#4 – Plug-n-playability will become a key advantage

Smart homes. Smart cities. Smart transportation. Smart health. Regardless of where we look, the future of economic activity is increasingly going to revolve around layers and ecosystems of data platforms, which in turn will come together to form a top layer of connected ”super platforms” that will span across industries, sectors and borders.

A smart fire alarm might form an ecosystem with other smart products in the home, which in turn might feed data and information about everything from utilities consumption and e-commerce activity into a local commercial platform, to which everyone from plumbers to local delivery workers are connected. Data aggregated from this ecosystem might then be connected to a higher-level smart city platform. Which in turn might connect to a nationwide logistics platform…

In such an economy, where data proves the underlying beating heart and connective tissue of value creation, the ability to seamlessly integrate and extract value from data streams and ecosystems will be paramount. Whether through open source, hyper-collaborative API:s, or cross-industry platforms, tomorrow’s successful enterprises will be those that are best able to plug-and-play into these new networks of value creation. If plug and ”pray” might to some extent be an option today, it most certainly will not be tomorrow.

3 Tips To BE READY

1. Think global by default

More data means better insights; better insights mean better offers; better offers mean more customers. Which in turn means even more data.  As more business models become subject to self-reinforcing flywheels fed by data; scale will come to matter more than ever. To stay competitive in a world increasingly dictated by go-big-or-go-home logics, tomorrow’s successful connected enterprises will need to adopt the habit of thinking globally by default. Because as a rule, tomorrow’s winners will be the ones that manage to reach critical global scale first.

2. Prioritize ecosystem compatibility

Up until now, the primary focus of companies has been to safeguard knowledge and information from the outside world. In tomorrow’s connected economy, that knee-jerk thinking will need to be turned on its head. Rather than asking ”how good are we at safekeeping the unique knowledge we possess”, tomorrow’s successful connected enterprises should ask ”how good are we at opening up our data for others to create value around”. Put differently, tomorrow’s winners will be those that think more in terms of API:s than NDA:s

3. Be prepared to re-evaluate the business you’re in

From the point of view of business, the difference between an analogue and digital product is often profound. Whereas a tire is a product, a connected and data-generating tire is something else entirely. It could be the basis of a service, a mobility-data platform, or a valuable source of insights for insurance companies. To make the most of a smart and connected future, tomorrow's successful enterprises should increasingly look to evolving interconnected digital ecosystems for opportunities. And be prepared to follow up on them – even when that means going after completely new business models or industries.  

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This article is part of our report: 12 predictions for Tomorrow's Connected Enterprise read the rest of the predictions here:

Tomorrow's Connected Enterprise