I was asked a couple of weeks ago what is this augmentation
I keep talking about, and why does it apply to businesses? Augmentation is not
new, if you think about augmented reality, augment glasses, augmented amusement
park rides – yes they exist!
The reason I apply it to businesses today is simply that
like the other examples above they are seeking to maximize existing components and
add additional capability and or scale to it that can adapt to their current
market environment. Anyone familiar with augmented reality knows this is a
powerful tool which can understand the current context of what you see and add
additional information to it such as where a bus is headed to, availability of
properties and reviews of your favourite restaurants. Now in the context of
these examples you would say well of course it has to use the current
capability we would be blind otherwise (literally!), fair enough, but why not
use the same concepts for business? The current platforms work, it is not a
case of them being no longer fit for purpose, more likely they are functionally
or scale limited by the platforms they were built on and if a business knew
that by adding to their existing capability they could actually extend the life
of their assets and as such turn a depreciating item into a value creation item
they might change their views on them.
Woah … what? Ok let’s go through an example. A business has
an existing telephony system they would look to replace it or upgrade to a new
platform when it is either end of life (financially), has reached maximum
capacity or last but not least is no longer able to meet the functionality
needs of the business. In any of these circumstances you might think a business
needs to request quotations for new platforms, and previously this is most
likely what a business would do. Consider equally businesses looking to grow
through acquisition in a market where just about everyone has some form of
video conferencing, yet there is always that concern on integration cost of
communication platforms. In both of these examples any vendor would love you to
rip and replace the old assets and convert to a new platform, but this only
adds cost to your business which would be better spent on systems and tools upgrades/integration
which tend to be more customized. Hence having access to a virtual “bridge”
that allows you to leverage the assets of the existing business that can be integrated
whilst using cloud based IP Telephony or video for new or temporary users/sites
provides an alternative avenue and drives a philosophy of business led
outcomes. i.e. decide what your business needs to do first and assume the technology
is there to make it viable second.
Equally the current economic environment with its rapid
changes of growth and decline across multiple markets at different times has
resulted in concerns on making the right decision and timing of business decisions.
Particularly when it relates to ICT investments where businesses are struggling
to understand how they can find a balance between driving business improvement
or growth goals against managing cost and mitigating risk. The Business
Augmentation approach here creates a fundamental shift in defining the business
outcome first, knowing that technology will adapt to your requirements rather
than being limited by your current ICT capabilities both in terms of
functionality and cost. Think about it
for a moment – how often have you considered that accelerating the growth of
your business through expanded ICT and other resources could derive your next
wave of growth, yet at the same time being concerns on managing risk. What if
the market changes? What if competitors flood the market? What if my supply chain
can’t keep up? Business Augmentation is about removing this risk, leveraging
existing assets, adding new functionality – preferably through the cloud – with
the confidence to unwind that functionality at a moment’s notice should market
dynamics require it.
I am a big advocate of Business Augmentation mainly because
it directs the discussion between people and technology where it belongs –
Technology as an enabler to business and consumers and that through reducing (or
even better, removing!) the risk businesses can create, innovate and drive
growth with greater confidence. Technology change is increasingly regarded as a
disabler as “rip and replace” or full transformation of platforms offers little
or highly complex roll back to legacy platform options. Imagine for moment that
your ICT architecture was linked to cloud based platforms which were used to
facilitate your growth, and as you continued to grow you realized your business
had established a new baseline, this could then justify longer term investment
and encourage the business to stretch further with the confidence that it was
suddenly in a stronger position to adapt to change.
Now this is all great in principle but we need to be able to
realize these ideas, the great news is these platforms are out there today,
whether it be around Collaboration, Cloud Computing, Networking and Security,
we simply need to drive Service Providers, vendors and SI’s to be more
disruptive and challenge the norms of upfront payments linked to capex towards
a more sustainable and elastic business model which will deliver self
fulfilling growth as risks become more manageable and businesses in turn take
increasingly creative steps forward.
Challenge yourself, your business and your ICT relationships
to change the way we work by leveraging Augment capabilities and you will
quickly find there are a growing number of opportunities to create, innovate
and grow your business! Hence get back to basics define your need and challenge
your ecosystem to deliver!
No comments:
Post a Comment