Category: Disruption

Kodak and the smartphone

The Kodak brand makes a comeback on a smartphone

On reading the Verge’s story that UK tough smartphone company Bullitt would realease a Kodak branded phone in the new year my first though was “Aren’t Kodak out of business?”

As it turns out Kodak are still in business having come out of Chapter 11 administration last year with the company focusing on commercial printing, cinematography and the odd bit of revenue from licensing out their name.

Bullitt on the other hand does that licensing with their main product being a range of tough smartphones marketed under the Caterpillar name which doesn’t seem to be a bad niche given the importance of connectivity to farmers, miners and construction workers.

It’s difficult though to see exactly what the Kodak name is going to bring to smartphones; the brand has long fallen out of favour and is irrelevant to today’s digital photographers, the only way conceivable way the Kodak name could be a selling point is if the devices offer something additional in the way of processing digital photographs or offers some advanced camera features.

From the media release that doesn’t seem to the be the case, however in a marketplace increasingly dominated by cheap Android phones having an additional selling point is useful in locking in higher margins.

Both Bullitt and Kodak though will both be happy for the publicity, in one way it’s good to know the brand is still around.

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Building safer roads and cars

While driverless cars are a way off, technology is making the roads safer

Yesterday’s blog post considered how we might design a driverless car without the legacies of today’s vehicles.

In the meantime we have to deal with our own human failings on the road and already tomorrow’s technologies are helping us drive better today.

The day when driverless cars are the norm on our roads may be a generation, possibly further, away but many of the technologies that make autonomous vehicles possible are available today and are appearing in many new models.

Last year the MIT Technology Review looked at BMW’s driverless car project and made the point that the technologies are still some years away from being adopted, the features being incorporated in today’s vehicles are already reducing accidents.

Thanks to autonomous driving, the road ahead seems likely to have fewer traffic accidents and less congestion and pollution. Data published last year by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a U.S. nonprofit funded by the auto industry, suggests that partly autonomous features are already helping to reduce crashes. Its figures, collected from U.S. auto insurers, show that cars with forward collision warning systems, which either warn the driver about an impending crash or apply the brakes automatically, are involved in far fewer crashes than cars without them.

This fits in with the vision described last year by Transport For New South Wales engineer John Wall who described how Australian roads can be made safer through the use of smarter cars, roadside sensors and machine to machine technology.

As the MIT story illustrated, many of the technologies Wall discussed are being incorporated into modern cars with most of the features needed for largely autonomous driving being common by 2020.

Comparing smart car technologies

Like many of the things we take for granted in low end cars today most of the advanced features will be appearing in top of the line vehicles initially, we can also expect the trucking and logistic industries to be early adopters where there’s quantifiable workplace safety improvements or efficiency gains. Eventually many of these features will be standard in even the cheapest car.

One thing is certain, while the driverless car is some way off we’re going to see the roads become safer as new technologies are incorporated into cars.

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An age of falling margins

business in 2015 will be a lot more competitive as technology drives prices down

One forecast about 2015 that’s very easy to make is businesses with high costs are in for a tough time.

As competition steps up, global forces puts pressure on prices and technological change allows new competitors into marketplaces, the companies that aren’t flexible and keeping an eye on where they are spending money are going to find 2015 will not be a happy year.

For the tech industry the predictions for next year are easy – there will be more security beaches, governments will want more powers to access our data while proving they can’t be trusted with what they already have, a new hot social media network will appear, well known brands will collapse, the net will get faster, more devices will be connected to Internet of Things and prices will continue to fall.

It’s the falling prices that will be what defines business in 2015 as we enter deflationary times; not the economists’ nightmare of prices falling in the face of collapsed demand – although that’s not out of the question – but in the more positive sense of business inputs being cheaper.

Things are going to get cheaper

A few weeks ago I wrote of futurist and academic Andrew McAfee speaking about the accelerated rate of change in business at the Gartner Gold Coast Conference. One of the immediate effects of that changing world McAfee describes is that a lot of thing are going to get cheaper.

Part of this is driven by newer cheaper sources of energy and labour, other driving factors are increased automation in fields where wages have historically been the biggest cost and  manufacturing processes are putting pressure on prices for most goods. The commodities prices collapse may also be a key factor in 2015.

