Creating Breakthrough Applications at the Intersection of Technologies

Transcription

Creating Breakthrough Applications at
the Intersection of Technologies
Wipro Council for
Industry Research
Wipro set up the Council for Industry Research
comprised of domain and technology experts from
the organization, to address the needs of customers.
help customers gain competitive advantage in the
market.The council, in collaboration with leading academic institutions and industry bodies, studies market
trends to help equip organizations with insights to
facilitate their IT and business strategies
FOREWORD
switch on your computer, log in to the network and check for mail or ‘start’ work? Largely, that
has become a meme of the last decade. Like you, I get my mail on my mobile device, without
ever having to log in. Banks are sending alerts to customers in real time, utility services are
keeping in touch with you 24x7, and medical devices are relaying information to your hospital
many miles away even as you go about your daily work day. Work, education, entertainment
and a host of services are available on tap in formats that are amazingly rich and interactive.
Today, every idea, experience, interaction, and transaction can be instantly stored, shared,
For more information on the Research Council, visit
www.wipro.com/insights or email us at
wipro.insights@wipro.
The change is happening at the intersection of technologies. Tomorrow’s technologies are
aware and augmented systems. At the same time Mobile, Cloud, Analytics, and Social are
blending to create new capabilities, new intelligence, and new experiences. Consider Next
Best Action – a prime example of this intersection. Next Best Action enables organizations to
service customer needs before they surface and even before a customer becomes completely
conscious of those needs.
We are also moving towards a complex economy where experience takes precedence over
ownership. The experience economy is being continuously re-shaped through smart, selflearning and self-correcting systems. Anyone who has used Pandora to listen to music knows
that you don’t need to own the music; the system learns the listener’s preferences, moods and
play lists to serve increasingly better options.
intersecting technologies. We also evaluate the current state of business preparedness for
smart systems, hyperconnectivity, dematerialization etc. and provide insights on the hyperspecialized workforce you would need to leverage these.
issue. Do write back with your thoughts and feedback.
Puneet Chandra
CONTENTS
05
As Digital Technologies Intersect,
A New World of Opportunity Awaits
Businesses
42
Utilities can exploit emerging technologies
This Knowledge@Wharton and Wipro article
explores how businesses can calibrate and
monetize investments at the intersection of
digital technologies.
innovate and extend services in the
transactive utility markets.
Radhakrishnan Swaminathan, Vice President
& CTO, Energy, Natural Resources & Utilities,
Engineering & Construction, Wipro Limited
Dr. Anurag Srivastava, Senior Vice President
E-Commerce
$16 TRILLION
WORLDWIDE
IN 2013
10
The Future of Enterprise is “Ubiquitous”
Ubiquitous enterprises – the shift towards a
culture of pervasive computing.
48
Paul Mathai, Applied Research & Business Innovation Lead, Strategy Solution & Architecture
Group, Manufacturing & Hi-Tech Business Unit,
Wipro Limited
What Smart Systems Can Teach Us
This Wipro and UBM Tech survey examines how
smart and connected systems are changing the
ways products and services of tomorrow will be
delivered, deployed and monetized.
58
Nitin Narkhede, General Manager – Emerging
Technologies & Innovation, Wipro Limited
Source: Gartner
22
This HBR article explores how hyperspecialization of workers may be inevitable given the qual-
34
The State of Hyperconnectivity
This Wipro and UBM Tech survey talks of how
hyperconnectivity, which describes mutli-client
and multi-device access to enterprise resources,
can help improve customer service and
relationships.
Subu Musti – Director, Mobile Strategy, Wipro
Mobility Solutions, Wipro Limited
Kedar Limaye, Director & Consulting Partner,
Wipro Mobility Solutions, Wipro Limited
The Open Execution Model:
Innovation Across Boundaries
In the information economy, an organization
is only as good as the innovative ideas it can
nurture and execute at speed. Indeed, many
good organizations are capable of harnessing
innovation within their boundaries
The Age of Hyperspecialization
Harvard Business Review
Dematerialization - A Force for
Change
This Wipro and Outsourcing Center survey
explores dematerialization and its impact –
Prasanna G K, Senior Vice President & Global
Business Head–Product Engineering Services and
Global Infrastructure Services, Wipro Limited
15
Smarter Field Work Management
Systems
G.S.Nathan, General Manager – Innovation,
64
Data Scale & Intelligence
Augmentation
How is the digital economy changing the way
information is disseminated in enterprises
and the importance of intelligent data in this
paradigm shift.
Ram Prasad K R, Chief Technologist,
As DigitAl technologies
intersect, A new worlD of
opportunity AwAits
Businesses
A new world of opportunities to extract competitive advantage awaits businesses
at the intersection of new digital technologies. Businesses could gain from “intelligence augmentation” by processing high-volume data from multiple sources for
real-time business insights. They could also provide “immersive experiences” by
gleaning consumer preferences through gestures, touch and specialized
eyewear. Further along are “smart systems,” ubiquitous, “always-on” monitoring
enterprises, and next-generation nano materials and digital substitutes. Enabling
these would be enhanced crowd-sourced “open-execution” models to
develop the desired technologies.
Apr - Jun 2013
05
Five Levels of Change
Dr. Anurag Srivastava
Senior Vice President and Chief
An “exploding universe of ideas and experiments” and
at the intersection of digital technologies, according to
Limited. Individually, technologies like cloud computing
or big-data analytics have demonstrated big gains, but
the potential is far greater if they are used in innovative
combinations, he explains. They are “sparking a daring new era in the way we interact, communicate, collaborate and conduct business.” Srivastava visualizes
nothing less than a “Big Bang … when universes collide
ing ways to solve problems.” Technology infused with
innovation, termed “technovation,” is the emerging new
order, he adds.
Srivastava cites YouTube, launched in 2005, as an
early example of an opportunity made possible by digital
convergence. “The rich media social network was born
at the intersection of the Internet, cheap video cameras,
data compression technology, easily available storage,
widely accessible computing power and autonomous
self-publishing, annotation, content promotion and commenting systems.”
Digital technologies are also making it possible for
people and organizations to sell excess resources, says
Shawndra Hill, Wharton professor of operations and information management. She points to Amazon Web Services, launched in 2006, that monetized spare capacity
across multiple remote computing devices by pooling
and faster speeds than conventional server farms. She
also cites San Francisco-based Airbnb, which enables
individuals to list online and rent unoccupied lodging
such as spare rooms or even a couch to frugal travelers.
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the intersection of digital technologies will create new
businesses opportunities:
age high volumes of data with low storage costs, adopt
large-scale data processing technologies, blend multiple
sources of data, extract intelligence using machines and
visualize the data based on domain and context.
This
involves consumer preferences articulated through gestures, touch and specialized eyewear, digital money
transfers and crowd sourcing of designs. Augmented
reality glasses (e.g. Google Glass) can strengthen communications in aviation, mining or drilling operations to
overcome disturbances such as noise or fumes, while
data visualization, with tools like 3-D graphics, enhances that further. Many such applications are currently in
proof-of-concept development stages.
applications with medical experts at the other end. Six
urban hospitals are using this process to monitor risky
pregnancies and are delivering “really good results,”
says Srivastava. People in urban settings are willing to
pay for “peace of mind,” so monetization is not an issue,
he adds. He says the model could work in rural India,
where nurses could use ultrasound equipment to track
patient conditions and use handheld devices to communicate with health practitioners.
Gogo, is helping developing countries combat counterfeit drugs with a combination of bar coding, mobility, the
Internet and databases. This is how it works: Buyers of
medicines scratch a bar code to reveal a code and then
send that code over their mobile phones to Sproxil’s database, which immediately responds saying whether the
drug is authentic or spurious. Gogo launched Sproxil in
Nigeria three years ago and plans to expand to India and
Kenya.
settlement process reduced the head count at its outsourcing partner from 200 to seven using a combination
of new technologies. It overhauled the entire process
through to employee claims settlement. It used a mobile
application that scans each bill at creation and a backend process to record travel plan changes, requiring employees to make all payments through one or two cards.
These include tools to monitor equipment data; health monitoring and emergency responses;
self-organizing supply chains and environmental tracking.
Businesses will use devices
and sensors in massive, hyper-connected networks, and
maintain 24/7 “always on” computing systems without
downtimes. For example, IT resources could help provide real-time responses to business model changes
and M&As.
This
(streaming music is an early example), 3-D printing, ecomedical research.
tality rates are witnessing a dramatic fall. Here, fetal
monitors with sensors connect through Bluetooth or RF
(radio frequency) technology to phones or cloud-based
07
a global product launch from between 24 and 36 months
to 12 months. It used a combination of collaborative
tools including 3-D prototyping in product design and
pre-release feedback from social channels.
To extract full value from investments in digital technologies, businesses must be willing to change their business processes, says Srivastava. They can often expect
returns over a 12- to 18-month window, especially with
fer, compared to product margins, he adds. Firms that
exploit the “combinational value” of those technologies
with process changes could see revenue/cost gains of
up to two times in best-case scenarios, he claims.
Hill says businesses must confront some questions up
front before making investments: First, how exactly will
they derive value from combining multiple data sources
such as social networks and transaction/location information to make better predictions or better visualizations? Second, are they agile enough to take advantage
of the technologies that change rapidly? Third, should
they invest in the technologies themselves or pay somebody else to do it?
In the near term, Srivastava expects organizations to
focus on improving customer experiences and “reducing the friction between the virtual and the real world.”
Banks, for example, could digitize solutions to numerous
customer requests (such as opening and closing of accounts, requests for statements and checkbooks, etc.),
he says.
In the medium term, he sees businesses investing in
“process dissipation” by improving or re-engineering
existing processes and eliminating those that are timeconsuming and costly. For example, a bank investing in
digital strategies might revamp the services it provides at
branches to both make the “branch experience” superior
for customers and better monetize its investments there.
for new or enhanced products, and focus on the convergence of consumer-facing technologies like smartphones or other devices with networks and networking
technologies, while incorporating social and behavioral
changes. A bank, for example, might give branch cusexecutives to simultaneously track their needs or preferences and present suitable products or services. “You
already in the branch,” says Srivastava.
Srivastava advocates an “open execution model” to create applications around digital technologies. That model is a way of opening up application development to a
large external group, including employees, he explains.
ing that provides only broad and generic ideas, he adds.
Hill says it is encouraging to see companies allowing
their technology developers to provide open source sostill keeping the core algorithms close to the chest, they
are allowing their employees to be part of a community
that shares software,” she says. “This sharing has tremendous value when pushing data-intensive solutions
forward.”
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Management
$2.9 BILLION
IN 2015
Source: SBI Energy
Prasanna G K
Senior Vice President & Global Business
Head–Product Engineering Services and Global
Infrastructure Services, Wipro Limited
in locations previously inaccessible, thereby all but eliminating every logistical concern associated with the idea
of ubiquitous computing. But what does this mean for
organizations across the world?
the future of
enterprise is “Ubiquitous”
Imagine a world in which organizations can communicate with their consumers, as and when they choose to. Imagine a world where organizations can
use these interactions to personalize every user experience, across contexts,
locations and demographics. Imagine a world where an organization’s value
proposition is an intrinsic feature of their customers’ lives.
Omnipresence has long been the holy grail of global
enterprise. And recent technological developments
mean that the scenarios detailed above are no longer
well constructed hypotheses, but realities achievable
through planning and diligence. This year, the number
of internet-connected mobile devices will exceed the
number of humans on the planet. Factor in the devel-
and augmented reality (AR) applications along with the
impending proliferation of wearable computing devices
and the future of computing becomes apparent. From
bridges that self-check their strength and embedded devices that detect and report illness, to refrigerators that
order groceries and cars that read out social networking
messages, a user no longer has to reach out to technology but, instead, technology reaches out to the user.
The enterprise of tomorrow will have more access to the
customer, more interaction with a customer and, as a
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By harnessing these technological developments,
organizations now have the opportunity to deploy enterprise computing on a scale previously unimaginable,
blurring the lines between personal and professional
computing. Businesses can now communicate with
consumers in a seamless and non-intrusive manner that
makes users internalize the enterprise process, creating
and facilitating new avenues of engagement. This technology-driven ability is what we at Wipro call ubiquitous
enterprise.
tion
While ubiquitous enterprise is set to change the way organizations conduct business and deploy IT systems, it
also necessitates a fundamental change in the approach
to framework creation and deployment. The challenge
will now be to maintain computing landscapes that scale
time. These new-generation IT architectures will need
to reshape themselves based on the edge device being
used for access. These systems will need to intelligently
in order to service volumes and optimize resource utilization.
consequence, a better understanding of the customer’s
need. And it is in being ubiquitous that enterprises will
A recent United Nations study showed that six billion, of
the planet’s seven billion people, own a mobile phone,
while a mere four and a half billion have access to proper
sanitation. While the concerns raised by this research
are rather self-explanatory, it also reveals that computing, once a privilege, has now become a basic, omnipresent feature of human life.
