Tech Forces Shifting the Playing Field…Again

Dateline: June 3, 2016

Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend.

Technology can be a CxOs best friend or biggest problem.  Recently, Research Analyst Trip Chowdhry from Wall Street firm Global Equities Research pulled together a frightening prediction of massive layoffs due to technology shifts that have eroded the base of many organizations.  The article, 10 Top Tech Companies Poised for Massive Layoffs, suggests that there are 4 key forces at work simultaneously.  Taken together, these forces are changing the playing field upon which our organizations play, and technology will become a big problem for some companies.  Specifically, Chowdhry suggests these four factors are having a big impact on our companies:

  • Technology shift. “Cloud and mobile technologies have increased the productivity of an employee exponentially…  What this means is the number of employees needed to do a certain type of job is less.”
  • Micro-services such as cloud computing improving IT efficiency.The term “micro-services” means software that can run on a fraction of the hardware that was previously needed by a customer, he said. Cloud services like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft’s Azure are  examples.
  • Integrating technology no longer valued. “Under the old world, one company would make the servers, another company would make the network, and another company would make the apps. This was an on-premises company. So, you had to hire a lot of people to configure middleware or work with the database. A lot of people had to manage the backend processes. But when you go the cloud, you don’t need these backend employees.”
  • Consumer behavioral shift. When consumers shift to a new preferred website, advertisers will follow them.  As a result, advertising-dependent websites are hurt.

Which of these shifts are going to affect your organization the most?  What can you do to prepare for it?

That’s a WRAP!  Have a great weekend!

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