The long list of technology changes can be a large challenge for any organization. Like NFT, Stablecoin/CBDC, there are pressing new technology evolution happening at a pace more than we all can keep up with even in the software industry. Slow government policies are being accelerated to adapt to the changing times. The NFT and CBDC are very much in, next year or two, list of actions to implement for many domains. For all organizations in any domain, the timelines for change can be split into:
(Each link in Bold Blue has relevant content in depth explained. Do click through for a comprehensive reading)
Strategic Plan: Consider a blueprint for the next 5 years looking at the entire landscape of technologies, sustainability, social changes. A plan that stretches its impact to the decade ahead and is flexible enough to pivot through the 5 years ahead. This will evolve iteratively and agile over the years ahead. Shortlist and prioritize what is relevant for the organization, your customers and outlook for the commodity scale of the technologies in the 5 – 10 years ahead:
Implementation Plan: The urgency for transformation has been on our table for the last 3+ years, the next 3 years have to be spelt out in more concrete milestone based roadmap. Each quarter has an impactful measure, metric and incremental technology adoption. The discrete chunks of change that add up to the complete transformation in 3 years.
- Subset of the technologies shortlisted in the strategic plan
- Specifics of how to adopt, milestones to completion, cost/effort estimates, budget allocations
- Rationalize organizational targets and focus all effort on core competencies
- Build a technology vertical directly reporting to the CEO and CEO is the sponsor, deeply committed to the tech transformation
90 Days Quad Plan: The 90-day cycles, for the year ahead are more detailed action plan with repercussions rippling over HR reorganizations for the technology vertical, initiating the rationalizing of hierarchies, adopting meaningful structures viz: The helix organization. Technology roll outs that are more urgent extended actions to goals and tasks laid out 3 years back. Every year revisit the strategic, implementation plans and pivot the immediate year ahead: 4 quarter plans.
If we look at the trends of the past decade and more specifically the 3 years from 2018, the most relevant are the technologies of AI/ML , blockchain, connected devices in various stages of the hype cycle. They have come around to maturing in various degrees now. All of the technologies post Covid are now to adopt the basic underlying “Cloud Infrastructure“, whether it is the commercial cloud, or proprietary if the unit is as big as Google, Apple, Facebook are.
They should revolve around the concrete roadmap, identifying and rolling out actions across the top 3. This is well spelt out in this linked article by Prof Bhaskar Krishnamachari.
Many fintech startups are already on this journey and it is for the large industries and other organizations to pivot faster to these 3 technologies with infrastructure on the cloud that is now given and foundational.
- AI Factory Or ML Operations:
It is now time for the AI factory and ML Ops. Centralize and drive the scale of adoption to 100s or 1000s of ideas materialized in a centralized AI services system. Personalization of AI predictions at all scales, ranging from regional, product centric, customer specific will be iterative over the years and decades ahead.
- Blockchain :
Now it has flattened out from the hype peak and is more rational for adoption of blockchain technologies in the essence of its capabilities. Be ruthless in analyzing what is really relevant, there is no more time and money for hype in the next 5 years ahead.
- Cloud / Connected Devices:
Almost all organizations bar few like Google, Apple, Facebook or others including the new fintechs are still in various stages of the cloud transformation. Covid has brought in the urgency to the now, for a complete transformation in the next year to 3 ahead.
Prioritize Cloud Migration over everything else if this foundation is not fully laid. Everything is highly dependent on this fundamental bedrock of infrastructure. Ensure over the hybrid cloud strategy there is a strong governance plan for High Availability alternative options. The human ability to recover from a failure is not going to scale and we do want the minimal interruption to services. For most organizations a disruption like Facebook’s outage can simply lead to closure of business.
Technology choices in Cloud is also evolving at a rapid pace. Containers too are getting standardized and based on platform the choices are spreading.
In the move to Cloud revisit all unplanned downtime factors are governed and backups are in place as per the risk matrix for the events and budget allocations. Finance is going to be the limiting factor but should be offset by the potential disruption risk the event can have.
Sustainability and Social Concerns
Green finance, fuels, low carbon footprint is essential for all organizations globally, as together we can survive else the folly of substantial few will ensure destruction for all. Some of the tech and processes are more than a decade old, we just need to implement, create scale for economies to kick in for easier implementation. Another decade or two ahead of this wanton destruction of earth, will leave it beyond repair.
While most industries have already adopted or are considering various measures for sustainability, social responsibility still seems to be less than optimal through Corporate Social Responsibility drives. There has to be more meaningful depth and drive to both these directions.
UN Sustainability Goals by themselves provide a wonderful template, perhaps its time for all organizations of all scales to seriously consider pivoting to social driven ventures, not just profit centers. Social responsibility towards their employees, increasing employee base or enabling entrepreneurs @ scale under their umbrella. Gig economy or any structure that makes the ecosystem sustainable, every remote region of the globe prosper. If there is a huge disparity between have and have nots, the percentage of have nots already highly skewed can cause a tremendous risk to global stability. Social strife and unrest in many areas of the globe will eventually envelope the world and spare none.
Appendix
Musings on Technology, Banking, Lending and Urban Chaos 