When we consider the progressively increasing power
and constantly decreasing size of computing devices, it
is easy to see how the world is moving towards a culture of pervasive computing. Technologies like ambient
backscatter can create situations where devices can
power themselves and communicate seamlessly, even
11
This would mean a three-step change for business:
i. Enterprise IT systems will now have to shift their current
this also means a move from being a system of record
(data) to a system of engagement (customer focus) and
a reduction in the number of platforms and applications.
ii. IT departments will need to use new age development
methods, polyglot programming, automated, agile development, and enterprise app stores for rapid response
to market needs.
iii. The creation of multi-channel, variable functionality
with always-on computing architectures that employ
returns per transaction.
IT industry forecasters predict that by the year 2020, over 50 billion devices
will be connected. Soon we will live in a world where
computing is all around us – seamless, accessible, powerful and unobtrusive – signifying a seismic shift in technology consumption patterns. This mesh of connected
factory user experiences across devices and locations.
In order to facilitate this unfettered, high-performance
access to enterprise experiences, organizations will use
web scale application programming interfaces (APIs)
ible performance. Responsive design will be the guiding
force of all IT architecture with constant innovation and
integration taking place at the intersection of technologies.
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The
success of ubiquitous enterprise, similar to that of the
Internet of Things, will rely upon one hundred percent
adoption by target users. A hyper-connected web of
computing devices – sensors, RFID tags, microprocessors and the likes – will generate and draw intelligent
inferences from “ubiquitous” data to deliver a hyper-personalized service. Applications must be context aware
and inherently functional. This ambient intelligence
run on always-on systems that allow for multi-client,
multi-device access will give rise to an unprecedented
quality of user experience, driving organizations to focus
on adding value.
The world of
ubiquitous enterprise will also cause the decentralization of enterprise IT systems. With the IT eco-system
now outside the organization, the success of a business
will be driven by the robustness of its security and the
optimization and use of its open and linked data. This
extended enterprise, with IT systems external to an
organization and its employees, will reach out to users
on day-to-day basis, forming, cementing and enhancing
enterprise-customer relationships.
accessible by a wide array of user devices?
enterprise systems?
nologies to create hyper connected applications?
management, application management and operations?
tions ready for use in an open, hyper-connected world?
If your answer to all of these questions was yes, then
your organization is on the right path to ubiquitous
enterprise and you need to consolidate and move forward. The questions to which your answer was negabecome ubiquitous.
ture
Before you make the decision to shift to a ubiquitous IT
infrastructure, it may be useful to ask yourself the following questions.
ly personalized location/ context driven services?
impact on your organization’s IT eco-system. In order to
consideration:
The use of sensor/RFID
and externally accessible?
-
the number of end user devices and place a heightened
strain on your IT infrastructure. End user devices will no
longer be owned by you or by your employees but by in-
dividuals. Add to this autonomous devices that perform
functions and gather data independently and it becomes
essential to have a robust IT framework in place to support all end user devices consistently.
Another factor to consider is the increase in your organization’s computing capability requirement. The large
number of devices, which I mentioned earlier, alongside
external IT eco systems, virtualization and the need for
boost in enterprise computing capability. Data collection, mining and analytics must now be ‘agile’ in real time
with comprehensive algorithms that account for, both,
structured and unstructured data.
Being
zation’s storage requirement. While organizations con-
13
system would allow for “ubiquitous” data. Consequentially, data capture, storage capacity and retrieval requirement would all need to increase in proportion with
the amount of information gathered and processed. The
cloud would be a ubiquitous revolution-enabler in this
situation.
Perhaps the most
portance in a ubiquitous IT infrastructure. Various types
of data – sensitive data, real-time data, personal data –
are now located outside the organization in a system almost entirely dependent on IT. This vulnerability means
your IT system is more susceptible to malicious attacks.
Robust, secure and adaptable systems that can detect,
the success of your organization’s move to ubiquitous
enterprise.
Also crucial,
to the success of seamless, ubiquitous enterprise is increased networking capability. In an always-on world
with several internal, external and independent devices
utilizing, transmitting and receiving data constantly, your
mentarily. Maintaining service levels and user experience in this situation then takes precedence over sheer
of transmitting, receiving and processing vast quantities
of data, is the foundation for the deployment, progress
and maintenance of ubiquitous enterprise services.
Think about the conveyor belt that calculates and optimizes production cycles at your manufacturing unit,
sends real-time data to your supply chain managers and
about the retina scan payment system that decides what
conditions your customers are most likely to make a purchase in. Think about wearable computing that sends
you rich, varied data about your consumer’s interaction
uct, but a comprehensive, customized user experience.
We too have put some of these systems in place already. For instance, in the oil and gas sector, we have
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deployed a solution where seismologists sitting across
the globe can make on-site decisions based on sensorgenerated data. Our connected health solution, monitors
expectant mothers, this monitoring can ensure invaluable and timely intervention. The possibilities really are
limitless.
The Internet, smartphones, and more recently, wearassisting, and enhancing, a user’s interactions in everyday life. By becoming intrinsic to a user’s discovery of
the world, organizations can engage with consumers on
an elemental level, adding value, building relationships
and creating great consumer experiences along the way.
Furthermore, ubiquitous enterprise frameworks incorporate smart systems that will perform tasks such as data
mining, analytics, repair and maintenance autonomously, thereby mobilizing the workforce into value intensive
tasks.
Early adoption will be the key as the organizations that
start the soonest will adapt the best, in addition to gainmentation of an adaptable IT framework in this process,
tiator between organizations that thrive in a ubiquitous
world and those that don’t.
http://www.vs.inf.ethz.ch/publ/papers/socialambient.pdf
http://seeit.mit.edu/Publications/CrackBerrys.pdf
http://www.vs.inf.ethz.ch/publ/papers/ubicomp2003-chatty-env.pdf
http://www.vs.inf.ethz.ch/publ/papers/sktelecom2005.pdf
http://abc.cs.washington.edu/
http://www.ericsson.com/res/docs/whitepapers/wp-50-billions.pdf
whAt smArt systems
cAn teAch us
This Wipro and UBM Tech survey examines how smart and connected
systems are changing the ways products and services of tomorrow will
be delivered, deployed and monetized.
UBM Tech conducted an online survey on
behalf of Wipro in May 2013. Respondents
include 163 business technology professionals with management titles who are
learning about, deploying or working on
smart systems from various industries
across all company sizes.
Nitin Narkhede
General Manager – Emerging
Technologies & Innovation, Wipro Limited
Smart systems are devices that incorporate sensing, actuation and control. They can describe and analyze situations, making predictive, adaptive decisions based on
the available data and subsequently performing smart
actions. However, we’re entering into a new frontier in
human-machine interactions as embedded computers
get smaller and more powerful. Also advances in nanoelectronics, sensing and communication technologies
enable machine-to-machine interactions giving rise to
telligence (AI) and machine learning.
Smart devices, such as home healthcare monitors and
those embedded within automobiles, have been part of
our lives for more than a decade. They help us perform
and performance patterns, and improve productivity.
For example, ultra-low power, wearable medical devices
which are small, intelligent devices that integrate sensors and embedded computing with advanced analytics.
The result is a system that can remotely measure multiple vital parameters such as heart rate, respiratory rate,
skin impedance, blood-oxygen levels and blood pressure, with automated alerts that indicate when a patient
should seek medical assistance, facilitating anytime,
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The new smart system frontier includes machines and
devices, people, cyber and physical sub systems and
information all connected and interacting in a seamless, adaptive manner. Smart systems have shifted the
focus from individual technologies to overall system intelligence, resulting in fundamental changes in how the
products and services of tomorrow will be created, delivered and monetized.
A recent UBM Tech survey commissioned by Wipro on
smart systems asked more than 160 business-technology professionals about their plans regarding the Internet
of Things. Almost all of the respondents are high-level
management decision makers: Most are IT managers,
line of business managers and corporate C-level management. In fact, nearly one-third (31%) hold executive
Quite a few of the respondents (41%) come from
Twenty-seven percent of the respondents work at
companies with 10,000 or more employees, 28% at
companies with 1,000 to 9,999 employees, and 45% at
companies with fewer than 1,000 employees. 42% of
respondents work at companies with at least $500 milcompanies earning $1 billion or more.
The greatest possible margin of error for
systems, we asked respondents to rate their maturity
level with them. Forty-four percent say that they’re in the
learning phase, and another 17% indicate that they’re in
the research and development phase. In terms of actual
smart system deployments, 14% say they’ve deployed
at least one system, and 25% are working on systems
that will be deployed within 3 months to more than 2
years (see Figure 1).
The largest number of respondents (35%) indicated
that connected machines will have the most impact on
their business, followed by integrated sensors (24%), location tracking (20%), and sensor networks (15%). However, if you combine all responses related to sensors and
the respondent base (N=163) is +/- 7.6
percentage points. UBM Tech was responsible for all programming and data analysis. These procedures were carried out in
strict accordance with standard market
Data: UBM Tech survey of 163 business technology managers engaged in smar
systems deployment, May 2013
research practices.
Survey respondents consider smart systems to be
mainly newer devices. High on their list of initial uses
for smart systems is remote monitoring and follow-up
services connected to remote monitoring.
The survey raises questions regarding smart systems,
such as acceptance of consumers to pay monthly fees
for services that they rarely use or ones they would only
use in emergencies. The results back empirical data
showing that smart systems must deliver clear value to
Learning about it 44%
systems and the people using them need to be able to
act on the data the systems provide. For example, a
system that tracks monthly electricity usage also should
something about them.
The deployment is more than 2 years out 09%
Will deploy smart system in 6 to 12 months 05%
Will deploy smart system in 2 years 05%
Will deploy smart system in 3 to 6 months 06%
Already deployed a smart system in production 14%
To get a view of what enterprises are doing with smart
In the R&D phase 17%
17
one spot with nearly 40% saying sensor-related smart
systems will have the biggest impact.
When asked to pick the top three industry sectors that
will see the greatest impact from future smart system development, nearly half of the respondents chose healthcare, followed by security (34%), energy & utilities (30%)
and manufacturing (28%). Biotechnology, transportation, safety and retail each ranked in the middle at about
20%, with education, entertainment, and construction
ranked lowest (see Figure 2). However, the engineering,
procurement and construction (EPC) industry is a heavy
smart system user, both as part of the equipment used
(i.e. drills and excavators) and as part of smart infra-
ing would rank higher, compared with B2C where retail
may have a larger impact.
When asked to prioritize various areas of their smart systems development, respondents rated remote monitoring highest at 68%, followed closely by analytics at 63%
and device management at 62% (see Figure 3). Monitortems, and analytics and management typically provide
the most business value.
Note: Maximum of three responses allowed
Data: UBM Tech survey of 163 business technology managers engaged in smart
systems deployment, May 2013
Data: UBM Tech survey of 163 business technology managers
engaged in smart systems deployment, May 2013
Remote monitoring
68%
Healthcare
47%
Security
34%
Energy & Utilities
30%
Manufacturing
28%
Biotechnology
21%
Transportation
21%
Safety
19%
Retail
18%
Education
13%
Entertainment
05%
Construction
02%
Analytics
63%
Device management
62%
Mobile app development
54%
Big data
Sensor integration
52%
Industrial automation (IA) is the use of machines and technology to increase producIt might come as a surprise that embedded development isn’t rated higher, since building smarter devices
requires embedded code. However, it’s likely that the
many respondents who rated mobile app development
high (54%) were including embedded apps in that category. Given the tools available, developers are building
the embedded intelligence required of smart systems
into mobile applications.
Typical enterprise tasks such as virtualization and data
center infrastructure are lower on the priorities list. At
48%
Virtualization
47%
structure and smart city initiatives.
Device provisioning
-
47%
In other cases, business liability is potentially high.
Enterprise storage systems, for instance, help to ensure
data is maintained, and storage must remain available.
Predicting system outages and avoiding them is paramount. Smart systems can predict component failure
Data center infrastructure
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Embedded development
30%
Computer aided vision
28%
chines; it analyzes the processes used with
a feedback loop to learn from and improve
them. As such, smart systems have been increasingly used in manufacturing to improve
quality, reduce costs and increase safety.
Mark Hessinger has created a remote
as VP and general manager of services at
mature in healthcare but are an emerging technology in IA, he says. Overall, he
expects business-to-business adoption
of smart systems to be slower than in the
business-to-consumer market.
the greatest challenge for smart systems
adoption is customer acceptance and a
willingness to begin using the technology.
Once customers start to use it and see that
their data isn’t at risk, they quickly become
excited with the results, he says. However,
getting to that starting point is a challenge.
