Ten Tech-enabled Business Trends to Watch

McKinsey & Company just released an article on the Top 10 Tech-enabled Business Trends to Watch. They are:

Trend 1: Distributed cocreation moves into the mainstream

Trend 2: Making the network the organization

Trend 3: Collaboration at scale

Trend 4: The growing ‘Internet of Things’

Trend 5: Experimentation and big data

Trend 6: Wiring for a sustainable world

Trend 7: Imagining anything as a service

Trend 8: The age of the multisided business model

Trend 9: Innovating from the bottom of the pyramid

Trend 10: Producing public good on the grid

We are all witnessing how the technology landscape has continued to evolve rapidly. Of particular interest in the list above was number 10 since as an organization we have embraced this value from our very inception as we continue to work to leverage the benefits of technology in creating sustainable communities.

Here's what the article has to say on the topic:

Technology will be an important factor in this evolution by facilitating the creation of new types of public goods while helping to manage them more effectively. This last trend is broad in scope and draws upon many of the other trends described above.

Take the challenges of rising urbanization. About half of the world’s people now live in urban areas, and that share is projected to rise to 70 percent by 2050. Creative public policies that incorporate new technologies could help ease the economic and social strains of population density. “Wired” cities might be one approach. London, Singapore, and Stockholm have used smart assets to manage traffic congestion in their urban cores, and many cities throughout the world are deploying these technologies to improve the reliability and predictability of mass-transit systems. Sensors in buses and trains provide transportation planners with real-time status reports to optimize routing and give riders tools to adjust their commuting plans.

Similarly, networked smart water grids will be critical to address the need for clean water. Embedded sensors can not only ensure that the water flowing through systems is uncontaminated and safe to drink but also sense leaks. And effective metering and billing for water ensures that the appropriate incentives are in place for efficient usage.

Technology can also improve the delivery and effectiveness of many public services. Law-enforcement agencies are using smart assets—video cameras and data analytics—to create maps that define high-crime zones and direct additional police resources to them. Cloud computing and collaboration technologies can improve educational services, giving young and adult students alike access to low-cost content, online instructors, and communities of fellow learners. Through the Web, governments are improving access to many other services, such as tax filing, vehicle registration, benefits administration, and employment services. Public policy also stands to become more transparent and effective thanks to a number of new open-data initiatives. At the UK Web site FixMyStreet.com, for example, citizens report, view, and discuss local problems, such as graffiti and the illegal dumping of waste, and interact with local officials who provide updates on actions to solve them.

Exploiting technology’s full potential in the public sphere means reimagining the way public goods are created, delivered, and managed. Setting out a bold vision for what a wired, smart community could accomplish is a starting point for setting strategy. Putting that vision in place requires forward-thinking yet prudent leadership that sets milestones, adopts flexible test-and-learn methods, and measures success. Inertia hobbles many public organizations, so leaders must craft incentives tailored to public projects and embrace novel, unfamiliar collaborations among governments, technology providers, other businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and citizens.

To read the complete article along with links for further reading