Transforming 7 Billion Dreams into Reality

As you read this, our planet is exploding with a steady rise in population. Indeed, the world population may reach 9 billion in 2030, from about 7 billion now. This means we will soon have over a billion additional people living on our planet.

Add to this, the economic growth of nations, along with climate change, will create immense stress on our planet. By 2030, we will see increase in food demand by over 50 percent, energy demand by 40 percent and water demand to exceed global availability by 40 percent.

Significantly, the urban spaces will struggle most to keep pace with this growth as half of the world population lives in urban areas squeezing the resources, and the number of urban dwellers grows each day. No doubt, some estimates indicate that, ~3.5 planets Earth would be needed to sustain a global population achieving the current lifestyle of the average European or North American.

This brings us to ponder about the existential question: Is our world ready for 9 billion people? How can we create a better tomorrow for our people, and the planet? How do we optimize our resources to build a sustainable future?

An interesting corollary is the United Nations theme for World Environment Day (celebrated on June 5) this year  - Seven billion dreams. One Planet. Consume with care…While the intent of the campaign is noble and the aim is to raise awareness about environmental issues and call for action, it must become our collective endeavor not to relegate such commemorations to mere rituals, and inane tokenism.

So, how do we transform over 7 billion dreams into reality? Realizing a brighter future for the humanity, calls for forward thinking and innovation - rooted deeply in open collaboration, amongst individuals, enterprises, public private partnership, academia, data scientists, cities and nations.

It’s all about creating more sustainable lifestyles, individually and collectively, and adding value to all our activities. This is vital since we will not have three planets to sustain our way of life, but for the One.

To actualize this existential dream we need to push for sustained innovation, and build smarter building, smarter homes, smarter cities and smarter nations. We need to think green and act like real innovators who see what everyone else sees, but think of what no one else thinks. We need to refuse the status quo, design inspirations into greener solutions and transform ideas into game changing products and services.

As a first step, we need to embrace system thinking, and tap the most abundant natural resource on earth, data - flowing all around us, between devices, individuals, homes, buildings, enterprises cities and nations – across globe. This is crucial, as every minute, every instant that we’re online, we’re trying to make sense of a blizzard of data. By using sophisticated analytics, not just instinct, we can make our world more integrated, and more sustainable.

For instance, precision agriculture can help us meet our food needs. Drought resistant and disease resistant strains of cereals and fruits can improve the bounty of the crop yield. Intelligent supply chains and warehouses can keep food fresh from farm to fork, and keep our inventories healthy. Smarter transport systems can ease commuter pain and kill pollution. Smart grids can our help prevent black outs and help optimize our water resources. Green building can reduce energy consumptions.

We can make this happen and much more if we can tap into actionable insights emanating from our disparate systems. More so, since in this information age, we’re all information analysts. And, living smart within planetary boundaries is the most promising strategy for building a healthy future. Of course, it starts with an individual action that leads to collective power…and translates to exponential impact.

Let’s take a moment to think how we live, work, play, shop, travel and eat - how it impacts our planet and how we can optimize our resources. It’s high time for us to walk the talk. As T J Watson once expressed, “all the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think. The trouble is that men very often resort to all sorts of devices in order not to think, because thinking is such hard work.” Are we ready to take the plunge? The time to act is now.

The Blogger is Kiran Kumar Yellupula:  The views expressed here are purely personal. Please share your feedback at mediavalue@yahoo.com

The Alchemy of Disruptive Innovation

What’s keeping the CEOs awake at night, these days? You guessed it right. Leaders across the geographies and industries are overwhelmed by the profound changes in technology, cost structures, next-gen services, business models, markets and customer behavior. They are under intense pressure, struggling to keep pace with change, defend their vulnerable business models and market share while pursuing new growth opportunities.

Perplexing it is, as, each moment, someone somewhere is quietly working on intuitive and real time innovations that can virtually create new markets by discovering new categories of customers. Harnessing new technologies, developing new business models and exploiting old technologies in new ways, they are toppling the market leaders.

This is significant, as the topple rate, a degree of how rapidly companies lose their leadership position, has increased by almost 40 percent in last few decades. Besides, the average job tenure for the CEO of a Fortune 500 company has halved from ten years in 2000 to less than five years today. Likewise, the tenure of companies on the S&P 500 was 61 years in 1958; it’s now 18 years.

Disruptive start-ups are driving corporate reinvention. No industry is immune to this. Some of the notable category disruptors include: classified ads (Craigslist), long distance calls (Skype), record stores (iTunes), research libraries (Google), local stores (eBay), taxis (Uber) and newspapers (Twitter).

Faced with the innovator’s paradox, the industry leading incumbents are finding it tough to choose between holding onto an existing market or to capturing new markets. Many of the world's largest corporations are scrambling to transform and reinvent their businesses as lean disruptors are tapping into shared business models, efficient cloud, analytics, predictive insights and socially influenced consumers to create new value and client experiences.

