Business Executives Wake Up (W11)

The writer did not have the courage to write this article with the chosen title prior to reading an article written by a professor of business technology Stephen Andriole in USA as published in the Communications of the ACM in December 2023. The published article bears the title of Five Ways Executives Misunderstand Technology. This article’s title is a call for action. This article attempts to distill 30 minutes of teaching to 3 minutes of interpretations for business executives. The writer recently started up a new Systems Division within Compucon based on the same thinking.

Most business executives are aware of big trends such as Generative AI as demonstrated by the software ChatGPT and 5G as mentioned by almost every smart guy on Earth. A small fraction of business executives may understand that Generative AI is machine learning and 5G is the next version of 4G. Does this level of knowledge help? Yes, it does make one look smart! Then there is another fraction of business executives who were told about Digital Transformation and the risks of not going for it. Risk is the motivation factor for those who started a Digital Transformation journey. Is this enough? Yes, if a tactical win is enough. Updating the way of doing things to digital is tactical. Reverting to the basics of business goals is strategic. Top executives and professionals are strategic.

How we can be strategic with emerging technologies? Obviously, those business executives who have a good understanding of technology are the first in the position to think strategically. Those business executives who know the presence or trend of technology are the so-called main-street people as far as technology adoption is concerned. All of them react to the same technology that is already a commodity. Yet, they are better off than another large group of business executives who do not know what they do not know and miss the boat heading for the eventual demise of business. A clear message is that technology can lift or sink a business just like the tide for boats.

The original article mentioned the following technologies as emerging: machine learning, natural language processing, the Internet of Things, quantum computing, 5G/6G, edge computing, augmented and virtual reality. A simple test to us is ‘how ready can we explain each term to laymen’. The next step of testing is ‘how we can use them to improve our business tactically’. The ultimate test is ‘how we can use them to give our business new durable competitive advantages strategically’.

A 2024-01 ACM article supplied an example of extreme success for our reference. Nvidia was started up in 1992 to make graphics cards and became the 5th company in world history to go into the Trillion USD Club of market capitalization in 2023. It created a future for itself that is not easily contested by others by relating business deeply with technology. Although it will be very hard for business executives to replicate the success of Nvidia, it will be naive if we do not attempt to learn something from Nvidia for our own business, large or small.

Business executives and professionals in all disciplines should learn more about digital technology due to its foundational role in almost everything today. Think language. Think mathematics. Is this wake-up call too harsh or unrealistic? What shall we do next? Please discuss.