Overall, Hessinger sees improved system
46%
and healthcare. These rankings also depend on whether you’re considering the use of smart systems from a
business-to-business (B2B) or a business-to-consumer
(B2C) perspective. For instance, with B2B, manufactur-
beyond simply replacing people with ma-
Based on his experience, Hessinger says,
of downtime.
50%
and delivering related services. IA goes
services program for IA as part of his work
most likely already in place for organizations focused on
the future of smart systems. However, changes to existing architecture likely would be required before many
organizations are ready to dive deeper into device-side
smart systems development. For example, with highvalue equipment and systems, customers are looking
for maximum utilization, so uptime is crucial. Therefore,
monitoring becomes important, and diagnostics and
51%
Database/storage
tivity and quality when manufacturing goods
This is especially true in manufacturing, where smart
systems are deemed to have high impact in our survey.
When something goes wrong in the manufacturing process, traditionally you would send engineers and techni-
uptime assets and equipment ROI as the
19
connectivity, you can perform much of the same work
remotely without the travel time and associated costs.
With large potential savings, it’s not surprising to see
that 21% of our survey respondents say their budget
for smart systems development is $1 million or greater.
Twenty-seven percent say they don’t have a set budget,
which could indicate that their focus is on building the
right systems despite up-front costs or that associated
costs are being built into existing product development
Data: UBM Tech survey of 163 business technology managers engaged in
smart systems deployment, May 2013
the
58%
Ability to analyze all that data
47%
42%
Processing power
to the respondents’ industries, as well as in-house expertise and education. Given the costs associated with
deploying and managing sensor networks and associated connectivity (i.e. cellular communications), it’s not
surprising that cost is the biggest barrier to smart systems success. However, those costs are coming down.
Beyond this, device integration and management seem
to be the top issues.
37%
Decreased costs
33%
Improved human-computer interfaces
30%
New revenue generating opportunities
26%
Increased revenue across existing products
23%
39%
23%
Nothing, we’re ready now
04%
In terms of challenges to enterprise systems, respondents indicate that smart systems and devices would require back-end changes to handle the explosion of data
coming from smart systems. Very few say their back-end
systems are ready now (see Figure 4). Since they could
choose more than one answer, respondents indicate that
almost all enterprise systems would require some degree of change.
Although storage capacity and security once again
rank high among our respondents, the bottom two
choices -- management and processing power -- are
still important considering the percentage of those who
chose them (42% and 39% respectively).
Respondents say greatest barriers to smart systems are
cost (65%), integration with legacy IT systems (59%) and
device management (35%). Regulatory requirements
and the existing business model aren’t as much of a
concern, with less than 20% of respondents identifying
Volume XVI
Increased customer satisfaction
Security
Management
“
Data: UBM Tech survey of 163 business technology managers engaged
in smart systems deployment, May 2013
41%
66%
46%
These top three areas of support are followed closely
by provisioning, security, remote management and power, in that order. This indicates that as far as the Internet
of Things is concerned, we’ve reached an acceptable
level in terms of device battery power, but improved connectivity and reliability (perhaps related to connectivity)
are still required.
-
Storage capacity
Communications bandwidth
As mentioned above, smart systems development is still
vices have only recently had enough processing power,
connectivity and battery life. When asked where additional support is needed for successful smart systems
deployment, 60% of the survey respondents say connectivity support, 50% device reliability and 48% storage capacity.
-
Solve domain problems
12%
When it comes to topline business growth and new revenue streams generated from smart systems, respondents are clearly focused on connected machines, which
they say will have the most impact on their businesses.
When asked how smart systems will improve their busi-
Customer lock-in
09%
Conclusion
Smart systems and devices have the potential to help us
customer satisfaction and 37% decreased costs (see
Figure 5).
productivity of real-world processes, increase worker
Closer analysis shows correlation between the answers. For instance, the high ranking of improved human-computer interfaces can be attributed to its relationship to increased customer satisfaction.
in business processes. Although still emerging in many
industries, these systems have already proven themselves in areas such as healthcare and industrial automation for many years.
In terms of business value, half of the respondents expect smart systems to translate into less than $25 mil-
As seen in this UBM Tech survey commissioned by
Wipro, data storage and security remain high among
the challenges to smart systems adoption. However, as
say it would be less than $1 million, while 20% say between $1 million and $25 million. Combined with the almost 40% of respondents who say that they don’t know
the dollar value of smart systems (or would rather not
say), the results infer that most are in the early stages of
deployment and are testing the market with limited use
cases. and start to focus on the new business opportunities they’ll enable.
increases, more companies in a wider range of markets
will begin and expand pilot programs. And as real-world
examples have shown, once companies experience
and customer relations — and see their competitors doing the same — there will be explosive growth in their
use across industries.
21
one might think we’ve already reached the extremes of
specialization. Boeing’s initiative to build the 787 Dreamliner, for example, was hailed as the epitome of subcontracting—and then proved to have gone a bridge too far
when the parts failed to come together as seamlessly as
tains 379 links. But an aircraft is fundamentally a physi-
from the productivity gains of dividing work into ever
smaller tasks performed by ever more specialized workers. Today, thanks to the rise of knowledge work and
communications technology, this subdivision of labor
-
be diced when it produces intangible, knowledge-based
goods and the information involved can be transported
anywhere in the world nearly instantaneously and at almost no cost.
Just as people in the early days of industrialization
yet widely understood, world of work.
H A RVA R D B U S I N E S S R E V I E W
the Age of
like InnoCentive.
Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, famously
described what would be one of the central drivers of economic
progress for centuries to come: the division of labor.
Volume XVI
-
23
salesperson, secretary, engineer— atomize into complex networks of people all over the world performing
tage will soon strike us as quaint. “Software developer,”
for example, already obscures the reality that often in a
In the great tradition of the division of labor, this hyper-
design, coding, and testing. And that is the simplest sce-
of coders. As we’ll discuss, the potential quality, speed,
and cost advantages virtually guarantee that this model
in Connecticut, gets involved, the same software may be
touched by dozens of contributors.
nity of freelance developers as competitive challenges
(opening the possibility of becoming a “top coder”). For
erate the best new software-product idea. A second
contest might provide a high-level description of the
document that best translates them into detailed system
requirements. (TopCoder hosts a web forum that allows
developers to query the client for more details, and all
those questions and answers become visible to all combecome the basis for the next contest, in which other
developers compete to design the system’s architecture,
specifying the required pieces of software and the connections among them. Further contests are launched
to develop each of the pieces separately and then to
integrate them into a working whole. Finally, still other
sundry parts of the system.
TopCoder’s model is intriguing, not least for what it
allows its network of almost 300,000 developers from
more than 200 countries to do. Because the company
veloper who is particularly good at, say, designing user
interfaces to spend the bulk of his or her time doing
increasingly specialized. Some focus on programming
ules. Some have discovered a talent for putting together software components that others have written. And
clients with development work that is comparable in
quality to what they would get by more traditional means
but at as little as 25% of the cost. And it manages to do
unalloyed?
To ensure that hyperspecialization is as welcome as
it is likely, we must keep our eyes open to its possible
dangers.
Quality improves when more of the work that goes
it. The improvement is even greater when, as with TopThe term “hyperspecialization” is not synonymous with
outsourcing work to other companies or distributing it to
the same technologies. Rather, it means breaking work
previously done by one person into more-specialized
pieces done by several people. Whether or not those
pieces are outsourced or distributed,their separation often leads to improvements in quality, speed, and cost.
To understand the magnitude of the quality gains that
hyperspecialization makes possible, consider how much
time you personally spend on tasks that don’t draw on
your expertise and that you may not even be particularly
adept at performing. Just like craft workers of the past,
knowledge workers engage in myriad peripheral activities that could be done better or more cheaply by others
agers, for example, spend untold hours preparing slide
decks even though few of them have the software facility
and design sensibilities to do that well. Some are able
to delegate the task, which at least allows it to be accomplished less expensively. But imagine a service like
remote workers were brilliant chart producers,others
were eagle-eyed proofreaders, and still others were confor instance, might specialize in sales presentations for
Volume XVI
view meetings for the pharmaceutical industry.) Add an
inspired graphic designer, and there’s little doubt that the
presentation would be enhanced.
with one another to get it. This is the power of the online
“open innovation marketplace” InnoCentive, which connects seekers of solutions— mainly businesses facing
science and technology challenges—with solvers who
may have fresh answers. (Full disclosure: Thomas W.
Malone is a member of InnoCentive’s advisory board.)
On any given day, thousands of scientists, engineers,
students, and others troll through InnoCentive’s website
looking for challenges that intrigue them. They know that
if they formulate the solution that works best, they stand
to collect the posted reward—which in some cases exceeds $100,000. For seekers, the appeal of InnoCentive
lies mainly in the quality of the solutions it can yield. By
casting the net so widely, it often pulls in solvers with
very specialized experience who can make headway
on problems that have stumped internal experts. For
instance, as the business writers Julian Birkinshaw and
Stuart Crainer have described, the pharmaceutical comthe volume and quality of clinical specimens passing
through its automated chemistry analyzers. In 2008 it
sponsored a contest on InnoCentive. After two months
it had received 113 proposals from solvers around the
world. Tod Bedilion, then the director of technology
among them a novel solution that had eluded Roche for
15 years.
specialization: speed. In Roche’s case, the isolation of
the problem and the competition around it dramatically
accelerated the discovery of a solution. More generally,
hyperspecialization can reduce clock time by assigning
them in parallel rather than serially. This can be as simple as many hands making fast work. A company called
CastingWords, for example, produces transcriptions of
time than the recording itself took to make. How is this
possible? It’s not rocket science: CastingWords simply
workers, whose services it procures through Amazon’s
Mechanical Turk site, transcribe them simultaneously. Its
automated processes use overlaps in the assigned bits
ditions of the same phrase), and knit the separate pieces
veals which workers can be trusted to do well on future
assignments. “CastingWords seems like a magic trick to
me,” a user named Merlin Mann comments on its site.
25
business-to-business sales process, accurate contact
information about prospects must be assembled. As essential as that activity is, it’s a terrible misuse of the time
“I babble for an hour, upload an MP3, and, somehow,
they turn that into paragraphs. In, like, a day. It’s nuts.
Like making a lady disappear.”
vast army of workers doesn’t only make old tasks go
faster; it enables the completion of a whole new class of
time-critical tasks. Consider the search for Jim Gray, a
well-known computer scientist who disappeared at sea
in his small sailboat in 2007 and was never found. When
the news of his disappearance reached his colleagues,
they realized it would not be impossible to search the
30,000-square-mile patch of ocean in which Gray’s boat
real-time satellite images were relayed to thousands
of Mechanical Turk workers and volunteers for close
been imagined— and suggests many other possibilities,
ing’s overnight video feeds, to translating headquarters
communications simultaneously into many languages,
to responding quickly to a potential client’s complicated
request for proposal. Increased speed is one of the reasons that hyperspecialization can reduce costs. Bedilion had this to say about his InnoCentive experience:
“I couldn’t put 10 people in a room and have a brainstorming session or a two-day seminar for the same
cost with all the travel involved. And I would have gotten
a few hundred sticky notes rather than an entire notebook with 113 separate detailed proposals.” The biggest
cost saving for most companies may come in the form
of better utilization of their own employees’ time. Beimmediately have time freed up to spend on the highervalue tasks that only they can do. For example, in any
Volume XVI
employ microspecialists—such as the workers recruited
masource sends this kind of data entry work to individuals in the developing world, who verify business web addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and DUNS
(Data Universal Numbering System) numbers through a
combination of web research and direct phone calls.
Hyperspecialization reduces costs most dramatically
when a company can turn to an expert instead of having
to reinvent the wheel. For example, consider how much
across the United States. Contrast that with the value a
who each specialize in some tiny aspect of the law. A
lines for U.S. antitrust cases, or the rules of evidence for
out well ahead on costs.
In any given company, hyperspecialization might reshape the organization in many ways, from the macro
to the micro level of task assignment. Some of the tasks
ries and processes might be upended. Managers might
focus on lower-value-added tasks, as the clients of Samasource do when they hand over data entry. Or they
might see greater value in tapping world-class expertise
for high-end tasks. For instance, Business Talent Group
and YourEncore have networks of freelance experts who
provide clients with short-term, high-priced, but ideally
higher-value consultation. Regardless of task level, capitalizing on hyperspecialization will call for new managerial skills and focus. First, managers will need to learn how
best to divide knowledge work into discrete, assignable
tasks. Second, specialized workers will have
, founded in 1997, claims more
than 1 million registered members and enables
talent searches in 220 skill-based services
categories.
founded in 2003, reported in
2009 that payment for services through its
site had exceeded $100 million. Most of its
workers are located outside the U.S.
