Atoms will become more local and bits more global in times after COVID-19 (original) (raw)

Published Mar 30, 2020

In his 1995 book Being Digital, Nicholas Negroponte describes a future where the change from atoms to bits is irrevocable and unstoppable. The atom is the physical referent such as CDs, books, and letters. The bit is the digital equivalent. He also proposed that a company’s move into the digital future would be at a speed proportionate to the conversion of its atoms to bits. Bits are more efficient than atoms so the switch from atoms to bits will be fast and furious to create a more digital future. However, decentralization and globalization - two key attributes that characterize the digital age - will come under the scanner in the aftermath of COVID-19. In response, businesses will work to make atoms more local and bits more global.

We’ll counter the fragility of globalization

The Institute for Supply Management, in its recent survey, found that almost 75 percent of American companies have seen some kind of supply-chain disruption due to the coronavirus, and 44 percent simply don’t have a plan to deal with it. As we look to redraw our future, we will be driven by a need to protect against perceived risks and take back some of our sense of lost control. We will look to find viable ways to manufacture goods and bring supply chains closer to consumer markets, to local suppliers, and closer home. For this, businesses will have to embrace emerging technologies. This means the atoms of our supply chains will exponentially transform to bits. The massive influx of bits to catalyze this transformation can only be global. Now, more than ever, we will need the economics that the technology global delivery model, with its ‘follow the sun’ development, can quickly bring to our regional manufacturing supply chains. Services to manufacture on the cloud, to scale additive manufacturing and even institutionalize AI-led zero-touch making will become indispensable. While the massive reskilling of local manufacturing talent will be a priority, it will be hard to pass up the here-and-now leverage of the global delivery model’s rich pool of industry-ready talent. Hard-hit businesses, keen to quickly move beyond crisis-response to recovery, will want every one of the compelling, multifaceted advantages of this model to tackle the heavy lifting that lies ahead.

We’ll digitize the talent value chain – including work and workplace

No longer will it suffice to digitize just our customer value chains. With the approach to work shifting almost entirely to the digital because of the physical distancing we are embracing, facilitating distributed remote working at scale is non-negotiable today, and will become the norm tomorrow. Our global talent value chain - people interactions, process and systems - will become all-digital. Technology tactics for team and ecosystem collaboration will be table stakes. In addition to anytime-anywhere collaboration and compute-on-the-go, automation will enable massive personal productivity gains. We will rewire our operating models and build greater flexibility into our workplaces, talent models and policies to create the landscapes in which technology can also boost enterprise productivity that will undoubtedly be demanded by our recovery-focused businesses. Virtualization of almost everything – an all-pervasive shift from atoms to bits - will play a pivotal role here. Adoption of virtual desktops supported by globally distributed, secure cloud infrastructure will enable much-needed workspace elasticity with the convenience of remote management. When complemented by cloud environments to build and test run applications, this will empower our remote and distributed workforces to build upon each other’s work. It will prove to be a significant worker amplifier, because productivity and performance will increasingly be measured in terms of value created from outcomes, rather than a count of lag indicators like time and effort.

We’ll look for insulation from risk with learning-from-adversity

It’s natural, in a risk-averse post-COVID-19 economy, to be wary of globalizing the quest for bits to fast-track our recovery. But several providers of technology services – especially the seasoned ones that leverage the global delivery model - are already doing it for themselves. They have been quick to lead the distributed remote working at scale movement backed by a supportive policy environment that categorizes IT services as mission-critical and essential – and have a clear head start. Besides, the delivery model for technology services has always responded to hard times by manifesting in more relevant versions of itself, growing new capabilities to survive - even thrive - in an ever-evolving context. Think of the first wave of global technology development that gained momentum in the nineties as IT service providers the world over tackled the Y2K problem that threatened to bring us all to a grinding halt. Then again, around 2007, a few years following the dotcom bubble burst the model proved its mettle again. The ride to recovery, backed by expanding telecom infrastructure and massive uptake for smartphones, this time came with the development of full-stack digital services that leveraged cloud and big data. Now, the post-coronavirus economy will usher in the third wave backed by always-available telecom infrastructure and accelerated adoption of 5G. It will bring with it solutions to evolve our workforces and workplaces to embrace a more digital culture by enabling our people to virtually connect, collaborate and build new digital skills around new ways of working.

The path to recovery, for us all, will be a highly dynamic trajectory. Rapid, coordinated responses to serve the evolving needs of our customers will have to be made a top-down priority, complemented by an adaptive, bottom-up approach to initiative-taking and innovation. I think, in this there’s great opportunity for us to absorb the shock of the recent crisis by accelerating our all-round digitization – localizing more atoms by globalizing more bits. This will be another inflection point for the “irrevocable and unstoppable change from atoms to bits” that Negroponte saw long before we did.

Atoms will become more local and bits more global in times after COVID-19 (original) (raw)

Ravi Kumar S

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