars worth of untapped opportunity.

The death of distance and round-the clock high-availability with rapidly dropping costs of connectivity have resulted in the collapse of the traditional entry barriers of size and scale that kept large corporations insulated from serious competition from smaller competitors. Entire industries such as BPO and Offshore IT services were spawned in fewer than two decades, bringing the hitherto developing economy of India into the limelight of the global politico-economic considerations - so much so that effect of "Offshoring" became one of the key electoral planks in the presidential elections of the world's largest economy just a few years ago.

Today, even a small manufacturer from a remote corner of, say, China or India can successfully compete and take away business from a well established, large manufacturer in one of the largest, western cities. That is the crumbling of entry barriers that I am referring to. It is important for business managers to understand the implications of technology developments and convergence on the way they conduct business, internally to the organization and externally with clients and prospects and industry influencers. They need to be aware of the potential threats too, to protect their self interests and those of their employees, clients and prospects.

Convergence of technologies is a force that is rapidly democratizing and homogenizing the planet, while adjusting to the unique language, cultural and political differences. If harnessed rightly, it has the potential to drive even small businesses with innovative ideas at exponential speeds to global successes. Large businesses with their deeper pockets and large work-forces can work wonders at much larger scales.

Time to put on your thinking caps to see how!

-- Ravi