Last post I took a look at the 3 areas of change in the world of business:
The Production Revolution – The fact we can make and publish/produce things easier and without the middlemen of the past, using new middlemen who focus on enabling and connection.
The CorpTechPocalypse – The end of Corporate IT due to SaaS, mobile service, and easy-setup. This also means setting up a powerful IT system is easy to do.
The Structure Shift – The ability to outsource major parts of an organization, from accounting to physical infrastructure, allows many common business needs to be met easily and cheaply – or become unneeded.
These 3 areas of change are, as noted, areas of opportunities – opportunities to save money, to start your own business with these resources, or even get in on these in your own business.
As I've examined these three areas of change, I've come to realize that its not just their existence changing the economy. These changes are powerful enough as it is, but it's the potential interaction that has my attention. I am going to theorize how these three areas of change will combine, and what it means for us:
Production Revolution/CorpTechPocalypse
What are the combined effects of the ability to produce media and product quickly and with little infrastructure and the ability to get Corporate-level IT with simple services?
- This is extremely empowering to startups and individuals – they can essentially start a business easily and quickly, especially if it's information-based.
- This is also powerful for aspiring writers, artists, and their media creators as the Production Revolution is very well suited for their work. One can put a personal business in place quicker.
- This means more challenges to existing media power.
- "Internal Media" inside companies is easier to outsource.
CorpTechPocalypse/Structure Shift
Pretty much everything your company needs to run can be had faster, cheaper, outsourced, and more reliably. What does this mean?
- The ability to start infrastructure-dependent companies is much easier.
- Existing companies can shed other infrastructure-related services and perhaps even actual physical infrastructure. That can mean a lot of future layoffs.
- Starting and smaller companies can get rid of expenses very fast if they need to, which may give them a competitive advantage.
Structure Shift/Production Revolution
You don't need your usual company infrastructure and you can produce and make product easier?
- If you're using the Production Revolution to produce new product, you can also take advantage of the Structure Shift to get professional company services, meeting rooms, and so on. This would be good for businesses that need to meet with clients, etc.
- If your Production Revolution-based business goes well, the Structure Shift means you can expand quickly. The Structure Shift allows for ramping up faster.
- Infrastructure-heavy businesses can take advantage of both sides of outsourced change – office structure and production structure. Many companies could shed physical footprint quickly.
When you look at these three elements combining what do you see? Faster, less-infrastructure-dependent systems, and the ability for people to start businesses faster or to scale down a business' physical footprint.
I think we're entering a phase of even more fast and rapid change in business. What we know of as normal business is changing – in fact a lot of it is no longer relevant. Physical boundaries, boundaries of process and technical ownership, all of the limits we knew are changing now.
Are you ready?