1998 eLance, founded in 1998, appeals to
small businesses looking for graphic design,
computer programming, web development,
and writing help. By September 2000 it had
more than $50 million in funding from top
industry investors.
2005 Mechanical Turk, launched in 2005,
was initially developed to distribute Amazon’s
own tasks; it’s now available to others in need
1999 LiveOps, founded in 2000, relies on
20,000 home-based agents to provide ondemand, payper- minute call center services.
2001 Innocentive,
munity for open innovation, was created in
2001. It stages competitions in which “solvers”
of science and technology problems respond
to the challenges of “seekers.”
founded in 2005, provides transcription services to its clients,
started providing labor
on demand to verify information and categorize images and text in 2007.
2008 Samasource, founded in 2008, distributes
computer-based work to people living in poverty
around the world.
began hosting algorithm comchops. Over time it has become more oriente
toward staging design and development competitions contracted for by clients.
27
to be recruited and the terms of their contribution settled. Third, the quality of the work must be ensured. And
Understanding how a
specialization begins with mapping the tasks currently
mediately suggest tasks and subtasks that could be
performed with higher quality, at greater speed, or at
lower cost by a specialized resource. In 2008, the phar-
spending 20% to 40% of their time on things like data
entry, web research, basic spreadsheet analysis, and
PowerPoint slides. The company established a process
company.
Critical to subdividing knowledge work is understanding the dependencies among tasks and determining
whether they can be managed satisfactorily if the tasks
tinational company recently reorganized its administraexecutives’ travel arrangements to a select group of
administrative assistants who could then become its
travel specialists. In the end the company decided that
because travel itineraries impinge directly on the scheduling of other meetings (and on family birthdays and anthe administrative assistants who worked directly with
the executives.
To complete hyperspecialized tasks, companies can use internal employees, develop dedicated relationships with
workers to design and critique its products.
one of the key disciplines of 21st-century business.
Hyperspecialization will require most managers to
learn to work with the kinds of dedicated intermediaries that have sprung up in recent years to provide access to pools of skilled labor. (See the exhibit “The New
Brokers of Work.”) Much as “cloud computing” services
-
One way to ensure the quality of hyperspecialized work is to do what most companies do
before they hire employees: check credentials. Some
demand access to large groups of appropriately specialized workers.
The intermediaries enable clients to accomplish tasks
that range in size from tiny to quite large. On Mechanical Turk and Samasource, workers undertake small
tasks that last a few seconds or minutes in exchange
for payment ranging from several cents to several dol-
including web development, graphic design, writing, and
business analysis—for payments of several hundred to
several thousand dollars. InnoCentive and TopCoder
undertake complex activities such as software devel-
Enterprises that already use hyperspecialization have
developed a variety of innovative incentives for their
communities of workers. Most of them pay, but many
rely on other incentives as well. TopCoder, for instance,
posts detailed individual performance statistics that
are visible to the entire community, and members often
go to great lengths to get their names on the list of top
contributors. Another key motivator for many workers is
the ability to select their own tasks. TopCoder’s founder,
Jack Hughes, believes that this is a leading reason for
his community’s high productivity.
com, still rely on this approach. But over the past decade
several new approaches have emerged.
Paying on the basis of an outcome is one. For instance, when a contest is held on InnoCentive, the client
does not pay until a solution to the problem has been
developed. Users of Mechanical Turk don’t pay unless
the work meets an acceptable level of quality. Another
approach is to have multiple workers complete the same
task and use only results that are replicated. A related
method is to mix real tasks with test tasks for which
the correct answer is already known. The intermediary
its test tasks wrong. Still another approach is to have
one group of workers do the tasks and another group
rate the outputs.
Integration: The last managerial challenge presented
by hyperspecialization is the need to integrate separately produced pieces into a coherent solution. This means
managing the three kinds of dependency described by
Malone et al. in the March 1999 issue of Management
The most obvious way
to do that is to have someone in authority direct the
process. Some experienced members of the TopCoder
A
ccurs when separate outputs must
be integrated into a whole. Modular architecture and
develops an overall architecture in the early stages of its
modules. Once the architecture is in place, the modules
can be developed simultaneously, speeding the overall
process.
well.
when it experimented with hyperspecializing its internal
For example, in a
, tasks occur in a
sequence, with later tasks reliant on the output of earlier
ones. Software tools can often manage this by tracking
task status and automatically passing work from one
stage to the next. CastingWords uses specialized soft-
small number of dedicated outsourcing companies. The
T-shirt maker Threadless created its own community of
them, and learning how to keep them engaged. In fact,
cultivating communities of workers is likely to become
workers who will transcribe them, then to detect and
-
Volume XVI
In a
, more than one worker uses
the same resource. A common way to manage this dependency is with various forms of markets and bidding.
TopCoder’s programmers, for instance, often contribute
to—and reuse modules from—a library of software components. Those who contribute are paid a royalty when
others use their work. The time of people potentially
available to do tasks is another critical shared resource;
ding markets to manage this dependency, too.
the contests and developers to get the information they
perspecialize in coordinating the work of other special-
As hyperspecialization becomes more common, attracting contributions from the most talented workers
will become a critical success factor for man businesses.
And it will increasingly resemble the way sales and marketing organizations now attract customers: by under-
link clients with communities of specialized workers.
scribed pieces into a single document.
29
sponsibilities. And the autonomy workers feel when they
can choose their own assignments has a strong appeal.
For companies, hyperspecialization allows capacity to
be ramped up and down very rapidly. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Red Cross hotline was overwhelmed
-
The agency quickly engaged 300 LiveOps agents, who
handled more than 17,000 calls over the next few days.
Hyperspecialization can also ameliorate the skills mismatch that plagues many national labor markets. Even
with today’s high rates of unemployment, companies
tain key employees, such as sales representatives, engineers, and accountants. These shortages might be alaccountants coordinated the work of hyperspecialists
ers in developing countries. But as economic development worldwide advances in the coming decades, labor market arbitrage will become less common, and at
least some of this wage gap is likely to close. And, of
web. A recent survey by a researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society showed that workers
Another concern is that dividing work into minuscule
fragments allows the unscrupulous to conceal the goals
prototype system called CrowdForge, developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. It addresses
piece of high-quality prose be assembled from the output of people working on small bits of it in isolation?
CrowdForge came up with an answer by using Mechanical Turk workers to write encyclopedia articles. First it
asked some workers to write outlines for the articles.
ent sections of the outlines. Still others used those facts
to write paragraphs for each section. Finally, the system
automatically concatenated the paragraphs according
to the original outlines. Independent evaluators found
that the articles were of higher quality than articles produced by single authors at the same cost.
Of course, we don’t know how far a hyperspecialized
approach to writing might go. But perhaps business
Volume XVI
reports, proposals, and other documents written by a
single person will someday be as rare as handcrafted
clothing and furniture are today.
companies, workers, and society as a whole. But it has a
potential dark side, which must be addressed. Although
many of these advantages and disadvantages also occur with the outsourcing and distribution of work, they
The promise:
ployment arrangements do. Individuals can often work
where and when they choose. Agents for LiveOps, which
attractive, because it allows them to operate from home
and makes it easier to balance work with personal re-
what they produce—not by résumés, prior experience,
or references. This can be liberating for young people
ed to the work world, or those who risk discrimination in
face-to-face workplaces. Pearl Interactive Network, an
Ohio-based company that performs outsourced tasks
ties.
Hyperspecialization also provides virtual labor mobility for people who live in developing countries. Wages in
advanced economies can exceed those in some emerging nations by as much as a factor of eight. Being able
to undertake small tasks on sites like Samasource and
standing of workers in, say, Africa and South Asia.
The perils: A cloud looming over the future of hyperspecialization is the possibility that it will facilitate what
the Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain calls “digital sweatshops,” where workers are exploited for very
low wages. These wages result in part from labor market arbitrage. What are viewed as sweatshop wages in
advanced economies can be quite attractive to work-
may unknowingly be contributing to something counter
to their personal beliefs. A recent study of Mechanical
Turk suggested that more than 40% of the tasks on the
signing political or corporate advocacy to give the appearance of a grassroots movement). This highlights a
related problem: Small-task intermediaries like Mechanical Turk have made it easier to game the internet.
And when work is divided into tiny tasks, it may become dull and meaningless, perhaps even producing
of labor, noting the deleterious results when a person’s
work was reduced to “a few very simple operations.”
Two other potential problems are the growing amount
of work done on spec (that is, with no guarantee of payment) and the increased surveillance of electronically
connected workers. Neither is unique to hyperspeciallike graphic design and writing, and close surveillance
of workers is still common in factories. But the contestbased business models of some intermediaries rely
31
much more heavily on spec than typical freelancers’
work arrangements do. And other intermediaries have
ominous.
Finally, over the long term hyperspecialization may elimilution eliminated some traditional crafts. During the industrial era, social mechanisms eventually emerged to
manage employment arrangements, but the transition
was wrenching. A move into the age of hyperspecialization could prove equally so.
: How might we address some of the
less attractive aspects of hyperspecialization? Currently,
a patchwork of regulations, mostly designed for the industrial era, govern work—including hyperspecialized
work. Each country or region has its own rules. If roughly
comparable rules were adopted across national boundaries, through either agreed-on company standards or
new government regulations, egregious exploitation or
deception could be reduced, along with uncertainty for
both companies and workers. The goal would be to create the equivalent of a free-trade zone in which workers
were protected, companies got the work they needed,
and governments collected the appropriate taxes.
Establishing global rules and practices to govern
hyperspecialization would be a big challenge. On one
hand, the very concept of hyperspecialization cuts
against the grain of many countries’ labor regulations,
especially in the European Union. On the other hand,
some developing economies may well resist any rules or
standards, fearing they would curb growth. It might be
possible to reframe knowledge work undertaken on the
web as a form of international trade. Thus global rules for
the exchange of knowledge work might create win-win
outcomes—much as the loosening of trade restrictions,
massive expansion of trade in goods since World War II.
Mechanisms are needed for hyperspecialized workers
to develop skills over time and to transfer their work records from one intermediary to another. Those who operate online from home may also want to connect with
peers to share war stories or simply to vent. In prior writ-
Volume XVI
ings we have called for the rise of a new form of guilds
to provide the dispersed digital 21st-century workforce
with professional development and a sense of community. The New York– based Freelancers Union and other
independent worker organizations have emerged to help
so as well.
Work divided into ever tinier parts doesn’t necessarily lose meaning. Medical specialists, for instance, often
focus on very narrow aspects of keeping people healthy
specialized workers in a factory, who do the same tasks
all day, digital hyperspecialists can easily construct personal portfolios of tasks. An engineer, for instance, might
companies use it will determine which ones achieve
competitive advantage.
ization have relied on intermediaries like Mechanical Turk
and TopCoder. But as it becomes more prevalent, enterprises will most likely try using it to organize their internal
activities as well. And new kinds of intermediaries may
step in—governments that want to create employment
for their citizens, for example, or organizations that represent workers’ interests. We envision the emergence of
by global rules and standards—to support hyperspecialization. It would be much like today’s web, except
that instead of enabling the exchange of information and
InnoCentive and then relax by doing some less demanding work on Mechanical Turk.
of knowledge work.
No discussion of the future of knowledge work should
puters take over tasks formerly performed by people.
One recent example is a new generation of software
tools that analyze massive amounts of text. Used during the discovery phase of lawsuits, this software can
is the Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the founding director of the MIT Center for
Collective Intelligence. He is the author of The Future of
Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your
Organization, Your Management Style, and Your Life
(Harvard Business Review Press, 2004).
by laboriously reading box after box of documents. In
tiatives will become viable candidates for pure automa-
is a research scientist and the associate director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence.
or augment hyperspecialization, by automating some
tasks or managing portions of the process. Given the
ns is the senior vice president of innovation
and workforce solutions for ManpowerGroup.
of hyperspecialization should continually monitor the potential for fully automating certain knowledge work.
Hyperspecialization is the human cousin of the information technology tools that have become available to
businesses over the past few decades. In the case of
computer technologies, the simple act of buying and
deploying them was not enough: Companies that used
these new tools wisely, in concert with organizational
innovations and people practices, gained an edge. Hyperspecialization presents a similar opportunity. How
33
-
S U RV E Y R E P O RT
the stAte of
Subu Musti
This Wipro and UBM Tech survey
talks of how hyperconnectivity, which describes
mutli-client and multi-device access to enterprise
resources, can help improve customer service
and relationships.
Director - Mobile Strategy, Wipro
cost savings and revenue opportunities moving forward.
