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Reimagining the Internet’s Third Decade
During the 90’s, a big trend emerged in management practices: Business Process Reengineering. Michael Hammer and James Champy wrote the seminal book, Reengineering the Corporation that swept through corporations like a tsunami. I was at the center of this trend, as HP’s Business Process Reengineering Manager, aka as “Reengineering Czar”, a role title that the book recommended for any company that was embarking on reengineering efforts.
With BPR, Information Technology was the catalyst for change. But when the commercial Internet came along in 1994, I saw it becoming that new catalyst even more than reengineering, and not only within corporations, but also globally, across organizations and between people. [that is the reason why I left HP in 1995]
For background, one of the grand realizations of BPR was to break-up processes that resided inside corporates silos, and replace them by better ones that spawned across departments and functional areas. Basically, these new processes (that were aligned with the company objectives) trumped existing processes that were obliterated and replaced by the more significant ones. And a new concept emerged,- that of a “process owner” whose job was to ensure the new process was well designed, deployed, used, and bearing its promised fruit.
Keeping with its reengineering promise, the Internet has been changing a lot of our world since 1994, but as we enter the third decade of the web’s commercialization, maybe there is even more impact that we need to expect from it.
Today, I see three areas where the Internet’s impact is going to continue to increase:
1) Industries & sectors that have not been totally affected yet.
So far, the Internet has hit or missed industries and sectors with varying degrees of depth and consequences. Some of the obvious industries that have not been significantly affected yet include: education, agriculture, healthcare, telecommunications, and financial services. These are huge industries, and their unbundling has just started.
2) Messes that were created.
The Internet was not planned, but it just happened. The resulting effect was an imbroglio of services, and some messy overlaps with marginal differentiation, competing for our attention. Typically, market supply/demand dynamics take care of winners and loser. We are starting to see second attempts at Internet businesses that didn’t get a first chance in its first decade, but getting it now in the third decade, such as home grocery deliveries, pet sitting services, or locally-enabled shared services.
3) Weak incumbents.
The new incumbents are the existing Web companies who will become more vulnerable due to the shifting effects of new technologies that underlie their business models. Of course, technology alone isn’t enough, but technology will enable putting in place some compelling new services that will facilitate the switching of allegiances. On the block, companies like eBay, Amazon, UBER or even Instagram might see some challenges ahead, especially with the advent of new decentralization stacks.
In order to complete this picture, we need to look at the disruptive technologies that are the new catalyst candidates for this new wave of innovations. Some of the ones will include:
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Continued compute power and capabilities expansion into mobile devices, coupled with the smartification of edge things.
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Mesh networks and services that connect people and devices in P2P settings.
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Decentralized protocols and new technology stacks that challenge or re-define existing ones.
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Stratification of cloud computing by flattening it at the personal, ambient, and local levels, while enriching it even further at the virtual level.
With BPR, “automation” was the proverbial word, and IT was the enabler. Today, the Internet is the new IT, but is there a better word than automation? Automation is powerful, but yet it is an archaic word that brings connotations of early industrial age manufacturing practices. Now, we are getting really good at deriving information intelligence from data, as we process, analyze, parse, un-bundle, and re-bundle new sources of data in order to derive new products and services. Today, we are in the Information Age, so why not choose another relevant word that’s more closely aligned with the power of information?
Going forward, I am seeing new opportunities in reengineering existing Internet processes, but I am also seeing opportunities in reimagining new open collaborative environments between, or on top of the existing Internet networks.
We are entering the third decade of the Internet’s commercialization, so why not expect a lot more from it?
Did you mean imbroglio?
https://www.google.co.in/search?q=define+embroglio&gws_rd=cr&ei=f4I6VYrzOsequQSE_ICYAg
Interesting post.
Yes! My French was kicking in 😉
Thanks (will fix)
William, I have visions of virtual, multi-coloured Post-it notes pinned on a cloud-based collaborative whiteboard 😉 And kudos for writing the post without using the word “transformation”.
It’s true that “automation” has run its course and should be retired (along with “e-everything”). It feels to me that Internet processes are now more about process integration, continuous adaptation, and fluidity.
Lol on the post-it-notes. I’ll settle for faster/cheaper internet service in our rural area 😉 [inside joke for the other readers]
“Informationalization” if it wasn’t such a mouthful. I don’t like digitization because it doesn’t capture the intelligence part behind digital information.
‘Reengineering the Corporation’ is an accurate term to describe this next transition. With blockchain technology, we are truly moving towards a paradigm of business where machines are the employees and soon to be customers as well with the implementation of smart contracting.
I wrote on this subject at length in a post entitled Evolution of the Corporate Nucleus.
William, out of the industries you outlined to be disrupted, which is the next one to feel it?
Re point 1 – The energy industry – $6tn or 10% of global product (I didnt say domestic because there are few wind-farms on the moon and solar powered spacecraft are still relatively few)
And for example : No API protocol to allow competitive brokering of services ever where deregulated ! What is good for airlines, books and even tweets remains defended behind massive marketing and lobbying groups.
Regarding a word to replace intelligent automation, maybe we could come up with intellig-ration but since you dont like tongue twisters we could extract the middle leaving a complete new concept – inte-gration. Awww bummmer thats been done !
Oh forgot to mention – absolutely agree – Our industry (energy) is acquiring to grow but remaining largely vertically siloed and so not finding the innovation on the spreading fractal edges that lies ripe for the plucking between the branches ! (ooh went all poetic again)
You were describing DAO’s inside a traditional corporation? I think traditional corps will be the last ones to make changes. I believe the opportunities lie in the open spaces between corporations and people.
Man I hope we see more innovation than grocery delivery and pet sitting services. All this energy and technology today is put towards the pursuit of convenience for those that can afford it. It all rings a bit hollow to me. I’m hopping the next 5 years will really blow my mind… and not yield a few more hours in the week that I can work from home.
Uber is a ‘weak’ incumbent’?
Anyone can be disrupted. Google even.
But draw me a picture no matter how blurred how the uberization of our urban reality, where one brand owns the reflex behavior to need something moved, even themselves, through a click on their phone, is weak.
Well, they will have weaknesses that others could exploit, also with a reflex behavior via an App. I’m not suggesting they will be replaced, but someone will make a dent into their market or exploit a segment that they won’t address well.
I do hear that in saturated markets, UBER drivers don’t make as much as in their emerging markets because of increased competition and supply. I’ve also heard from a recent rider that UBER drivers aren’t picking-up for shorter rides, and avoiding them. These are just small tidbits that show there are cracks in anyone’s business that startups could exploit and deepen that wedge.
Inevitably you are correct of course as everything changes.
But this isn’t where I look towards for the largest changes in the next generation of platform disruptions.
That why I’m not wasting my time and I decide to build DAOs/DACs/DASs and the algos form the scratch, is a new paradigm shift conventional wisdom don’t apply,you can remove ALU from your thinking.
What is ALU?
arithmetic logic unit