Emerging Technology

THE EPicentre of disruption

Growth is always hard, but in times of change and uncertainty, even successful companies can face steep obstacles to achieving it. Business models are being transformed across industries – led by emerging competitors, shifting demographics, rising customer expectations, and evolving regulations.

Disruptors are fast-moving companies, often start-ups, focused on a particular innovative technology or process that targets the most profitable elements of an organization’s value chain. Given the speed of technology evolution, business leaders who underestimate the potential benefits and threats they can bring, do so at their peril.

Today’s complex operating environment demands a different way of thinking – one that challenges the status quo. Companies hoping to flourish need to capitalize on disruptive trends that hold transformational potential, and adopt a risk strategy focused on resilience in order to meet heightened investor, customer, regulator, and other stakeholder demands.

Seeing the future clearly and developing a proactive, strategic response will set apart the winners from the losers in this fast-evolving market.

We help business leaders devise a clear strategy to move forward, the results of which help organizations better target investment, identify talent requirements, and develop the operational capabilities needed to make the most of their competitive potential.

There are many smart people with good ideas and almost limitless funding trying to disrupt conventional business models. To remain competitive, organizations need to constantly track technological advances and regulatory developments.

We partner with our clients to help them learn, plan and test disruptive technologies. Encouraging and incubating innovation is a business imperative; trying and failing is much better than not trying at all.

Identify game-changing ideas and innovative solutions with the potential to accelerate growth
Scan market for new competitors
Track trends in global regulation
Introduce potential external partners to fully leverage and integrate market-leading solutions

Disruptive start-ups are encroaching upon established markets, leading with customer-centric solutions developed from the ground up. Unencumbered by legacy systems, these disruptors attract new business through lower fees, convenience, and ease of use.

We work with organizations to help them understand the current state, desired state, and path to maturity across their IT organization, setting them up to realistically achieve the flexibility and responsiveness needed to scale, innovate, and remain cost-competitive in preparation for the new normal.

Organizations have a narrow window of time to align their business and talent strategies to ensure they have access to the capabilities they require to execute against their mission and goals. Complicating this further is the growing preference for flexibility and entrepreneurship among many in the work place.

We work with boards and senior executives to help them take more active steps to create and foster a culture of innovative thinking and talent development, positioning them to win in a fast-evolving market.

hot topic | blockchain

Leaning into crypto

Blockchain is a new technology that combines a number of mathematical, cryptographic, and economic principles in order to maintain a database between multiple participants without the need for any third party validator or reconciliation. In simple terms, it is a secure and distributed ledger.

Because blockchain technology removes an entire layer of overhead dedicated to confirming authenticity, it has many benefits for consumers and businesses alike, reducing costs, speeding up transaction times and providing a more secure method for transferring assets. The list of potential uses is almost limitless including transferring digital or physical assets, protecting intellectual property, verifying the chain of custody, automating contractual agreements, and much more. However, while its potential is transformational, the landscape is nascent and evolving, and there remain several challenges and barriers to adoption.

There is certainly growing interest from legislators and regulators in the crypto-asset and blockchain space, including a spate of enforcement activity involving crypto assets. However, in the absence of clear regulatory guidance, navigating the myriad of emerging and evolving developments across the globe is hampering innovation at blockchain companies. Virtual currency exchanges and other market participants would be well advised to take this time to improve internal security controls, market surveillance protocols, conflicts policies, disclosures, and other investor and consumer protections. Where relevant, applicable regulated securities trading practices and methods can serve as a blueprint.

CYBER SECURITY

Cyber security has to be a core business priority at the heart of technology innovation. As customers demand an expanding range of digitally accessible products and services, they expect their confidential information to be well protected.

Fortunately, the same capabilities that potentially make networks more vulnerable can strengthen defenses as well. For example, companies can use big data analytics and AI to monitor for covert threats and fraud.

Cyber security is already important, and it will become even more significant for institutions and their regulators in the future. Adopting a risk-based approach and aligning your innovation strategy with cyber risk management frameworks will set you up to mature your cyber risk posture proactively, comprehensively, and effectively, without stifling your company’s ability to innovate and execute against its business mission and goals.

Organizations that prove to be reliable and trustworthy guardians of data will not only be those that customers trust, they will also have succeeded in making cyber security a market differentiator that offers stability in a disruptive age.

Embracing disruption

Disruptive technologies will drive the new business models. They are the most creative force – and also the most destructive – to established business models and ecosystems.

spotlight on | the “internet of things”

outsmarting the smart device

We are experiencing unprecedented growth in connectivity between the digital and physical worlds, where data resides in the cloud, on mobile technology and devices connected to the “Internet of Things” (IoT). While the opportunities are fascinating, cyber security is the leading challenge when it comes to the adoption of IoT technology because insecure interfaces increase the risk of unauthorized access.

Cyber adversaries are innovative, organized, and relentless in finding new ways to infiltrate, corrupt and weaponize whatever touches the internet – often bit by bit. Rather than simply going straight after the larger, and often better protected, intended target, adversaries worm their way into that organization’s supply chain, using smaller, less secure trusted partners and suppliers to gather intelligence and set traps.

While a largely regulation-free tech industry may soon be a thing of the past, for now, in a world which lets anyone build and share new code and services, with consequences to be dealt with later, security concerns over those seemingly innocuous devices should not be overlooked.

find out more about THE “INTERNET OF THINGS”