Digital Transformation - Where are we headed?
Digital Transformation, definition of which varies from
organization to organization and from individual to individual, at its most
abstract level of understanding is certainly not a technical transformation at
all. DT, in its essence is a shift in the business strategy of an organization
to achieve the unprecedented scale, speed and scope of organizational
operational boundaries to reach out to unknown people, territories with innovative
ideas and lightning speed supported by niche technologies available at our
disposal today.
DT, which traces its roots back to arrival of TCP/IP in
1972, and TCP's move from DARPA's ARPANET to Internet around 1990, with actual
digital transformation beginning post Y2K era only, has traversed a long &
audacious journey. Supported by massive bandwidth, advanced computing
capabilities and multibillion dots of connectivity, organizations all across
the world have been taken by the surprise at the scale of transformation being
done or being proposed by new comers of this organizational world. Transformation
is being practiced/happening at multiple pillars of organizational business
strategy (Consumer/Data/Competition/Innovation/Value), with organizations
trying to shift their vision from Product Centricity to Value Centricity via Consumer
Centricity.
Having said all this and post going through multitude of
research articles on all leading technologies covering IoT, Blockchain, Big
Data, AI, AR/VR & others, ultimate question which comes to my mind - Where
are we headed? What is the future of Digital transformation? Is there any
impact of technological evolution on our own evolution?
If I were to quote the answer directly from my own POV - "Digital
technology is going to take us to that state where everyone will be
communicating and interacting with everything - animate and inanimate.
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), cognitive learning, wearable technology,
and human-like interactions with intelligent software providing more natural
interfaces for human interactions, transforming people into 'better versions'
of themselves. With these advances, the evolutionary force is not stopping. The
digital era is a revolution because it promises to do the next thing: when the
accumulated learning of the world will get transmitted to the big brain in a
flash and continue to stay updated through a monster computer, true of any
revolution.
We ourselves are a product of a giant 'gravitational singularity', which billions of years ago culminated in the form of a 'Big Bang', which laid the foundation of our universe. The origin of humanity and everything beyond humanity lies in the womb of the gravitational singularity. While too many gravitational singularities still exist in the universe, human life is going to be drastically redefined by a new singularity which is popularly known as technological singularity. Our journey from gravitational singularity to technological singularity is only decades away from culmination. Only time will tell if the human race will successfully be able to come out of the whirlpool of technological singularity. If we remain as fortunate as we have been, we shall survive for sure, but may or may not be in the same form of existence. We are being driven by Digital technologies to an era of revolution or possibly another evolution."
A very apt quote which I read sometime back - "The stream of
knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to
look more like a great thought than like a great machine"
I do not seem to have any clear cut answer to any of these
questions as of now. Should it not be individual's own choice to lead their own
transformation journey? I leave it up to you to answer, up to you to decipher
& up to you to direct your own transformation.