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APPLICATION
Policy, Government & Security
How these trends impact your company
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STRATEGY
INNOVATION
R&D
GROWTH
The intersection of technology, policy, and politics affects every organization. As lawmakers begin to craft new types of regulations to address emerging technologies, businesses must address policy uncertainty in their longterm strategic planning. Anti-competitiveness lawsuits and antitrust investigations will have a chilling effect on merger and acquisition activity by the big tech companies. If one of the companies under scrutiny provides some (or all) of your technology stack, further improvements and features could be paused if lawsuits were to siphon off resources. Likewise, how a company collects, uses, and stores data; the technology acquisitions business units make; the vendors and partners selected; and investments made in security all affect its future. The dynamic nature of cybersecurity will directly impact corporate strategic initiatives in a variety of areas, including digital transformation, growing operating income, international expansion, and more.
Policy uncertainty creates all sorts of hurdles for innovation teams. At least when it comes to the U.S. and China, both administrations have demonstrated clear, decisive plans. This should give innovation teams the foundation they need to work on new products and services related to climate change, transportation, biotech, artificial intelligence, and blockchain technologies. On the security front, those who work in innovation have a unique set of skills that could aid in a company’s approach to privacy and security. One of the biggest challenges faced by companies is that they do not think creatively about adversaries or next-order outcomes. For example, before a company launches a new product, it would be useful to host a workshop to deeply investigate all of the possible ways the product could unintentionally cause harm—or bring harm to the business.
It is clear that China intends to lead the world in many areas of R&D, including AI, biotech and synthetic biology, pharmaceuticals, transportation, climate change mitigation, and space. In recent years, China has launched new programs to repatriate researchers from their U.S. and European posts. But tech companies are poaching talent also, from academic departments and other companies. With so much competition, companies should develop strategies for R&D team acquisition and retention. Security should be top of mind among R&D teams, but within many companies, R&D units struggle to keep pace with the changing technology landscape. This results in pet projects taking up too much time, even when they don’t lead to desired results—or moving too quickly on projects without considering their security or privacy implications. The cadence of R&D teams must be adjusted to accommodate emerging privacy and security considerations.
As we continue to build our new normal— working from anywhere, dealing with security breaches, adapting to patchwork regulation— adaptability will be key to every company’s ability to thrive and succeed. There are ample opportunities for growth. Companies capable of monitoring signals and trends, modeling next-order outcomes, and actively rehearsing the future will identify new opportunities to unlock growth.
© 2022 Future Today Institute
