Maintaining Relevance Amid the Disruption

As technology changes, you can imagine that a person would have to learn a few new things to stay relevant. (When I say a few, I mean a lot!)

Disruption is not always a bad thing since it can provide an environment conducive for growth and progress. A business faces daily disruptions and often seeks guidance to stay relevant in the market and adjust their technology strategy to compliment the "disruption".

Disruptive technology is no different. New technology can sustain an organization or cause additional disruption in the business model. In order to keep the status quo of applications, an organization may be forced to make some incremental improvements or create a hybrid approach to combine technologies and platforms.

Current disruptions are being caused by:

1. Moving to Cloud: Cloud Computing has become so commonplace and has reached a level of "accepted. That doesn't mean everyone has adopted it. The evolution is considered to be inevitable. The value outweighs the mentality of keeping things the same.

2. Automation and Modernization of Legacy Applications: Automation provides a way for organizations to be more competitive in the market and move toward a proactive model of self-service. According to a Forrester report, one-third of American jobs could become automated by 2030. The modernization of legacy applications provides updated functionality that uses new databases and programming languages that are more resilient and efficient.

3. Artificial Intelligence(AI): AI is being integrated into the world with Siri and Alexa. These useful and common uses have a strong dependence on Cloud Computing, with their heavy storage requirements.

4. Machine Learning: Machine learning has been used to increase the accuracy of a diagnoses and improve the quality of our lives. The world has lots of machine learning systems and they will someday interact and learn from each other.

5. Connected Devices and Connectivity: Internet of Things connected devices are a part of every home and business. The connectivity that is required to provide this capability is phenomenal.

6. Cyber Security Threats: Cyber threats on critical infrastructure can bring businesses and governments to their knees. These deliberate efforts to access online information and steal sensitive or private information causes definite disruptions.

From this list, AI is the closest to the "Queen of Disruptions" with Connectivity and Security tied for the second spot.

But, maintaining relevance amid the disruption should be the highest priority.