Technologies change corporate behaviors

By Srinivas Padmanabharao

If there is one topic in the business world today it is that consumer and enterprise behavior is being rapidly transformed by technology.

In the world of technology, it is the four-headed monster called “social, mobile, analytic and cloud,” or SMAC, that everybody is focused on. This four-headed monster has impacted every aspect of our existence as individuals, citizens and employees.

SMAC has unearthed a new set of opportunities for organizations and governments in how they engage with their customers, suppliers, partners and citizens.

Firstly, the rise of social media platforms has provided businesses with a significantly faster, less expensive and interactive medium to communicate with their stakeholders.

This has profound implications for how consumers search, select, recommend and purchase goods and services. Organizations are investing in transforming core business functions that could take advantage of this platform and better satisfy customer expectations.

Secondly, the world today is becoming untethered.

Consumers and employees alike expect to be able to access information and applications for their daily use on a mobile device of their choice, anytime and anywhere. Government initiatives are rapidly growing as a means to communicate and provide services to citizens. For example, in Bangalore, Indian citizens can upload photographs of traffic violations, from their mobiles, for action by the police; and the status of passport applications or tax returns are communicated via text messages.

Thirdly, the vast number of connected users and the data that their interactions generate provide organizations and governments with access to a depth of information that wasn’t available before.

Consumers expect personalized treatment from their service providers, and organizations can deliver on this by improving the effectiveness of their market programs through better analysis of this data.

Lastly, organizations across the world are rapidly adopting cloud-based solutions for all aspects of their business operations. Some of the key reasons for this move include greater IT agility, shifting from a capital expenditure- to an operational expenditure-based financial model through pay as you go schemes, and flexibility to outsource infrastructure management.

However, with these opportunities come a new set of challenges that are not within the four walls of a data center.

Today, organizations and governments urgently need to put in place measures related to the performance and security of their digital assets and online footprint to ensure that their stakeholders can access them over the public Internet.

It is well known that the Internet as it is today was never designed for commerce, nor was it designed to live stream video and other content. In the same way, no one expected that the Internet would be manipulated by users to indulge in malicious and illegal activities. Yet these are the realities of today’s Internet.

Asia Pacific already accounts for over 46 percent of the world’s Internet users despite a lower than average Internet penetration. Asia Pacific also has the added complexity of a majority of Internet users being mobile users, making it challenging to deliver an experience that meets expectations.

Organizations and governments need to collaborate with business partners to succeed in this space.

They should choose partners who have both the products and expertise to help them balance the needs of performance and availability with the risks of security to their infrastructure, applications and data. When they do that, they will be ready to walk the SMAC talk.

The writer is Akamai Technologies product marketing director.