The good news is progressive leaders are reinventing the way they engage more intimately with customers and make their products and services more accessible and available through all channels of interaction. Continually challenged to disrupt, innovate and respond to an ever-changing set of business dynamics and economic conditions, forward thinking C-suite leaders are scouting for strategic partners to manage disruption, innovate and meet change head on.

For instance, when it comes to the future of work they are focused on adapting to the changes which are impacting the way we work and live.  Emergence of new social technologies, a shift to the cloud, rise of millennials as the majority workforce and increased mobility of work is driving the same.

The result is increased employee engagement, a more collaborative innovation culture for staff to explore and accelerate the client value rooted in rapid design thinking and fluid work spaces for a cross pollinating ideas from a diverse workforce driven by a solution centric, user centric approach. Many smart organizations are already pushing the boundaries in design thinking, flattening hierarchies, rapid prototyping, productivity efficiency, and user satisfaction to accelerate their innovation journey.

In the disruptive age we are in, the gospel of thinking is no longer business as usual. To succeed and thrive, we need to collectively think out of the box as differentiation rules. And differentiation comes from the way people think. And, only the right talent will ensure that you are always on the right side of the change.

The power to transform one’s business and stay ahead of the game lies inherent.

IT’s all about people, you see. And, more importantly, it’s the ability to think different. Such creativity is not a genetic predisposition, but is an active endeavour with strong cognitive trait of association, passionate questioning, intense observing, diverse networking, and continual experimenting.

To sail smart in today’s turbulent times, leaders must vie for revolution in thinking: experimenting with a steady stream of disruptive strategies and game-changing solutions to stay ahead of the game, making bold moves, consistently differentiating, even at the very peak of their success, even when, they are not pushed into a corner. Shunning complacency, they need to stay hungry for change, and challenge the status quo, wherever they are, and whatever they do, to add value to clients, business and society.

At some time, someone somewhere is going to disrupt your entire industry. There is no reason why it shouldn’t be you? Who knows the next Steve Jobs could be your grass-root employee, silently working with your customer.

Are we ready to tap the exponential value?

The Blogger is Kiran Kumar Yellupula:  The views expressed here are purely personal. Please share your feedback at mediavalue@yahoo.com

Harnessing Big Data to Build A Sustainable World

Revolutionary. This one word aptly captures the era we are in. Indeed, we are at the cusp of a silent revolution. As big data takes the center stage, impacting the way we live, work and play - humanity is grappling with the biggest existential crisis ever, marooned by huge volume, variety and velocity of the information in a hyper connected world.

Add to that, each moment we are getting rocked by disruptive innovations. Businesses across sectors are struggling to embrace this paradigm shift. Boundaries between the industries are blurring as technology turns ubiquitous, demolishing silos.

Integration is the name of the game in the new normal as the massive networks of devices, sensors and the connected devices are reshaping our planet. This is significant as research reports estimate that by 2017, the Internet of Things market will reach $7.3 trillion. 

Some analysts predict by 2020, the world will have about 25 to 75 billion connected devices. While this presents a tremendous opportunity for economic growth and innovation, much depends on how enterprises sail smart through the lanes of disruptive innovation.

Interestingly, cities are emerging as the epicentre of this innovation era. The momentum of these smart cities is propelled by the art and science of the data driven corporate real estate.

At the heart of this lies sustainable buildings, alive and kicking infusing life into the skylines, breathing data, offering next generation services, reducing carbon footprint, improving the quality of life, and making the world better.

To succeed and thrive in the above context, it’s imperative for the C-Suite leaders to harness the right business intelligence from all types of data from people, processes and technologies, flowing through an organization. They must tap the big data, and discover actionable insights that help them make smarter decisions,

There is little alternative to putting the structured and unstructured data into context and analyzing the real time insights through right integration and right governance. However, cost-effectively managing the data, gleaning timely insights – and reaping the desired business outcomes is not easy. And, this is where a trusted adviser can help transform the business -   “data scientists” who know how to manage whispering cities.

The good news is forward thinking leaders across the globe are collaborating with these experts who use sophisticated predictive analytics to deliver enterprise wide visibility and deeper insights into every decision, every business process and every system of engagement to drive better business outcomes.

Make no mistakes. Indeed, how smarter and faster we embrace the data driven decision making that really matters for our lives, clients, business and society will shape the future of humanity.

The question is - are we ‘ready’ to transform our cities into a hub of innovation? Are we ready to deliver next-generation,  greener, citizen-centric, professional services for building a sustainable world? 

The answer lies in collaboration, integration and continual innovation. Yes, together, we can...

The Blogger is Kiran Kumar Yellupula:  The views expressed here are purely personal. Please share your feedback at mediavalue@yahoo.com