The Case for Emerging and Disruptive Technologies

This book is designed to be a handbook for executives who want to gain the latest insights and strategies for identifying and leveraging emerging and disruptive technologies in the software arena for "back to basics" enterprise value creation, competitive advantage, and increased business agility within their organization.

Traditionally, leverage of emerging technology has been the exclusive domain of businesses that are seen as pioneers and early adopters not of the mainstream. Mainstream business has historically waited and cautiously observed the results of others before taking the plunge themselves. However, in today's economic and competitive climate, and in light of recent world events which have required increased focus on resiliency and security, it becomes mandatory for mainstream business to rethink its strategy around the exploitation of these emerging and disruptive technologies.

The strategic use of technology within the enterprise is no longer just an issue for the chief information officer (CIO) or chief technology officer (CTO). Business spending on technology is such a large part of corporate capital and ongoing expenditure that all business executives, including the CEO and board members, need to have a clear understanding of how it can be most effectively leveraged and exploited within their organization. This is an increasingly difficult task due to the vacuum that has been created in the technology roadmap after the Internet boom-and-bust cycle of the last several years. What seemed a clear path just a few years or even a few months ago is now a minefield of potential distractions; technologies are looking for business problems to solve like a hammer looking for a nail. Emerging and disruptive technologies that can have a real impact are out there, but they will require a proactive approach on the part of the business in order to identify and implement them. The noise level and risk level are now simply too high to take a passive approach or to implement everything that comes into view for fear of being beaten by the competition.

Today, businesses need to extend their radar, both to protect existing assets and to build for the future by leveraging emerging technology as a growth engine. As this book aims to show, certain emerging and disruptive technologies, in the right combination, can become the strategic weapon for both offense and defense in the business world of the new millennium.

Thus, determining which emerging technologies, beyond the previous wave of e-business applications, have the potential for increasing business productivity and even the productivity of the overall economy is something that is on the minds of many executives. Executives need to know how emerging technology in the enterprise software arena can benefit their business in today's "back-to-basics" environment. They want to know how they can increase shareholder value, increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, increase revenues, improve productivity, and reduce costs. They also need to know which technologies to invest in, where these technologies are heading and how they can be applied to their unique industries and business processes, and how to avoid the many pitfalls along the way. In these times when "back-to-basics" is a corporate mantra, executives also need to ensure that they manage risk and focus on solid return on investment for all information technology (IT) initiatives both on the current radar screen and beyond.