Overall, the indication is that hyperconnectivity leads to
new opportunities, improved customer relationships and
Kedar Limaye
Director & Consulting Partner, Wipro
Enterprises expect hyperconnectivity to improve customer service and customer relationships, according to
a new research from UBM Tech and Wipro, based on
238 high-level marketing and IT managers respondents
(see the sidebar,
for a more
detailed breakdown of the respondents). Nearly half also
expect a bump in mobile productivity.
on deeper engagement with existing customers before
attracting new customers and that most place higher
makes sense as it’s cheaper to keep existing customers—and sell new or add-on services to them—then it is
to prospect for and attract new customers. The research
set out to provide insight into how enterprises plan to
use hyperconnectivity as it relates to mobile connectivity, user productivity, social network integration, work-
Volume XVI
Hyperconnectivity, which describes multi-client and
multi-device access to enterprise resources, involves
mobility, personalization, localization, and the management of the customer experience. The data, applied
analytics, and trends that are discovered as a result are
harnessed by corporations to manage and improve the
corporate strategy and even their entire organization
structure to better serve customers. Hyperconnectivity
has the potential to transform companies into next-generation enterprises.
Nearly three-quarters (72%) of all respondents to the
UBM Tech research survey indicated that they agree or
increase the customer engagement index. Only 3% of
all respondents disagreed (rating of 1 or 2) while the remaining 25% were neutral or unsure (rating of 3).
full 85% of marketing professionals agree or completely
agree (rating of 4 or 5) and 68% of IT agree that hyengagement index at their company.
35
In fact, respondents expect that hyperconnectivity
will help them meet their business goals primarily by
strengthening customer bonds (see Figure 1). According
to the survey responses, the top three ways that hyperconnectivity will help achieve business goals are:
1.Improving customer service (55% of marketers; 70%
of IT)
2.Building stronger customer relationships (55% for
marketers; 44% for IT)
ships, learn to support them better, and provide them
better value with the goal to increase sales. As examples, the integration of social media represents an additional channel for marketing, and the additional customer touch points lead to a better understanding of users’
needs outside of the product(s) they’re currently using.
This leads to increased satisfaction and new sales to
existing customers, achieved through new product features or even new product families, as customers’ needs
are better discovered.
3.Increasing mobile workforce productivity (51% for
marketers; 45% for IT).
These results show that companies believe hyperconnectivity can improve business: companies are marketing to their existing customers to improve their relation-
Data: UBM Tech survey of 238 insurance business technology and marketing professionals, May 2013
Build stronger customer relationships
Increase mobile workforce productivity
Open up newer communication channels
Increase revenue
Attract new customers
Drive new sales
Reduce customer acquisition costs
Increase margins
Revenue through partnerships
50%
Date / Time format
48%
39%
Social network integration
One philosophy for software design is to focus mainly on
users’ needs and the data required, rather than on building an application for the desktop or a mobile device.
This approach can enable a user to collaborate on a
document with another teammate regardless of whether
they’re at their desk, working from home, commuting,
or on business travel. The device type and user location
become less important, and the experience needs to be
consistent across all locations.
34%
Currency format
27%
Location based services
25%
46%
42%
location. Survey questions that ask about customer service, creative marketing, and in the integration of social
media into more traditional applications support this, as
we’ll see in the next section.
24%
21%
No personalization supported
21%
User interface customization
Analysis of user searches
17%
Learning of user searches
15%
Targeted ads ( from ad engine )
14%
22%
22%
9%
6%
6%
Many companies are betting their future success on tight
social network integration and data mining. For example,
software vendors are increasingly integrating social media authentication (such as Facebook user ID and passa level of convenience for users and opens the door for
deeper analytics, leading to a better understanding of
their customers’ needs and interests. The sharing of social media information works in three important ways:
standing of their customers as well as their experiences
with the related application. Second, it provides an additional channel of communication between vendors and
Social media allows users to collaborate and communicate more easily (with each other as well as with application vendors), and it opens opportunities for deeper
understanding about these customers. Although social
media data may be outside the business context, understanding customers on a personal level helps companies
better meet their needs on a business level.
Suggestion of content
31%
27%
cations and improved internationalization features, such
as multi-language support.
Purchase history tracking
20%
66%
-
Note: Multiple responses allowed
Multi - language support
Companies are using hyperconnectivity to better enImprove customer service
-
7%
users. Finally, it leads to new personalization and interaction based on social media patterns.
integration as a personalization feature for to their enterprise application users (see Figure 2). This integration is
at the heart of hyperconnectivity, as it plays a huge role
in connecting the various forms of technology people
use throughout the day. Other methods of personaliza-
Volume XVI
that increased customer engagement is the top way that
This engagement is done through both traditional channels as well as new channels created by the move to
hyperconnectivity. For IT, customer engagement was
For both groups, the second area of impact is increased
brand awareness (51% and 30% for marketing and IT
respectively).
When asked to rank all of the ways in which mobile
one answer (57%), with mobile device email integration
at a close second at 56% (see Figure 3).
When broken out separately, both the marketing and
throughput second (64% for marketers; 53% for IT) and
emergence of a self-service model third (36% and 44%).
Almost 50% of both groups indicated that between
10% and 29% of their customers would adopt self-ser(see Figure 4). Just over
37
one-third of those surveyed expect that less than 10%
of their customer base might adopt self-services apps in
ables users to help one another, gain assistance through
new automated procedures (either online or via mobile
integration), or connect to vendors over social media,
in addition to traditional methods such as phone-base
customer support.
exists. With hyperconnectivity, for example, do the mobility-driven changes in user expectation represent a sea
a few key areas? The ability to use social media to expand the viewing experience in real-time while watching
a television show is a good example of a revolutionary
hyperconnectivity experience. Simply creating a featurefor-feature equivalent of a desktop application for a mobile device may only be considered evolutionary.
44% for IT). Interestingly, the third most common answer
Mobile device email integration
68%
Despite the potential for hyperconnectivity to improve
business, respondents point out many areas for improvement, including bandwidth, security, device capability, and so on. For instance, only recently have devices
contained enough processing power, memory, storage,
and screen resolution to accomplish tasks otherwise
done on a desktop or laptop.
Although device capabilities continue to improve, in
many cases users cite additional needs to support a truly hyperconnected experience. The technologies that IT
and marketing managers felt would best enable growth
and adoption of hyperconnectivity in the next three years
are:
64%
Emergence of self service model
36%
34%
Integrated help system
32%
In May 2013 UBM Tech conducted an
Application initiated phone call
online survey on behalf of Wipro. A total of
238 business technology and marketing
turing, healthcare/medical, and banking/
percentage points. UBM Tech was respon-
3. Improved security (53% for both groups)
sis. These procedures were carried out
look this crucial feature.
the total respondent base (N=238) is +/- 6
Mobile device email integration
Emergence of self service model
Interactive chat services
Application initiated phone call
in strict accordance with standard market
research practices.
-
54%
53%
sible for all programming and data analy-
This relatively low rating for mobile payment support
is somewhat surprising, especially as the market for
mobile users and applications continues to grow. Confusion over what a mobile payment is (for example, Pay-
Integrated help system
44%
31%
18%
the numbers in the responses. Alternatively, it’s possible
enough to require mobile payments. Possible mobile
payment methods include PayPal, direct mobile billing
through the carrier, Google Wallet, Amazon Payments,
QR codes, contactless NFC, or credit card vendors (i.e.
Visa payWave, MasterCard PayPass, or American Express Mobile).
15%
Base: 118 IT respondents
son of respondents with marketing titles
and IT titles. The 47 marketing professionals base yields a possible margin of error
of +/- 14 percentage points, and for the
IT segment of 119 respondents, it is +/- 9
percentage points.
Savvy companies try to look beyond the hype to determine whether new technology represents a new para-
indicate that they don’t currently plan to support mobile
payments.
industries such as technology manufac-
2. Increased use of cloud-based services (60% for marketing and 47% for IT)
-
30%
Base: 47 marketing respondents
The greatest possible margin of error for
fact that security appears in the top three enabling technologies shows that this is a key concern in the area of
hyperconnectivity as well. A focus on security can be a
One area where many have predicted a sea change
related to hyperconnectivity is in the area of mobile payments. In the UBM Tech and Wipro survey 15% of marketing and 20% of IT respondents say their applications
already support mobile payments/billing, whereas 38%
of marketing and 45% of IT plan to roll out mobile payments/billing in the near future. Nearly half (47%) of mar-
Interactive chat services
1. Improved mobile bandwidth (72% for both marketing
and IT)
IT security is too often poorly planned, and planned too
selected “common user interface components” and “a
more personalized experience” (tied at 44%), and the
IT group chose device convergence (40%) for their third
choice (see Figure 5).
When asked how they envision their applications’ user
experience changing in the future, 70% of marketing and
60% of IT managers cited multi-device compatibility, followed by seamless connectivity (59% for marketing and
Volume XVI
-
39
Data: UBM Tech survey of 238 insurance business technology and marketing
professionals, May 2013
Multi-device compatibility
Multi-device compatibility
70%
Seamless connectivity
60%
Seamless connectivity
59%
Common user interface components
In the face of rising costs, increased liability
44%
More personalized experience
and expensive downtime, the construction
industry increasingly uses technology to
39%
such as Rasmussen Equipment rely on the
30 to 49% 13%
10 to 29% 48%
None 0
Quicker transactions
39%
Increased device-to-device communication
-
50% or more 4%
Under 10% 35%
44%
Device convergence
able bandwidth from wireless carriers is their
number one technology enabler for hyper-
37%
Common app management platform
35%
Predictive based on user patterns
connectivity, according to Rasmussen’s
Shane Johnson.
Location-based functionality is important in
construction, especially in terms of helping
26%
Enhanced security
More convenient billing and payments
44%
Device convergence
40%
Common user interface components
39%
Enhanced security
39%
More personalized experience
39%
Quicker transactions
23%
Increased device-to-device communication
23%
More convenient billing and payment
Common app management platform
24%
20%
14%
20%
crews travel and communicate in remote
locations, and to track the whereabouts of
expensive equipment. Additionally, as with
especially as security concerns are ironed out.
most, security remains high on the list of
needs in the area of hyperconnectivity.
Areas of hyperconnectivity that aren’t as
important to Rasmussen Equipment and
other companies in the construction indus30 to 49% 10%
50% or more
5%
Under 10% 27%
10 to 29% 49%
None
9%
try include social network integration and
ity is in the early stages as mobility continues to mature.
As mobile device and application usage increase, the
need to personalize users’ experiences and integrate
work seamlessly across desktop environments, tables,
and smartphones as users change locations — is sure
to increase and accelerate.
Device compatibility and improved mobile bandwidth
(as well as costs) are important factors for the future of
hyperconnectivity. Although mobile payments are slow
in gaining traction, adoption is certain to increase over
time as vendors continue to integrate with social media,
where forms of mobile currency are gaining popularity,
Volume XVI
Overall, marketing and IT managers surveyed believe
that hyperconnectivity leads to new opportunities, imEnd-user experience and value is top of mind for both
sets of respondents. When the goal is to increase customer satisfaction and improve relationships with existing customers through hyperconnectivity, both the companies and their users will win in the end.
http://www.inc.com/karl-and-bill/its-cheaper-to-keep-em.
html, also “Industry Outlook 2013: CMOs Lead the Big Data Revolution”,
http://www.wipro.com/the-data-directive/docs/Wipro-analytics-CMOslead-the-data-revolution.pdf
41
Vice President & CTO, Energy, Natural
Resources & Utilities, Engineering &
Construction, Wipro Limited
smArter fielD
work mAnAgement
systems
Generation
Transmission
Grid Operations
Web Customer Access
Mobile Customer Access
Mobile for Field Work
Customer Care
Partner Access
Distribution
Enterprise Shared Services
Customer Service
Commercial Power Trading
Service Management
Field Work Management
Vendor, Partners
NON UTILITY
TRANSACTIVE MARKET INFORMATION MODEL
COMMON UTILITY INFORMATION MODEL
UTILITY CONTROL APPLICATIONS
Utilities can exploit emerging technologies and the unique opportunities
Customer Management
Local Energy Market
Operations
UTILITY
Enterprise Access
EMERGING NON UTILITY CONTROL APPLICATIONS
Generation Control
Distribution
Management
Demand Response
Management
Micro Grid Management
& Control
Transmission / SCADA
Control
Automated Metering
Control
Data Center & Network
Operation Centers
Commercial Control
EV Management
Non Utility Device
Management
Industrial Control
Residential Control
micro-grids is an area that can expedite the growth agenda.
