TECHNOLOGY

LEADING TECHNOLOGICAL TRENDS

and their impact on business leadership

Once upon a time where business was concerned, there was great emphasis on management versus leadership debates. Everyone was zooming into the different types of leadership where we all wanted to be led by transformational and charismatic leaders such as the late President Nelson Mandela and the former US President Barack Obama. With the introduction of the third and fourth industrial revolution the concept of “business unusual” was personified. Suddenly it’s not so much about the leadership style as it is about the technology that makes the organisation more effective and efficient. We can’t over emphasise the role that the Covid-19 pandemic played on changing the business dynamics worldwide. Suddenly managers and leaders were challenged. Managers had to learn to manage the work and not the person. There was no room for centralized and hierarchical management styles. Everyone was forced to think on their feet. Leaders had to lead people into the unknown while reassuring both the customer and the staff members that all is well. The show had to go on somehow. Here are a few trends that have surfaced that we should note, as well as understand how they have impacted business leadership.

1Virtual events and

meetings: This platform provided a solution to allow work to continue. It allowed for remote meetings, conferencing and events while breaking international borders. This trend created new opportunities and sparked competition between companies.

2Blockchain: Became the buzz word making datamining the new currency. Although most people think of blockchain technology in relation to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, blockchain offers security that is useful in many other ways. In the simplest of terms, blockchain can be described as a system of recording information in a way that is impossible to change, hack, or cheat. It’s basically data you can only add to, not take away from, or change.

3Cyber Security: It might not seem like an emerging technology, given that it has been around for a while, but it has evolved overtime and become more important during the lockdown period where hacking increased rapidly. Since organisations were working remotely, they became more vulnerable, and it was and still is, imperative to ensure strict security measures are in place. Business leaders are thus constantly looking for ways and means to protect their data. After all, data is king.

4Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine

Learning: AI is known for its superiority in image and speech recognition, navigation apps, smartphone personal assistants, ride-sharing apps and so much more. AI is used to analyse interactions to determine underlying connections and insights, to help predict demand for services, such as; hospitals enabling authorities to make better decisions about resource utilisation, and to detect the changing patterns of customer behaviour by analysing data in near real-time. Greater reliance on machines was realised during lockdown due to the pandemic.

5Edge Computing:

Cloud computing has become mainstream, with major players like AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform dominating the market. The adoption of cloud computing is still growing, as more and more businesses migrate to a cloud solution due to remote working. Edge computing is designed to help solve some of those problems to bypass the latency caused by cloud computing and getting data to a data center for processing. For this reason, edge computing can be used to process time-sensitive data in remote locations with limited or no connectivity to a centralised location. In those situations, edge computing can act like small or miniture datacentres. According to Gorodetsky, Larukchin and Skobelev, it’s vital for leaders to embrace these digital ecosystems of smart services which challenges leaders to be agile, adaptable, self-organized and competitive. The industry is talking about Industry 5.0 which brings a collaboration between human and machine, making it easier to work better and faster because of the internet of things. There is no sector that has been spared of the impact of technological trends, those that refused to adapt closed shop.

In a nutshell the incorporation of technology in organisations has encouraged most companies to become ‘Enterprise 5.0’ where there is a visible and innovative way of doing business. Being an Enterprise 5.0 allows leaders to innovate in a manner that is cost effective, promotes continuous improvement in business processing, mitigates risk and ensures compliance because of the smart approach. So, to succeed as a leader given the current trends it’s important to embrace technology.

Remember the people behind the machines, maintain relationships, keep your eye on the ball and create an assuring atmosphere as change becomes a constant. Technology is here to make life easier not hard. Yes, some jobs were lost, but new jobs were created too. It’s the leader’s job to share the vision and reassure the people while helping them to embrace the new dawn.