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From the Editor's Desk When we talk with leaders about what they mean by digital, some view it as the upgraded term for what their IT function does. Others focus on digital marketing or sales. But very few have a broad, holistic view of what digital really means. We view digital as the nearly instant, free, and flawless ability to connect people, devices, and physical objects anywhere. By 2025, some 20 billion devices will be connected, nearly three times the world population. Over the past two years, such devices have churned out 90 percent of the data ever produced. Mining this data greatly enhances the power of analytics, which leads directly to dramatically higher levels of automation - both of processes and, ultimately, of decisions. All this gives birth to brand-new business models. Think about the opportunities that telematics have created for the insurance industry. Connected cars collect real-time information about a customer's driving behavior. The data allow insurers to price the risk associated with a driver automatically and more accurately, creating an opportunity to offer direct, pay-as-you-go coverage and bypassing today's agents. |
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From the Editor's Desk What do a human rights negotiation in Afghanistan, a crisis negotiation in Calgary, and a business dispute between a Brazilian and a Frenchman have in common? At first blush, nothing. However, when we dig deeper into these high-stakes negotiations, there is a common thread that connects them all. The concept of face. |
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From the Editor's Desk At a trendy Tokyo cocktail bar, customers sip brightly colored beverages with sophisticated flavor profiles, designed for a small but growing market in hard-drinking Japan: teetotalers. |
Opinion