Strategic advice to leverage new technologies

This wave of digitization is fundamentally rewriting the rules of competition across industries: the charac­teristics that made firms successful in the past are not the same characteristics that distinguish winners from losers in the digital era. One of these fundamental changes is the steadily increasing importance of innovation and continuous improvement. Research shows that the more digital an industry becomes, the more rapid the speed of change in the industry. There is no such thing as a sustained competitive advantage in the digital era. However, digitization does not only create challenges for actors in affected industries. Digitization in itself also provides the keys to tackling the changing competitive dynamics. Because most firms still do not leverage the opportunities, the quickest ones to learn how to exploit them will be the ones that come out on top. 

The business value of consumer analytics and big data is not just about what you can discover or infer about the consumer, but how you can use this insight promptly and effectively across multiple touchpoints (including e-commerce systems and CRM) to create a powerful and truly personalized consumer experience. In this article, I will explore how the concept of information superiority interacts with the concept of customer centricity. I will look at three modes of information superiority: conventional, adaptive, and collaborative. 

“Digital capital” is a newer phrase and a newer concept. Obviously, it includes tangible assets like hardware and software that show up on balance sheets, but in today’s environment, it can and should include so much more — if not explicitly on a GAAP-approved balance sheet, then at least in how we think about investments. I would suggest that information be cited very explicitly as digital capital, but not just any information. 

It is a common belief that big data and real-time data analytics help organizations to improve their compet­itiveness. Indeed, studies and publications tend to present examples of successful application of big data technologies in companies. There is much less emphasis on companies that have encountered difficulties in adapting big data solutions. The goal of this article is to identify the necessary conditions for gaining business value from data. I argue that neither data itself nor advanced analytical tools produce meaningful value. The key issue is to connect data analysis with a specific business context and to do it quickly. I conclude the article with a model that identifies the big data capa­bilities needed to achieve this goal.

In this issue of Cutter Business Technology Journal, we have asked our authors to share their thoughts related to two concepts: information superiority and digital capital. Our assumption was that these concepts are particularly relevant to business leaders, who are right to believe that “digital” and “hypercompetition” are the “new normal” in business. 

In this Executive Update, we examine how three different IT groups used data virtualization for purposes other than supporting user queries to deliver significant benefits to their organizations.

One major obstacle to business agility and innovation is technology debt (TD). TD obstacles manifest themselves as non-IT executives complain that “we can’t launch this new product/service as our IT systems will not allow us to.” From an IT standpoint, the inability of existing IT systems to support the proposed new product/service launch is a result of past technology “workarounds” that were implemented to meet an accelerated timeline or reduced budget.

In this on-demand webinar, you'll discover the strategic and tactical opportunities made possible by Digital Data Streams and the opportunities for improved customer experience made possible by DDS.