For some industries, such as the IT industry, falling prices aren’t a new concept. Any computer superstore or local PC repairer who holds inventory gets a nasty reminder of the sector’s economics every time they do a stocktake. However many businesses operate on the assumption prices will always rise overtime, a not unfair assumption given the inflation we’ve seen over the last fifty years.

Getting costs down

With falling prices, it means businesses have to be more aggressive in cutting costs; whether it’s telephone or power bills through to professional services or banking fees, the onus is now on managers to squeeze as much value for the dollar as they can.

In the technology field the targets are obvious; are your old computer preventing you from using new software? Do cloud services offer a better deal than your old server based systems? Are your service providers charging too much?

For the wider business looking at how newer technologies affect your workflow could well prove rewarding, it may well there’s whole range of areas your company can become more efficient through adopting new systems.

A good candidate for slashing costs and improving flexibility is transport where too many companies are still paying Cabcharge’s overpriced fees when apps like Ingogo or Uber are cheaper and better. Why have company vehicles when car sharing services like GoGet can offer more value. Do you still need an expensive Yellow Pages listing when a free Google My Business entry will get you in front of more potential customers, particularly on the all important mobile platforms?

Then there’s the whole outsourcing question where it’s becoming easier to hire knowledge workers on an as needed basis through the various online platforms like O-Desk and Freelancer.

Over the break, it’s worthwhile reviewing your operations and seeing where you can use technology to cut costs and become more flexible in face of a rapidly changing marketplace. One prediction is certain; those with bloated costs and inflexible management are in for a tough 2015.

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The incredible declining IT services industry

The IT services business is shrinking in the face of changing computer usage.

Earlier today I was at a media briefing with Microsoft describing their move to cloud services. Among the various case studies were two principals from IT support companies describing how the online products were good for their businesses.

The truth is there is little good news for the industry — the IT support industry in the US has shrunk 1.2% each year for the past half decade and the prognosis is things aren’t going to get any better.

It’s been two major factors that have hurt the sector; the first was the end of the PC upgrade cycle upon which many support businesses based their models while the shift to the cloud has reduced the need for inhouse servers.

While many companies, like the two profiled today, have switched to reselling cloud products they are finding the margins on both the products and the associated services are nothing like those of the old PC and server business.

Overall it’s a tough place to be and the companies that do survive will be nowhere near as profitable as their equivalents two decades ago. It’s one of those businesses that’s doomed to decline.

All of us need to think if our industry could be like the PC repair business. If margins are collapsing due to technological change, then you need to get out.

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Uber’s ride into the future

In the wake of a billion dollar fund raising, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick promises to change the company’s culture.

Having just raised $1.2 billion in funding, Uber’s CEO Travis Kalanick has written of the company’s next steps.

Kalanick flags the Asia Pacific as being the focus for the company with the latest fund raising which values the business as currently being worth over forty billion dollars.

That valuation is a massive achievement for a five year old business, with the growth pains involved being one highlighted in Kalanick’s post.

This kind of growth has also come with significant growing pains. The events of the recent weeks have shown us that we also need to invest in internal growth and change. Acknowledging mistakes and learning from them are the first steps. We are collaborating across the company and seeking counsel from those who have gone through similar challenges to allow us to refine and change where needed.

One of the big challenges for a high growth business is managing that growth; systems that work well for a ten person organisation with a few hundred clients fall over when you have a hundred staff, thousands of contractors and millions of customers.

Probably the biggest challenge for businesses like Uber is privacy; what’s clear is the ‘God View’ that allowed the company’s staff to monitor customers and drivers has been abused and is too easily accessed by employees. Tightening data security is going to be one of the major tasks for business.

Fortunately, taking swift action is where Uber shines, and we will be making changes in the months ahead. Done right, it will lead to a smarter and more humble company that sets new standards in data privacy, gives back more to the cities we serve and defines and refines our company culture effectively.

‘Giving more back to cities’ flags what could be a new strategy for growth in places where regulators and governments have been hostile to Uber. One of the reasons for Uber’s success in Sydney for example has been the utter disgust the general population and business community has for the local taxi companies, showing Uber as a good corporate citizen could help in more hostile European markets.

While Kalanick identifies the Asia Pacific as being the big growth market he doesn’t identify in what fields; it’s hard not to think Uber’s software has more potential in logistics than hire car dispatch and this is an area where the company could find more  opportunities to expand the company’s services.

