Category: Uncategorized

In Soviet Russia, Silicon Valley is not utopia.

Anton Troynikov summarises the similarities. (Thread)

Economists worry we aren’t prepared for the fallout from automation – The Verge

Aus der Kategorie “Auf dem Arbeitsmarkt der Zukunft sind wir alle überflüssig” heute: Ökonomen sind alle beunruhigt, dass wir so als Gesellschaft auf die kommende Automatisierung und Machtübernahme durch Maschinen nicht richtig vorbereitet sind.

So a robot takes your job — what next?

Source: Economists worry we aren’t prepared for the fallout from automation – The Verge

While Trump fights over aluminum and steel, Silicon Valley braces for a real trade war

Some fear a broader clash with China over the theft of technologies that are driving the future of the global economy.

 

Trump introducing tariffs on steel and aluminium has dominated the economic and political news in the past days. While consequences on global economy are undoubtable, the steel industry has been in a long known shape. US technology giants, that have seen enormous growth only in the past 20 years and define a whole new industry, are much more worried about capital inflow from China and future growth limitations. The largest US technology companies do not operate in China, while Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu themselves have become multi-billion dollar businesses.

Source: While Trump fights over aluminum and steel, Silicon Valley braces for a real trade war

Innovation in Organisation

Digitalisierung ist als Schlagwort allgegenwärtig. Trotzdem bedeutet es nichts anderes als grundlegende, marktwirtschaftliche Kunden- bzw. Marktorientierung. Lediglich die Geschwindigkeit, die notwendig ist, als Marktteilnehmer mit sich ändernden Marktsituationen auseinanderzusetzen stellt besonders große Organisationen vor eine Herausforderung.

Organisation wird in der Regel mit dem Ziel gebildet, um ein Produkt oder einen Service einer breiteren Kunden-Gruppe anbieten zu können und damit Skaleneffekte zu erzielen. Ein fertig entwickeltes, bestehendes Angebot wird in der Regel industriell gefertigt, von einer horizontal skalierten und auf das Angebot geschulten Salesforce vertrieben. Alle Abläufe zu Herstellung und Vertrieb genau dieses Produktes können gemessen und hinsichtlich Kosten und Gewinn optimiert werden. Das ist auch, was anerkannte Business Schulen in der Regel lehren.

Innovation dagegen findet häufig in einem technischen Zusammenhang statt, mit einem herangehen, in dem zwar die Idee und das Ziel feststehen, noch nicht aber alle Schritte feststehen die zu diesem Ziel führen können. In einem kreativen Chaos, das es erlaubt, werden auf dem Weg kurzfristige Richtungsänderungen umgesetzt, das Ziel stets vor Augen.

Es ist nicht in das Korsett starrer “Business Prozesse” eingebunden. Die bestehenden Prozesse sind in der Regel auch langsam entstanden, führen aber zu  anderen Zielen. Organisation und Innovation finden mit unterschiedlichen Zielen statt.

Digitalisierung fordert aber beides von Wettbewerbern, die im Markt bestehen wollen und Ihren Kunden passende, innovative Lösungen anbieten möchten. Das fordert ein Umdenken in beiden Bereichen.

#GoogleCloudSummit 2017 in Munich

While Amazon Web Services reported another record quarter with $4,53B in October 2017, and Microsoft reporting 93% growth of their cloud business, Google is the third major player in the market for cloud services.

At the same time, Google is not (yet) explicitly reporting numbers on their cloud offering. However, “all other” businesses, including Play Store,  also showed impressive 42% growth recently.

To demonstrate how serious the company is about their cloud products, Google demonstrated their commitment in roadshows, the Google Cloud Summit. Among others, like in Paris or Singapore, the Summit was held in Munich On December 6th in the MOC Munich.

Following a keynote between 9am an 11am, Google prepared 4 tracks covering diverse, cloud oriented topics in the areas of Application Development, Big Data & Machine Learning, Infrastructure & Operations, Startup. These tracks had continuous talks between 11am and 6pm, touching all topics from the field you could think of, starting with containers, docker and Kubernetes, going over IoT and Industry 4.0, touching Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, to Data Loss Protection and GDPR. All that along with Innovation and Agility in the context of security and privacy.

To round up the event,  outside the track rooms had an exhibition of selected cloud partners, from consultancy to implementation service, but also SaaS offerings leveraging the Google Cloud Platform.

While the market news seem that Google is late to the game, their commitment and quality of offering surely put them in an interesting spot and an alternative to the other two cloud vendors. The cloud summit definitely answered questions on Googles capabilities.

On Digitalised Product Management

Again. Having read the few words from yesterday, it’s probably difficult to follow. So, let me try a bit more structured to write up on the points I was trying to make are:

  1. Product and Service Business are different cultures.
  2. Both have established methods.
  3. Digitisation requires Digital Transformation.
  4. Digital Transformation won’t happen without a conscious decision.
  5. Digitised Products need to consider both.

Product vs. Services Business

This is the part with the margins. While the first lives off high enough margins in the retail chain, the later lives off customer satisfaction, with basically very thin margins.

Management Methods

Things require a stock and supply chain. A service requires time to response and time to resolution. Or response time, for interactive services. And so do physical projects require different management methods than services do.

Digitisation requires Digital Transformation

Putting a chip in it is not the single answer to achieve Digital Transformation. It requires to combine product and services business and that process is the actual transformation people are looking at.

Digital Transformation won’t happen without a conscious decision

Very much as #3, just putting a chip into a product will not be sufficient, because the product will work so much different than before and the customers expectations will not be the same either. However, it requires a component that contradicts traditional management behavior as well as financial expectations. Therefore, somebody high enough will have to take a decision and carry it until Digital Transformation happens.

Digitised Products need to consider both

And so, finally, a digitise product needs to be managed with services and the tangible parts in mind. While a product is produced, a service is operated. The product will have development cycles that are much longer and the supply chain needs to be managed, while at the same time the service attached to the product needs to work to the customers expectations and evolve much different.