The Human Side of Digital Business Transformation

Chapter 8Emerging Technologies and Human-Centered Transformation

The world we live in today is digital, connected, and mobile. Digital technologies have invaded every aspect of our lives and the business world. Today, over 62% of the world's population have internet connection,

According to Peter Diamandis, cofounder and Executive Chairman of Singularity University, technology is now democratized. When something is digitized it begins to behave like an information technology. In the past, powerful technologies were mainly available to large organizations or governments. Now, technology has become more accessible and affordable to a broader range of people. This has also created a higher potential for entrepreneurs to disrupt industries and challenge the stronghold of large corporates. Globally, there are about 1.35 million tech start-ups trying to achieve exactly this.

Diamandis explains this disruption in terms of the 6D framework on how exponential technologies go from being deceptive, where few people see them coming, to disruptive, where they became the main way of doing things in the world, as shown in Table 8.1. (Diamandis and Kotler 2016).

Reflecting on this framework, we can take a lesson from the well-documented demise of Kodak. Once a market leader in the photography industry, Kodak was the first to invent the digital camera in 1975. However, the conservative leadership team decided to forgo it in favor of maintaining the traditional camera and film industry, which ...