Regardless of the direction Kalanick decides to take Uber, the company is cashed up and ready to expand. As long as management keeps the confidence of investors, the business’ fate is in it’s own hands.

Uber is probably the most fascinating and complex of this generation of tech startups, Kalanick’s post shows it’s story has a long way to play out.

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Where will the jobs come from? ABC Nightlife radio

The future of work in an age of robots and algorithms is this month’s Nightlife technology radio spot

If you missed the program it’s available from the Soundcloud site.

Paul Wallbank joins Tony Delroy on ABC Nightlife across Australia from 10pm Australian Eastern time on Thursday, November 27 to discuss how technology affects your business and life.

Last week a US company showed off its robotic security guard, with the boast it costs less than half the wages of a human officer. It isn’t just security guards, baristas or taxi drivers, many knowledge based jobs — from call centre workers to lawyers — can be done by computer programs, or algorithms.

Even the building industry isn’t immune from the robots as 3D printing moves into making houses by squeezing concrete out of computer controlled nozzles.

In almost every occupation technology is changing the way we work and reducing the number of workers needed to do a job. So where next for employment in the Twenty-first Century?

Meet the K-5 robot security guard

For this month’s Nightlife we’ll be discussing how the robots and algorithms are taking over the workplace and what this means for our communities and businesses.

Join us

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Australian Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

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Developing digital leadership

Managers have two years to prepare for massive changes in their industries believes Gartner’s Peter Sondergaard

Technology and talent are the biggest worries for CEOs today says Peter Sondergaard, Gartner’s Senior Vice President for Global Research, however those challenges are part of a much greater shift in business.

In an interview at the Australian Gartner Symposium on Queensland’s Gold Coast, Sondergaard discussed how businesses and their senior management have limited time to adjust to a rapidly evolving marketplace.

Sondergaard believes that companies have 24 months to face the changes which academic and futurist Andrew McAfee forecasts is going to overwhelm businesses and society in the near future.

In this environment IT workers have a unique position in being responsible for implementing technologies within organisations, however according to Gartner’s research only 15% of CEOs see their tech teams as leading change within the organisation.

“The transformation that a lot of people are grappling with is ‘how do I translate this into action in leaders?'” Sondergaard suggests. “Organisations have leaders in financial backgrounds and people who understand people management, leadership and customer facing activities.”

“Businesses expect this in every senior leader hired in the organisation but somehow it’s okay to accept those people have their son or daughter do everything technology wise. In the future you can’t have that.”

“Digital leadership is at par with all other assumed skills in what is a fully rounded business leader.”

A generation change

Sondergaard sees a generational change happening in senior management as the new guard are more comfortable with technology, having had to deal with the 1990s PC boom as well as the internet during their working lives.

“The change generally happens when you switch CEO, it’s very funny to watch right now how new CEOs that come in, change the strategy completely and focus on digitalisation.”

For many companies, this is a dramatic change in business practices and one that doesn’t come without resistance within the organisation, although the marketplace may force these reforms as margins fall.

Changing focus as margins fall

A problem facing managers that Sondergaard sees is the falling margins faced by businesses as new competitors unencumbered by legacy systems enter the marketplace.

Most of these competitors bring the ‘startup ethos’ into their industries — with no fixed overheads the new entrants are far more flexible than the incumbent businesses.

Stock markets are also making the problem worse with older businesses being held to different benchmarks than the new players.

To illustrate this Sondergaard cites Amazon and IBM where are both staking their futures on cloud services that are barely profitable; for this IBM is punished by investors while Amazon continues to get stock market support.

Owning the ethical risks

Another challenge facing businesses in going digital are the ethical considerations, this is a complex and multifaceted area that is going to test managers throughout organisations as new technologies give rise to unforseen risks.

“What does your brand want to stand for in a digital world?” Sondergaard asks, “I think we will need people who articulate the brand, and what we do from a technology perspective.”

“Ethics in this is a very part of the user experience which becomes very complex very fast. If you don’t have someone who owns this from a co-ordination perspective I would say you get an element of risk that you don’t want.”

For managers across all industries the challenge is to deal with the disruption that is happening now and the greater changes that are looming, Sondergaard believes this requires a ‘bimodal’ way of doing business that balances the needs of existing markets with the demands of a much more complex fast moving developing digital marketplace.

This is a big task for managers and one that many will struggle with. Those who don’t succeed are going to struggle in a very turbulent business world.

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