This continues a series of columns from practitioners I
respect. The category "Real Deal" describes them well.
This time it is Ben Pring who co-leads
Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work. He joined Cognizant after
spending 15 years with Gartner as a senior industry analyst researching
and advising on areas such as cloud
computing and global sourcing.
"What one key characteristic
separates today’s high-flying outperformers– such as Apple, Google, Amazon,
Netflix and Pandora – from fast-followers, wannabes, and laggards? It’s a
precision focus on the information that surrounds people, organizations,
products and processes – what we call Code
HalosTM – to build new business and commercial models. These
leading companies have realized that the data – or Code Halo –that accompanies
people, organizations and devices contains a richness of business insight that
far outstrips the value of physical assets that have historically underpinned market
leadership. Conversely, companies that have missed or misunderstood the Code
Halo phenomena are now struggling to cope in markets that are moving at warp
speed; some, in fact, have already succumbed.
We are in the early stages of an
exciting and important new era in which Code Halos radically reshape the rules
of business competition. Built on the SMAC StackTM (social + mobile
+ analytics + cloud technologies), Code Halos are being harnessed to help
enterprises advance from old-world industrial models
(premised on physical assets) to new structures informed by digits. Our study
of Code Halos, in fact, reveals a new “crossroads” that businesses across
industry must navigate to achieve sustained market prosperity and avoid what we
call an “extinction event.”
From Personal to Business Code
Halos
Each one of us is creating our
Code Halo with every click or swipe of our phone, tablet, laptop, Glass, Nest,
FuelBand, dashboard, or other smart device. Every transaction we make, every
“like” we record, every preference we note, is building a digital fingerprint
of who we are and what makes us tick. Our Code Halos, which have been building
and deepening as more and more of our lives have become digitized,contain a
multiplicity of attributes that reveal our likes, dislikes and behaviors, from
recommendations of great new
books to personalized radio stations that
play our favorite songs, many of which haven’t left their CD cases for a
million years.
The Code Halos that exist
around individuals are unlocking incredible new value for all of us and for the
companies that we do business with. But
the Code Halo story doesn’t end in the consumer world. More and more smart
companies are realizing that the concept of Code Halos isn’t confined to
(relatively) simple B2C activities,such as book selling or online music.
Instead, they’re recognizing that their
very organizations have a Code Halo and that within their organizations
they have hundreds, thousands, millions of Code Halos, made up of every digital
interaction with every smart device they touch across “the Internet of
Things” (all of which of course have their own Code Halos).
This realization is sending
profound shock waves through board rooms, as forward-thinking business and
technology leaders begin to seethe impact that the management – or
mismanagement of Code Halos – has on corporate fates. In fact, many are now
coming to grips with Code Halo intersections and how they can impact every
meaningful aspect of their business operations, from design, to production, to
selling, to talent management.
Winning in the New Code Rush
Whether it be the hipster in San
Francisco using Square
Wallet on his morning latte run
or the engineering conglomerate getting its turbines to Tweet or
the Singaporean government establishing its homeland as a “living analytics” test
bed, the leverage of Code Halo thinking is making businesses big and small
think about how the code they generate can collide with the code generated by
other people, devices, and organizations. And, perhaps more importantly,how
this datacan be mined to create new products and services that are genuinely
innovative.
Over the next three weeks we’ll
be outlining additional examples of how Code Halos are changing business and
commerce. We will also dive deeper intothose “Code Rules” we think are essential
for ensuring enterprises win at the new code rush that is now taking form.
To learn more about Code Halos,
download our white paper at unevenlydistributed.com "
Ben can be reached at Ben DOT Pring AT cognizant DOT com
The Growing Chasm
I recently saw a comment by Dennis Howlett “It’s a slow week for software news”. What he meant was there was no major vendor event.
Way too much of tech news, analysis, blogs originates from tech events – SapphireNow, HP Discover, Google I/O, Apple product launches etc.
90% of the year, we leave vendors alone as if they are not doing much of substance.
But an even bigger blind spot is around technology projects at customer sites.
As I conduct interviews for the next book project, I am hearing about autonomous car and EV technologies, CPG companies which are preparing for coming same day delivery models in their grocery customers, complex safety simulation at oil companies, elaborate new data centers to support sub-second trading environments at banks. And these conversations are with companies across major continents.
The other interesting thing is they talk about social, mobile, cloud, Big Data in passing – those are just enabling terms as they make their products smarter, look at massive operational efficiencies via technologies and look at revenue generating and business model changing technology.
The chasm between what is being written about by technology bloggers, analysts and journalists and what is happening in the real world keeps growing. And I believe it goes back to too much focus on vendor events for most of the sourcing of stories.
June 12, 2013 in Industry Commentary | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)