Utility Connected Assets
Recent innovation in smart grid technologies is set to
transform the global electricity business by introducing
transactional local markets, often referred to “transactive
tiated by a wide scale deployment of net-zero residential
generation, demand driven community micro-grids and
Connectivity Model
Non Utility Connected Assets
Standalone Assets
Every utility today focuses on many aspects of planned
maintenance, inspection, customer facing energy services and vegetation. The existing systems and processes
Generation
Home Automation
Devices
Distribution
Enterprise IT
Transmission
Metering
Commercial Automation
Devices
Solar / PV
Storage
PHEV Stations
Community Micro Grid
with regulatory or other service level criteria. This model
areas of deployment, maintenance and management of
local resources such as residential solar and community
micro-grids. This work opens up a plethora of opportunities for local utilities to extend services by exploiting existing customer base, vendor relationships, processes,
scale to meet the commercial needs of the emerging utility market.
The service model in a local energy market will be
competitive, driven by cost and service levels as op-
work must be proactively managed to minimize cus-
Volume XVI
Generation
Distribution
Residential
Transmission
AMI
WAN
LAN
MESH
WIMAX
WiFi
WIMAX
Wireless LAN
PLC
DNP3
Voice Radio
Mesh
Cellular
Enterprise IT
Commercial Industrial
Electric Vehicle
Micro Grid
In all market scenarios, planned work must take into
account customer preferences such as time, day of
week, preferred touch points, schedule details and comPublic Internet
43
tor and report a variety of useful measurements such as
location, speed, vehicle condition, fuel status, boom angle etc. The live feed cameras in the vehicle can provide
a 360 degree view and when integrated with telematics
data, can deliver a new range of safety applications. In
connected communication scenarios, the VAN can
deliver reliable voice at a competitive cost. In emergency
scenarios, the VAN can switch to a pre-allocated and
negotiated communication band, increasing availability and reliability under all environmental conditions. In
computing requirements.
Private / Public Cellular
Public WiFi
cessful completion and periodic customer communications are the key factors in driving customer satisfaction
and growth. A comprehensive systems architecture to
meet such requirements is presented in Fig 1. This architecture holistically integrates emerging technologies
and centralizes process management structures to effectively scale and exceed customer satisfaction.
and vehicles. Integrated technologies provide a unique
outage management truck used in day to day restoration, should be equipped with a low cost computing
nected and disconnected modes. This vehicle, will also
implement a communication platform architected with
advanced radios, which can seamlessly manage a wide
spectrum of available networks ensuring high availability
and low operating costs.
In addition, these mechanisms will provide digital
mobility for several feet around the vehicle delivering a
Vehicle Area Network (VAN) and ensuring untethered access to key diagnostic and other work management applications. The communication layer can also implement
reliable mechanisms for the computing platform to con-
integrate advanced telematics that can measure, moni-
Volume XVI
45
The crew productivity can be tremendously improved by
strategically employing wearable technologies to expedite work completion. The next generation work helmet
will include a camera, GPS, poisonous gas sensor, accelerometer, temperature sensor and induction sensor.
Most engineering design diagrams and safety manuals
can be housed in the vehicle-computing platform and
streamed directly to the technician’s wearable or proable can stream real-time video from the work site to a
remote diagnostic center where an expert can help aid
with a guided robotic arm and other special devices that
can help resolve technical issues such as attending to
rooftop solar panels.
Most digital grid devices incorporate powerful processors and several components like data validations etc.,
of an end-to-end business process can be executed
right within the device. Many such business processes
can be functionally de-componetized and distributed
across grid devices, the vehicle computing platform and
chitecture that is functionally distributed as opposed to
stove-piped service architectures. A primary feature of
this app architecture is its ability to dynamically recontion capabilities. Utilities must extend the existing apcomponents so that they seamlessly align and deliver
clude scheduling and dispatch apps. The former should
prioritize work based on customer preferences, historical
work crew performance and contractual obligations. The
latter should initiate work based on real time crew availability, environmental and service level agreements.
All app components will embed several adaptive
learning and predictive algorithms and evolve to optimize work dispatch given customer expectations and
resource availability. These new age apps will work with
Volume XVI
advanced asset management and operational systems
to deliver optimal work schedules. Crews will be empowered with specialized apps that can provide individualcustomer satisfaction. These apps will work in tandem
with communication systems that can deliver real time
work status anywhere, anytime to customers. A practical
realization of a residential solar panel outage/restoration
process is depicted in Figure 3.
a robust communication layer enables a unique opporcesses. Utilities can set up a network operations center
work including existing lines of business regulated work.
In addition, these centers can also prioritize, sequence,
dispatch and manage work across the entire service
tasks and respond quickly to an emergency scenario like
a tornado disaster. Customer preferences and compliance criteria can be implemented using standardized
processes, established and directed by these operations
centers. These centers can also implement predictive
process models that can help optimize operational costs
processes can be centrally captured and analyzed for
As smart grid and other digital evolutions mature in the
electric industry, accelerating local market structures,
utilities can expand their service resulting in higher customer satisfaction and retention rates. Smart utilities can
leverage their existing customer base and advance the
gies.
$10 BILLION
INDUSTRY BY
2016
Source: Gartner
Applied Research & Business Innovation Lead,
Strategy Solution & Architecture Group, Manufacturing
& Hi-Tech Business Unit, Wipro Limited
A force for chAnge in
the mAnufActuring
inDustry
Do manufacturers truly understand the impacts of dematerialization
on business as we now conduct it on the global stage, and are
brave, new, dematerialized world?
Today, with digital technology, manufacturers can make
make it. This is commonly known as dematerialization.
Jonathan Koomey, of the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory and Stanford University, is considered an
expert on the trend toward dematerialization, which he
moves the need to create a physical product,” Koomey says, “and it also saves the energy associated with
transporting a product.”
In recent years, the phenomenon known as demateas disruption, for multiple industries. Dematerialization
Volume XVI
enables conservation of natural resources and moves
businesses away from waste toward sustainability. So
it’s not surprising that the government, insurance, music
ernment—and mortgage-backed securities, commercial
This conserves natural resources saves money and can
be stored quite handily in cyberspace—dematerializa-
adopters, given their historically paper-intensive methwere quick to migrate to electronic recordkeeping, which
is far less expensive, far more accurate and requires considerably less physical storage space. Quickly seeing
At present, in the United States alone, according to
the U.S.-based Depository and Trust Clearing Corporation (DTCC), most U.S. securities, including U.S. gov-
Today, it is the manufacturing industry’s turn to gear
up for this transformation, and as the waves of dematerialization—or, more accurately, tsunamis—crash over
the heads of manufacturers large and small, what can we
expect? Driven by Digital technologies (social + mobile
+ analytics + cloud (SMAC)) and consumerization of IT,
facturers broadly in the products being produced, and
49
in the manufacturing processes they follow. The demaways these products are digitally marketed, consumed
or experienced. On the process side, the dematerializa-
new ways of manufacturing like additive manufacturing.
There was a time when the Internet was
the “next big thing.” Before that, it was
In the transformation from physical to digital substitutes,
the prominent dematerialization trend is that of the bundling of digital services around the core product. As noted before, the digital (SMAC) technologies and consumerization of IT are driving this adoption. More ways are
available now, for digitally performing the pre-purchase,
purchase and post-purchase activities. With increased
digital consumption of the product in real time, as well as
the move away from a full-time ownership mode toward
a subscription mode, consumer-led innovations are also
accelerating digitization of services.
To illustrate this, consider the sea change happening in
the automotive manufacturing segment.
personal computers. So is dematerialization the next big thing? It certainly has the
Surrounding the physical product (the car), we see a proliferation of digital services for pre-purchase, purchase
and post-purchase stages — such as crowd-sourced
car designs, virtual reality based car-buying experience; online multi-channel order placement and tracking; personalization of navigation services, infotainment
services, vehicle-health diagnostics, safety-wellness
services and eco-footprint service during usage of the
car. Advanced smart digital algorithms on the car, is also
transforming the driving-experience from ‘driving’ to ‘being driven’.
power to wipe out many legacy industries,
but it also has the potential to exponential-
-
ly increase wealth for manufacturers and
cesses
well-being for consumers all across the
On the factory-side impact of dematerialization, the
adoption is broadly driven by three trends, namely,
globe over the next two or three decades.
Watch for emerging technologies, such as
We see this adoption poised to increase across all manufacturing segments, such as aerospace, heavy engineering, and automotive.
So, do manufacturers really understand the potential
of dematerialization to disrupt their industries? Are they
taking appropriate precautions to ensure that they can
survive?
Wipro and The Outsourcing Center conducted a survey
of 44 manufacturing industry professionals that encompassed C-suite executives, managers, team leaders
and individual contributors; the purpose of our probe
was to get a handle on how prepared these companies
are to migrate to this brave, new manufacturing world.
their organizational footprints span the Americas or Europe, with 75.6 percent covering the Americas and 53.7
3D printing, to profoundly disrupt traditional manufacturing. It’s not a question of
“if.” It’s a question of “when.”
To take a few process-side digitization examples,
virtual reality immersion technologies,
0.98%
prior to actual production runs,
-
22.0%
ing using virtual digital collaboration media
34.1%
34.1%
On the fabrication side, 3D printing is revolutionizing the
way products are created and serviced. Products are
‘engineered to order’ and spare-parts are ‘printed-toAdvancements in material science (like nano-electronics, printed electronics and bioelectronics) have embedded intelligence into the products, making it smarter,
smaller, fewer, lighter, greener and autonomous.
Thus, the dematerialization of processes, fabrication and smart materials, is helping optimize production
costs, minimize waste, reduce prototype cost, and ease
collaboration across geographies.
Volume XVI
Extremely aware; an action plan is in place
to address the issue
Very aware; an action plan is being prepared
Somewhat aware: currently discussing the
need to gather information
Dimly aware; want to respond but don’t
know where to start
Completely unaware or slightly aware but have
no plans to learn more or take action
51
percent covering Europe. Just behind Europe, we found
that 46.3 percent of our respondents’ organizational
24.4 percent encompass the Middle East and Africa.
ufacturing organizations in all geographies really are. We
got a few surprises. Read on:
gaged an IT services provider to stay ahead of the curve.
More than twice that number (35.7 percent) responded
that their company is very aware of this trend and has a
task force that is creating a road map that will enable an
to be worried, too. One can only wonder about the fate
of the stragglers.
only somewhat aware and at the brainstorming stage.
Moving into the factory-side impact of dematerialization,
the emerging trend toward digital and additive manufacturing is being driven by such new technologies as 3D
printing, new material science products, nanoelectronics, printed electronics and bioelectronics, as well as virtual, immersive experiences and simulations, all of which
have implication across the manufacturing processes.
We mentioned that dematerialization would include the
shift from material resources to cloud-based and SaaS
services for sales force support, videoconferencing, digital imaging, business collaboration, system backup and
a host of other business activities.
Interestingly, we encountered a tie with this question.
A little more than one-third of our respondents (34.1 percent) indicated that their organization is extremely aware
of the need to adapt and already has an action plan in
place to address the issue. A little more than one-third
(again, 34.1 percent) responded that their organization is
very aware of the issue and is in the process of preparing an action plan. Fewer (22 percent) responded that
their organization is somewhat aware of the issue and
is currently discussing the need to gather information.
organization is dimly aware, with some understanding
that there is a need to respond but little idea of where to
start. None of the individuals we surveyed indicated that
their organizations were completely unaware and had no
plans to address the issue. So about 68 percent of those
we surveyed believe that they are in a position to adapt
to this shift.
-
02.4%
16.7%
19.0%
35.7%
26.2%
Extremely aware; our CIO has engaged an
IT services provider to keep us ahead of
the curve
Very aware; we now have a task force in place is
creating a road map so that we can remain agile in
responding
Somewhat aware: currently discussing the
need to gather information
Dimly aware; it’s on their list, but they curCompletely unaware and borderline scornful;
they don’t think consumers have the capability
to drive innovation
Consumerization generally refers to an environment in which consumers have
become the primary drivers of technology innovation.
We wondered whether their leaders are taking action to
ensure that the business remains competitive and maintains speed to market with products.
Finally, 19 percent are only dimly aware—this is on their
company’s list, but is not a high priority—and 2.4 percent indicated that their organizations are completely
unaware of the trend or even refuse to believe that consumers have the capability to drive innovation. At least
Only 16.7 percent indicated that their organization is
extremely aware of this trend and that their CIO has en-
marshal some resources to get prepared; another 26
percent, which approaches one-third, are aware enough
Volume XVI
To take a few process-side impact examples, virtual
product design using virtual reality technology is showtype cost and ease of collaboration across geographies.
constantly on your guard,” to “it impacts strategy decisions,” “heavily,” “we are planning for the inevitable” and
“we are very aware.”
It should be
noted that additive manufacturing processes, such as
3-D printing, are still in the nascent stage; it is therefore
not that surprising that manufacturers of a traditional
mindset might not perceive it as an imminent threat.
