strategy+business Winter 2016

By many accounts, the world is approaching a utopia of embedded software. Talking devices anticipate people’s desires, buildings track occupants’ behavior, cars drive themselves, and machines upgrade their own software. This year’s Global Innovation 1000 report, “Software-as-a-Catalyst,” by Barry Jaruzelski, Volker Staack, and Aritomo Shinozaki, gives us a glimpse of the talent needed to code this future (page 84). Heroic programmers — those who can achieve a refined look, efficient functionality, and transparency to users — will be in high demand. And they should be, because civilization will increasingly depend on the quality of its software. Appreciation for an ideal software-enhanced consumer experience is evident in articles like “The Marketer’s Dilemma,” by Christopher Vollmer, Kristina Bennin, and Deborah Bothun (page 42). And in “10 Principles of Customer Strategy,” where Thomas Ripsam…

In the $3 trillion United States healthcare industry, choice has swung decisively toward consumers in recent years. Empowered by technology, encouraged by employers, and incentivized by new regulations and products, more and more people are playing an active role in managing their own wellness, medication choices, and treatment options. In response, incumbents and startups in the insurance industry are investing feverishly to roll out products and services that will appeal to consumers. Taking a cue from the technology and communications industries, many are pursuing disruptive technologies that promise to revolutionize the healthcare experience — whether they are digestive sensors or systems that allow doctors to examine and treat patients via video. But here’s the thing: Consumers aren’t ready for a revolution. They have far simpler demands and desires, such as an easier…

Automation — in the form of machine learning, robotics, autonomous vehicles, white-collar bots, exoskeletons, and so on — is changing the nature of work in a wide range of industries. In conducting research for my new book, Silicon Collar: An Optimistic Perspective on Humans, Machines, and Jobs (Deal Architect, 2016), I examined people at work in more than 50 settings: accounting firms and banks, the battlefront and digital agencies, the oil patch and restaurants, R&D labs and shop floors, warehouses and wineries. And it is clear that the old divisions among professions and trades have dissolved. We’re no longer white- or blue-collar workers. We’re all silicon-collar workers, because technology is reshaping all our workplaces. Broadly speaking, this is a positive development for workers. Technology makes them safer, smarter, and faster. Aided…

Headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) has a privileged view of the prospects of the companies around it. SVB provides financial services to innovative companies — including leading-edge software and life sciences companies, as well as premium winemakers — and it often connects innovators and potential partners with one another. CEO and president Greg Becker is also noteworthy for his ability to see the big picture: the overall positive growth in technology, which encompasses activity at all the companies in the industry. Although he is bullish on the future because of the technological value he sees evolving, Becker is also mindful of one enormous challenge facing his clients: access to talent. It still remains too difficult, in his view, to find the highly skilled talent needed for the…

Economic diversification is high on the agenda of all the countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC): Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Even before oil prices dropped in mid-2014, their leaders recognized that their economies relied too heavily on the oil and gas industry. Nonetheless, although the share of non-oil GDP has steadily increased in each of these countries, their exports and government revenues remain concentrated on oil and gas. These sources have long funded infrastructure and social services and paid public-sector wages. Lower oil prices have thus resulted in a fiscal crunch, adding urgency to the need to transform. GCC leaders already know that economic transformation is not a simple undertaking. It requires a holistic approach incorporating a variety of measures. For example,…

The pace of business keeps hastening, as advanced technology hypercharges the speed at which data and business opportunities emerge, in addition to increasing the amount and accessibility of those things. Fundamental shifts in market structure have shortened the life cycles of innovation, products, and even executives. CEO tenure in the Fortune 500 has fallen from an average of 11 years in 2002 to six years today. The end result is a pervasive sense of anxiety and time famine, as both companies and the executives within them struggle to keep up. But speed and urgency, although necessary attributes of leadership, are not sufficient. In fact, our research suggests that the leaders who can tether an obsession with deadlines and time to an ability to sense the work and energy flow of their…