By Jason English
The notion of digital transformation still has plenty of gas left in the tank.
Companies taking on digital transformation initiatives are making great improvements by using technology as a strategic lever to orient every aspect of their business to serving customer and constituent needs.
Soon enough though, the term will encompass everything businesses do — because companies that fail to change will cease to exist. At that point, digital transformation will start looking more like a clown car than a chariot through the clouds to a better tomorrow.
This inevitable crowding effect always leads me to think about what’s next in the queue of essential but vague technology initiatives.
Perhaps the self-driving business (or SDB) will be our ride to the next future state.
What would the SDB look like?
Is a manager app going to start bossing a hybrid of employees and robots around to get things done? Or, could we see a day where much of the leadership suite itself is replaced by some sort of autonomous decision system?
Many IT pros would argue that an autonomous system could make better impartial decisions than many of the worst executives they’ve encountered — no more gut instincts, incomplete insights about technology, cronyism or misaligned bonus packages.
I’d like to meet the first board or CEO who signs off on an executive suite replacement! Since that is unlikely except perhaps in government scenarios, we can expect the self-driving business to use technology as the augmentation of an entire range of business activities from work coordination to decision support.