However, the fact remains that any manufacturer along
a given supply chain—especially one deeply entrenched
in traditional processes—would be well advised to assess the potential impact of additive manufacturing on
operations. It’s true that, at present, additive manufacor production of small quantities of highly customized
items or those that are technically complex. But this new
3D printing is also revolutionizing the way products
are fabricated and serviced, and digital simulation of
production plans prior to actual production is helping
to optimize production costs and minimize waste. Additionally, nanoelectronics and printed electronics have
embedded intelligence into products, making it much
smarter, smaller and autonomous. To investigate this,
we quizzed our respondents about additive and digital
manufacturing.
-
Research conducted by The Outsourcing
-
Apparently, this one hit a nerve. Since additive manufacturing issues include global supply chain
security, increased reliance on modeling and simulation,
faster innovation that responds to consumers’ needs—
all of which are important to the health of a manufacturing business—their silence was a bit deafening.
cant number of manufacturing organiza-
But let’s focus on the responses we did receive: They
were very polarized; there really was no middle ground.
Responses on one end of the spectrum indicated a sig-
1975 and whose name was then synony-
ents,” to “hasn’t impacted us yet,” to “has no impact
at all; my company is very archaic.”) Responses on the
opposite end demonstrated a comprehension of crystal
clarity; they ranged from “aware,” and “you have to be
tions may not fully grasp the impact of dematerialization until it’s too late. Of course,
they have plenty of predecessors. For example, in a particularly ironic twist, Kodak,
mous with the digital revolution, nonetheless failed to embrace the next generation
of digital technology. The price for ignoring
the big picture was steep: Chapter 11—A
.
53
nents? How can they leverage the advantages of digital
design in the manufacturing process?
We then wondered if our respondents might be slightly
intimidated by the shift to 3D printing. As with any trend
at the stage of relative infancy, it’s important to be alert
23.7%
Economist has stated that the Third Industrial Revolution
is underway, and digitization of manufacturing, as well
as the 3D printing technology that is driving this change,
05.3%
10.5%
26.3%
34.2%
manufacturing wave has the potential to become a sigbringing increased printing speeds, plummeting material
printing and traditional manufacturing. The 3D process
-
enables manufacturing to happen outside of a factory
and very close to the point where the product will be
consumed. Additionally, the same 3D printer in a single
facility can be used to make a wide variety of products
that range from consumer goods to medical or automotive components. And it almost goes without saying that
it can produce products that a lighter, stronger, better
and cheaper. Thus, it is already being used in the healthcare, defense, aerospace and automotive industries.
We inquired about how our respondents feel about the
operational, material and shipment costs, but there’s a
sumerization trend. When asked if they see 3-D print-
Volume XVI
ing as a promising solution to dematerialization, an astounding 43.9 percent of our respondents had no idea.
The remaining respondents were polarized: 34.1 percent
see 3-D printing in a positive light, while 22 percent disagreed.
Consider this: The open design community is teeming
with digital designers who conceive innovative ideas and
perceive no boundaries. 3D printing has enabled them to
build designs that are commercially viable and empowered them to create prototypes—even when they have
no access to factories or funds. Over time, it is entirely
conceivable that these new entrants to an old manufacturing market could become a formidable competitive
force. 3D printing could inaugurate a new era of innovation, ingenious products and services, and opportunities
for collaborative partnerships between IT services providers and manufacturers.
These new possibilities raise important questions for
traditional manufacturers. How much longer will their
current business model remain viable? Could 3D printing
techniques improve their own products or enable them
to manufacture their products with 3D-printed compo-
value chain. Only a very small number of our respondents—5.3 percent—believe their organization is ahead
of the curve in overcoming them. A larger number—15.8
percent—believe their company is already relatively adept. A still larger percentage—21.1 percent—has already
begun to address the challenges and acknowledges that
they need help from an IT services provider. Nearly onethird, or 31.6 percent, of respondents have pushed these
challenges to the future, and 26.3 percent of respondents, or almost one-third, stated that their organization
is uninformed and not taking action.
disruption issue, most of our respondents fell into the
not-too-concerned camp. A scant 5.3 percent acknowlthreatening because they’ve engaged a services provider. A larger number—10.5 percent—indicated a slight
considering engaging a service provider. Moving on,
26.3 percent are beginning to think and talk about it internally but have taken no further action yet, while 34.2
percent aren’t too worried and are only beginning to
gather information. Finally, 23.7 percent don’t have any
fear that their value chains will be disrupted and aren’t
pursuing any course of action.
Perhaps our more complacent respondents would
feel more motivated if they understood how 3D printing
could possibly help them manufacture a better product.
It is also entirely possible that 3D printing could end the
I’m very concerned, and I know we must
engaged prepared a services provider
I’m slightly concerned, and it’s growing more
apparent that we must address this issue. It’s a
little threatening, so we’re considering engaging a
services provider
I’ve been thinking about this recently and
have begun discussions internally, but we
have not engaged a services provider
I’m not worried about this at the moment,
but we have begun gathering information
I don’t think this will disrupt my value chain to
any great extent, so I don’t have plans to take
action
need for long-distance production in lower-wage countries. With less labor-intensive, automated production
techniques, near-shore production would become more
attractive, as would mass production at home. Because
3D printing reduces the need for assembly of multiple
components that include moving parts, associated storage and distribution costs will probably come down, as
well. Still more changes—such as mass customization
and made-to-order capabilities that reduce warehousing
appear on the horizon before long.
55
“We must do more with less” used to be the battle cry of
CEOs intent on reducing costs. But in the face of rapidly
increasing natural resource depletion, saving money is
only one reason to shift to a more sustainable business
model. As unconstrained consumption has risen rapidly in a world always hungry for more, resources have
grown scarce—and more expensive. Now, more than
ever, businesses are challenged to do more with less.
As leaders push to adopt a consciousness of frugality,
they’re often met with resistance on many fronts. (In
some organizations, it may be the leaders who are actuabout that below.)
As we learned from Koomey, when we can make
“things” less material, they will consume fewer physical resources. It’s useful to examine where we’re already
seeing dematerialization in ways that are widely accepted. We need venture no further than our smart phones to
see that the information and capabilities needed to comto read maps, encyclopedias and other books or cards;
listen to music; or play games—can be accessed elecYet, these activities require nothing material beyond the
device we’re using.
As technology continues its relentless march of
change, everything in the world (as we know it), from
consumer choices to availability of products to business models, is changing, too—at breakneck speed, in
fact. As in the Industrial Revolution, business models
are becoming obsolete and companies are going bust
at a dizzying pace. Reinvention is the order of the day:
Amazon, born of technology and driven by it since day
one, has been forced to evolve from an online bookstore
to a distribution engine for digital books, to a purveyor
of an astonishing array of products. And let’s not forget
able e-readers, a provider of Web services and a cheerful
exponent of same-day delivery—clearly, it’s a company
that embraces change.
But how can you embrace a change if you don’t un-
Volume XVI
derstand the change that’s already underway? Every organization has some level of vulnerability; even Nokia,
which was once the world’s leading manufacturer of
phones, was forced to take a back seat to Samsung
and Apple—primarily because it failed to adapt to smart
phone technology.
The phenomenon of new technologies replacing old
ones is nothing new. Many industries have been transformed—as well as decimated—in the process. For
those manufacturers with their heads in the sand, the
swift sword of industrial Darwinism can deal a painful
blow.
But the truth is, the manufacturing processes and
business models that have served us well for the past
century seem a bit dusty with the advent, rapid evolution and adoption of digital technologies. Technological
change is a fast-moving train, and as the dematerialization trend continues to gather steam, it seems wise to
nals may do so at their peril.
Research conducted by The Outsourcing Center and
Wipro suggests that many manufacturers are still clinging to “status quo” thinking. However, it’s not too late to
get back on track. Engaging an astute IT services partcreate an informed action plan for a smooth transition
to the new business model would be the most prudent
course. Clearly, manufacturers need a coordinated action plan for preparedness that enables them to scale up
for this level of disruption. To be prepared for the very
need streamlined processes, new standards and digital
data-exchange security, along with an increasingly collaborative approach among all players in their respective
manufacturing, IT and technology ecosystems.
Automotive Sensor Market
$18.1 BILLION
IN 2015
Source: Strategy Analytics
enormous challenges when it came to institutionalizing
G.S.Nathan
and scaling this approach in the context of a business
General Manager – Innovation,
enterprise. To be sure there were successful startups
software testing, data validation, software development,
-
and so on. But its adoption by mainstream IT services
-
delivery organizations has so far been small, far be-
sourced and customized the design of a Porsche. Can
you envision the impact that this approach of depending
It is in this context that new technologies become
on people who don’t work for you, could have on how
organizations get work done? For instance, imagine if
an organization working to deliver complex technology
examine how an Open Execution Model can be an en-
solutions could source niche skills from anywhere in the
abler of innovation, the process challenges, and best
globe, outside the boundaries of the organization. How
practices in the backdrop of Wipro’s experience in evolv-
would this enable organizations to innovate more rapidly
ing open execution delivery systems.
Clearly, in the information economy, an organization is
only as good as the innovative ideas it can nurture and
the open execution
Innovation Across
ies
execute at speed. Indeed, many good organizations are
Technological advances allow new business processes
capable of harnessing innovation within their boundar-
to be created that can drive competitive advantage. To
ies. However, if organizations were able to tap into the
leverage this, organizations need to be able to quickly
knowledge, skills, experience, and ‘innovativeness’ in-
access the skills and competencies needed to cater to
side and outside the organization—dissolve all boundar-
them. Moreover, as the number of new technologies and
ies and become a borderless incubator of innovation—
-
they would become supremely capable of continuously
ect increases, an organization, however large it may be,
delivering better solutions to their customers. This is
will not have all the required skill sets to complete a par-
Henry Chesbrough in his book Open Innovation: The
organization to scale up and tap into the best resourc-
-
es to solve complex business and technical problems,
ogy. Since then, open innovation principles have come
to be rapidly adopted to source ideas both internally and
externally, and to rapidly experiment, prototype, test,
and create innovative products and solutions. The concept of “crowdsourcing” soon followed, referring to the
-
way services—coding, testing, engineering design, and
so on—that required specialized skills and knowledge
Clearly, in the information economy, an organization is only
as good as the innovative ideas it can nurture and execute at
speed. Indeed, many good organizations are capable of
harnessing innovation within their boundaries.
Volume XVI
could be sourced from anywhere in the world, whether
the providers of such services were part of an organiza-
-
tion or not.
However, “open execution”—delivery of services using a crowdsourced model was always fraught with
59
whether they are within or outside the organization. In
drawing on external expertise, when required. These
this way, standing on the twin pillars of competence and
organizations’ new focus on competency building also
collaboration, this approach facilitates innovation.
helps create a highly motivated, skilled, and focused
Wipro’s Open Execution Model is designed to address
world, and not bound by organizational ties, will require
will have to groom a new generation of leaders who can
workforce.
this and to function as an IT service delivery platform that
: The new semi-porous structure of
enables innovation by tapping into a broad resource pool,
these organizations makes them a high-collaboration
within and outside the organization, while quickly deliv-
zone that harvests the strongest ideas from the best
ering the innovation to our customers. In other words,
people. Take for instance, the generation of new ideas
While it may be possible to dis-
by working with appropriate stakeholders, the model al-
during technology hackathons. At Wipro, we have seen
aggregate the service so that it is delivered by a group of
lows great ideas to surface, get converted into business
power of this approach early, through our ‘ideas’ cam-
and program management knowledge needs an extension to accommodate the demand for these skills.
services valued by customers, and deploys them rapidly.
Risk management and
also an essential skill that is crucial to the Open Execu-
compliance to the various contract obligations that gov-
tion Model. Here again, the latest technologies in appli-
Predictably, this new approach to
ern the delivery of IT Services is a whole new area. To
cation development are seen to be quite helpful. The key
resource mobilization creates a leaner and more cost-
start with, contracts that may include crowdsourcing
is a change in the mindset of the development teams
need to be rewritten to include the new provisioning
where work processes do not follow the traditional life-
structure. In an ODC model, there would be severe limi-
cycle model, but switch to more agile, iterative, and in-
them with an incentive to opt for the delivery of their
tations. Access to, control of and compliance to infor-
cremental models.
products or services through the Open Execution Model.
mation dissemination, all need to be reworked based on
technical problems internally.
Organizations could adopt the Open Execution Model
management strategy that facilitates teamwork, cost optimization, and organizational transformation. While this
the agreement between the customer, IT service delivery
approach would be especially successful to drive technology solutions for large enterprises, it is open to all or-
vendor, and the Open Execution Model participants. All
sustain an open execution program?
of these would test new ground.
ganizations and individuals for their participation.
