The shift to the connected economy

We live in a world of constant change where digital disruption badly affects businesses on a regular basis. For becoming a market leader, it is highly important to have agility, a strategy that encompasses both digital & business goals, as well as be a totally connected organisation.

More than half of the organizations believe that a substantial part of their revenue is under threat from digital disruption. That’s why today many companies are changing how they operate in order to become part of the Connected Economy. The Connected Economy leaders have seen significantly stronger revenue growth from new connected business models than their less connected competitors because of their ability to exploit information at speed through the use of software, hardware, as well as networking technologies.

Today many I&O leaders are using the cloud in order to connect customers, employees, partners, as well as internet-of-things touchpoints in real time. Also, they are working with business colleagues for launching new business models based on cloud ecosystems. For example, an appliance manufacturer uses cloud for connecting smart washing machines, service technicians, customers, as well as parts dealers for predictive customer service.

 These cloud ecosystems:

Simplify real-time engagement with customers, employees, partners, as well as “things.”

Cloud models can simplify engagement inside as well as outside your firm’s four walls as any customer or business partner will be able to connect to the same real-time cloud system with a simple API call, mobile device or web browser. This can improve collaboration across parties as well as deliver a better customer experience.

Enable new business models as well as create new sources of value.

Business models are in flux as digital disruption threatens established customer-facing processes & enables upstarts. Connected cloud ecosystem can be a launchpad for these next-generation business models. For example, telecommunications firms can now provide mobile-to-mobile cloud payment systems, competing with established financial services companies. And through its new cloud ecosystem connecting patients, devices, and hospitals, a medical device manufacturer can now sell patient services, like heart-monitoring-as-a-service, apart from its core business of selling devices to hospitals.

Aggregate information for enabling smarter processes & unique analytics.

The power of a cloud ecosystem is that it can generate analytics of aggregated information & use the network for smarter processes. To give an example, a cloud ecosystem connecting multiple patients, devices, drugs,as well as healthcare providers is more beneficial than one-to-one patient-provider relationships as the network can detect as well as analyze patterns across the whole population & therefore has more-complete patient data. The network will be able to alert the entire ecosystem in real time when a manufacturer issues a drug recall. Also digital marketing firms as well as their customers can share richer databases of customer preferences as well as easily augment them with other cloud-based weather, demographic, or location data.

Getting Ahead In The Connected Economy

The future of business is all about connecting – machine-to-machine, person-to-person, partners within an ecosystem.  By implementing connected business models, products, as well as processes, you will be able to significantly increase your revenue growth as well as enhance your competitive edge.

Today many organizations are realizing the need of embracing the connected economy. However, Only 18% of respondents describe  their  company as  employing  CE  business  models to  a  significant  extent. Around 22 percent say that their company has no CE capabilities.Around 56 percent have some degree of CE capabilities.

Shifting to the connected economy requires investment—in technology, people, as well as projects. Inspite of realizing the importance of CE business models to their companies’ futures, laggards are not well positioned today. However, that can change because the future is still being written.Organizations at the forefront are increasing revenue faster than their rivals as well as earning more from innovative new products & services.