A few months ago the number of Internet users exceeded 4,000 million people on the planet, which was at that time 53% of the world’s population. According to the report published in February ‘Digital in 2018’ of the social network administration platform Hootsuite, these figures had increased by 7% in the last 12 months. We are heading to a hyperconnected world where not only people but also means of transport, housing; everything will be connected.
The technological disruption is here to stay, as we can observe in the changes produced in the business models of the three main segments of the financial sector: banking, asset management, and insurance.
In the next 2 years, access to electronic financial services could be guaranteed to more than 2 billion adults who are currently excluded from the financial system, according to the World Bank’s Universal Financial Access 2020 report.
And this is thanks to the rise of financial inclusion strategies based on the combination of advances in information technologies and the services provided by banks and financial and entrepreneurial institutions in technological finance (Fintech).
The global investment in Fintech in 2018 is focused on increasingly innovative solutions in the sub-sectors of payments and Regtech, or regulatory technology. Information technologies improve regulatory processes, emphasizing monitoring and improving transparency.
We are already seeing the development of distributed accounting and blockchain accounting technologies that go beyond the experimental phase. This technology is already used in the transformation of cross-border transactions, in the implementation of digital identity, and in the linking of assets, which range from capital and debt to real estate and works of art, to tokens.
This environment of innovation and high-speed change is influencing companies, workers and boards of directors. In the last PWC Board of Directors report for 2017, 60% of the directors’ renewal was related to the fact that they were not aligned with the speed of change in the company and the market. Talent management issues also emerge as protagonists, as well as the importance of diversity as a tool for the creation of value understood in all its dimensions.
Without neglecting the traditional strategy, companies have focused on the digital strategy through omnichannel systems, with the aim of reaching the customer through different channels and that the latter has a satisfactory experience at any time; or the ecosystem strategy seeks market growth in which it competes by adding adjacent markets or entering new markets.
This model of cooperation can be seen in Apple’s recent agreements with some banks to fully digitize payments in shops through the use of their smartphones or watches.
A question of vital importance for companies today is how to study your business and define the moonshot of your organization, identify disruptive parameters in the short, medium and long term. Exponential boards must often deal with these strategic issues and ask many questions, be prepared to give the vision of where the moonshots of your industry are.
It is essential to look at the adjacent businesses, to look for relationships with different types of companies even if they are foreign to the business, even with the competition. Knowledge and a pragmatic, resilient and sustainable digital architecture are the challenges to be solved through which alliances and ecosystems can be created that allow companies to capitalize together upward trends among consumers.
Every company that wants to innovate must look for and identify efficiencies in its supply chain.
By crossing innovative technologies and the efficiencies that can be provided in my business, certain processes can be automated, thus generating confidence in the consumer.
The most relevant point of friction in any relationship with the customer is the customer’s dissatisfaction, but it can also become a great opportunity when innovating. It is essential to maintain a constant dialogue in order to be able to anticipate what customers expect from our products.
We are going to live in a hyperconnected world creating a network of billions of people and brains thinking at the same time. Thanks to emerging technologies we can apply all this knowledge in an increasingly exponential way, forming a spider web of interactions that make this world a place of abundance of knowledge.
And with it a more just world. We must do it, because, in this context of change more than ever, the inherent values of the person, trust, authenticity, creativity and the democratization of access to knowledge emerge. We all have to be there.
Also published on Medium.