-
may be ready to adopt the Open Execution Model as
yet. Organizations may also need to consider and meet
clude:
Ultimately innovation is about
Controlling quality while working
under an Open Execution Model can be a challenge as
individual technologists, participating in delivering so-
: Co-ordination be-
common set of standards and code of conduct. In this
tween a group of technologists scattered across the
scenario, establishing, monitoring, and assuring quality
the challenges of adopting this approach to innovation.
invention of new ways (processes) to meet customer
The biggest issue is the
needs, improving on existing approaches, and executing
complexity of the execution model. Facilitation of free
them rapidly. The Open Execution Model helps in get-
movement between internal and external resources,
ting great ideas (invention), and acting on them swiftly
el several fold. For example, complexity is introduced
(execution).
Organizations could dis-
in work organization (how work is broken down, what is
crowdsourced, what is done internally, assignation, and
payment), how ideas and IP are handled and the protec-
employee could now be productively utilized, with the
organization drawing on the expertise of external technologists for niche skills that are not easily available internally.
tions they should have, communication, costing, governance, and risk management. In fact there is complexity
in all aspects of delivery. Organizations would have to
predict and manage this complexity, and even invent a
model akin to the Global Delivery Model that enabled IT
: With this
new approach to resource mobilization, organizations
in the Global Delivery Model, the Open Execution Model
could focus on building their core competencies, while
is also a work in progress at this stage of its evolution.
Volume XVI
01
6
4
This approach also has been leveraged by academia,
-
None of these are insurmountable problems. Interest-
particularly Stanford’s eCorner and INSEAD, in their
the diversity of the workforce, while meeting the gener-
ingly, we are able to make progress in a number of these
study of entrepreneurship and innovation thought lead-
ally strict industry norms. Existing quality processes and
areas today, and push the envelope.
ership.
metrics will need extensive revisiting.
: In view of the internal-external collaboration
that drives the Open Execution Model, it becomes cru-
Clearly, open execution has the potential to transform
the Open Execution Model are driven by a set of mixed
the delivery of technology solutions for products and
motivations that combine elements of the open execu-
services. But the successful deployment of this model
tion incentives’ 3Ps: “price, prize, and pride”.
Many participants would work for a price, realized in
Quality processes need to be rethought and enforced
through innovative methods. For instance, one option is
extending the new advances in developing technologies
that help in automatically ensuring development quality
through using tools and processes for both communitybased and formal quality control into the Open Execution Model.
This unique
a series of sustained investments, in the face of uncer-
some cases on an auction model. For instance, take
the examples of the crowdsourced labor space oDesk
and the crowdsourcing Internet marketplace Amazon
Mechanical Turk (MTurk), which have successfully provided platforms for businesses and freelancers to work
together via the Internet. As the largest online market-
them to drive many of the changed processes that open
execution will necessitate. This is not necessarily a new
skill to be learnt, but the context of its application introduces fresh challenges that need new approaches.
Determining and managing
the IP created in a fair manner, also poses challenges.
Some of these are not entirely in the control of the organization and may depend on local laws and regulations.
While progress has been made to create enabling laws,
organizations could adopt for the delivery of IT services
and products through the Open Execution Model:
Conclusion
Open innovation has already begun to transform the
tries. Just as the Global Delivery Model opened up new
plexity that goes with this approach, not all services
avenues of service delivery, the Open Execution Model
are appropriate for delivery via open execution. For in-
has the potential to foster a dynamic and result oriented
stance, data governance, image tagging, and translation
culture of innovation in our 21st century organizations.
However, the approach is not without its challenges, and
so it is necessary for organizations to actively innovate
2. Choose the right platform: With this approach still
evolving, organizations must be careful to select a plat-
clock 75,000 hours each day at this online marketplace.
where suitably big prizes are announced for the best
at the start of the partnership.
approach to product and service creation across indus-
billion has been spent on its platform since its inception
in 2005. It is a further demonstration of the success of
ment on intellectual property and other copyright details
1. Select the right service. Given the high level of com-
place in the world today, oDesk reports that over US $1
Another fairly widespread model is the prize model,
is necessary to build the right leadership and empower
management. Here are some of the best practices that
cial to clearly elucidate pricing and have a legal agree-
product or service being managed under the Open Ex-
in managing open execution processes for success. The
fruits of mastering the science and the art of open innovation and execution are a great innovation culture
within, and market success without.
ecution Model.
solutions. The X PRIZE Foundation, which runs public
Given the com-
competitions to encourage technological development
plexity of this model, it becomes imperative for organi-
is the trailblazer for this model, and was memorably lev-
zations to forecast and manage potential problems that
eraged by Richard Branson to select the technology for
could arise from this style of management. As with all
the spaceship that launched Virgin Galactic, which was
licensed from the winner of the Ansari X PRIZE.
software development cycle, they become less expen-
Yet, other powerful incentives remain passion, community, collaboration, and recognition. Increasing inputs
from diverse disciplines, such as economics, statistics,
-
cance in the case of the Open Execution Model, where
the process is, by its very nature, less amenable to control.
tion of the contract and reward mechanisms used here.
Organizations can tap into any of these motivators to
would the IP have to be shared by both internal and ex-
drive innovation and raise the quality of the technology
ternal entities? Is it possible to commercially capture its
solution delivered through the Open Execution Model.
Volume XVI
Quality
63
-
Ram Prasad K R
ciples of Success
Chief Technologist, Chief Technology
The needs of an enterprise for the digital economy is to
provide the right information on demand to people play-
DAtA scAle &
intelligence
When such a fundamental shift is happening with data,
ing varied roles in an enterprise and answer questions
there seems to be a contrast in the way information so-
with speed and agility. The technologies and architec-
lutions are built within the enterprise and on the internet
tures would need to break the data silos, understand the
which is the nervous system of the digital economy. The
context of the business domain and the business pro-
consumer search engines have thin line interfaces wait-
cesses that generate the data and deliver this through
formation about anything one wants by simply typing into
a one line interface. They use smart devices to browse,
music and use many more services at great speeds.
Life is simpler and easier with the digital world today.
On the Internet, large volumes of data are democratized,
with many sources like websites giving search engines
thin line interfaces like the internet search engines.
One can map this need to four key principles: disintersection of these would give the enterprise areas
to innovate for the digital economy. Let’s look at these
4 principles in detail and see how they aid to creating
a scalable and an intuitive information management
system.
access to information, and assistance to understand, organize, and identify.
-
The technologies and architectures would need to
break the data silos, understand the context of the
business domain and the business processes that
generate the data and deliver this through thin line
interfaces like the internet search engines.
formation is in silos with diverse technologies, formats
Within an enterprise, silos of data assets could be in the
following forms:
and structures across lines of business and access is
not democratized. They need orchestration of data from
diverse sources, both within and outside the enterprise
warehouses
as this provides innumerable opportunities for business
documents and email, and
innovation.
Knowledge workers are spending more that 20 percent
-
content and social media.
tion. Knowledge workers need to give meaning to data
Data virtualization technologies, such as Apache TE-
Enterprises are innovating for the digital economy and data has become the fulcrum
and understand it unambiguously. Unlike the consumer
-
of innovation. In the digital world, the ecosystem is generating data every second
world where the search engines provide a few thousand
ing applications and users access to organizational data,
- businesses, governments, citizens, machines and networks. The data has to be
results when a user enters a keyword, knowledge work-
while providing for data security. In this virtual environ-
ers need precise information pertinent to their roles.
ment, data repositories and warehouses can be added
collected, understood and analyzed to create innovative products and services. Data
-
The technologies of internet search engines and en-
dynamically and information accessed on demand from
faction, productivity, cost control, dynamic and personalized products and services
terprise knowledge systems are creating breakthrough
multiple data sources, enabling information discovery.
and discovery of business insights.
applications and thus driving innovations for dynamic
search within the enterprise. Can we create a thin line
Volume XVI
interface akin to the internet world for enterprise users
Find-ability covers the extent to which an information
to get them the right information at the right time without
management system supports data navigation and re-
having to use several applications?
trieval, while enabling intelligence augmentation through
65
approach. In response to a question, it searches for top-
system can even understand parts of speech and recog-
ics, concepts, and associations that span a vast num-
nize words like ‘what,’ ‘when,’ and ‘where’ to determine
ber of sources. It provides for auto-recognition of topics,
the type of question that has been asked. It could even
with information extraction based on the ontology of a
pick up words like ‘for,’ ‘in,’ or ‘between’ to connect various parts of a search phrase into something meaningful.
multiple sources.
The integrated capabilities of semantic search and NLP
Semantic search improves accuracy and relevance by
considering the intent behind a query and the contextual
enable users to have a dialogue with information systems and get exact answers for their questions.
With the introduction of a question answering system,
knowledge models associated with the data.
Enterprises will need to leverage intelligence augmentation methodologies to view information in terms of
data ontology. This involves deploying a formal method
of describing entities and relationships in a domain along
with their properties. Augmented intelligence will mirror
complex internal relationships and captures the aggregated knowledge within a domain. These descriptions of
Intelligence augmentation can be further used to create visualizations enabling rapid decision making. Big
data analytics has moved from categorizing data to visuhas a context and is displayed in terms of its connection to other information. It functions as an information
blueprint that enables more strategic decision making.
Let’s take the case of Proctor & Gamble that has instituToday, “Decision Cockpits” on their desktops represent
key business information visually for all 50,000 P&G employees, while meeting spaces have embedded visual
analytics from P&G’s Information and Decision Soluglobe and enable decision making.
provides users with a reply after it considers a search
query in terms of its context, location, intent, word variation, synonyms, and foreign language interpretation. In
this way, it narrows down the number of replies for a
single query.
Users will no longer have to face thousands of results
for a single query - they would be delivered precise reOn the Internet, this methodology has been utilized to
create semantic search portals, such as Google’s Knowledge Graph and Facebook’s graph search. But now this
capability can be leveraged within the boundaries of an
organization as well, with tools, such as Thomson Reuter’s Eikon 3.0. This market analysis and trading soft-
Consider a digital enterprise of the future which needs
the ability to create products and services dynamically
a more intelligent, relevant, and responsive interaction
than the deployment of standalone information technologies in isolation.
This new-age digital information architecture will fundamentally disrupt how enterprises deal with information, democratizing data, augmenting intelligence and
providing understanding and insights. As the system
introduces business professionals to a world of exact answers, we will witness an increased exploration
of ideas. With one click and thin line interface they can
make their way through all the noise to gain deep insights from data. They can throw away time-consuming
applications, reports manuals and search functionalities,
and use the tools that empower them to make the right
business decisions.
and respond to market needs with agility. Further, it will
have to:
a. Combine and harmonize information from many dispareleases, social media updates, subscription databases,
internal products and services databases, internal business databases (licensing and sourcing) spreadsheets,
emails, and other ad-hoc sources of information.
and rapid responses to complex queries, thereby facilitating market analysis in a user-friendly environment,
similar to the Google experience.
b. Tie together information from internal databases with
up-to-the-minute information from public sources to ofproducts, and services launched.
Most users have questions that need precise answers.
The need perhaps is for an answer engine rather than
a search engine. Here, Natural Language Processing
the user’s question. While much of the research around
Understanding is about the contextual meaning, reasonalso has tremendous implications for the capability to
manage and search organizational information. An NLP
Volume XVI
Conclusion
markets at one place, with a semantic search facility that
allows users to rapidly focus on relevant information.
(NLP) can improve the quality of an information system’s
ing and making inferences to provide unambiguous re-
daunted by a task that required multiple steps, may now
feel emboldened to ask any question.
ral language processing. These systems will provide
an abstraction layer, above existing data management
technologies, enabling enterprises to bridge the gap
c. Extract information relevant to the business, analyze
this in the context of the relevant domain, and derive insights about aggregate competitive intelligence. It will
have to provide business users with data about comdisseminate information on a continuous basis.
The enterprise knowledge systems designed around
standing and dialogue will be driven by tools for data
virtualization, semantic search, ontologies, and natu-
67
If you would like to read more, please visit our website
www.wipro.com/insights — where we regularly publish our
viewpoints and perspectives that can help companies sustain
competitive advantage.
We would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions
knowledge-sharing tool for senior executives like yourself.
Please write to us at [email protected]
Best Wishes,
Wipro Council for Industry Research
Give us your feedback online
About Wipro Ltd.
Wipro Ltd. (NYSE:WIT) is a leading Information Technology,
Consulting and Outsourcing company that delivers solutions
to enable its clients do business better. Wipro delivers winning
business outcomes through its deep industry experience and
a 360 degree view of “Business through Technology” - helping
clients create successful and adaptive businesses. A company
recognized globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services,
a practitioner’s approach to delivering innovation, and an
organization wide commitment to sustainability, Wipro has a
workforce of 140,000 serving clients across 57 countries.
For more information, please visit www.wipro.com

Creating Breakthrough Applications at the Intersection of Technologies

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