Even as enterprises embrace data-driven management, they must ensure that they use the power of data to speed decisions, remove ambiguity and increase efficiency — but not at the cost of dehumanizing the organization beyond recognition.
Amid all the talk about automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and the rising importance of data, there is another trend that is flying beneath the radar of most industry observers: the instrumentation of work.
At Dreamforce, Salesforce’s recently held user conference, there was meandering talk about values and philanthropy, but surprisingly little discussion, in the grand scheme of things (at least from the main stage), about the evolution of their technology.
When the company’s leaders did finally get around to talking about their software, it basically came down to two things: AI (in the form of the company’s intelligent assistant, Einstein) and integration via the company’s recent acquisition of MuleSoft.
What these two topics have in common, however, is that they are core building blocks that enable the enterprise to further instrument, monitor and manage human work. While it was no more than an undercurrent flowing beneath the surface, I believe it signals the beginning of a new stage of enterprise evolution: call it the data-driven management revolution.
