DIGITAL DISRUPTION — ARE YOU READY? Lawrence McKenna*
Digital disruption has only just begun and massive changes are underway for the customer cabling industry. How will the disruptive technologies impact the industry, and how can you best prepare yourself for the era of disruption?
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t’s predicted that around 80% of Fortune 1000 companies will not exist in 10–15 years. This trend is expected to be seen across all industry sectors. In this article, we will explore the key disruptive technologies, how they will impact the customer cabling industry, when they will impact us, industry trends, opportunities, challenges and suggestions to help you prepare yourself for digital disruption.
What is a disruptive technology? A disruptive technology is a technology that displaces an established technology and shakes up the industry. We have already experienced this a number of times in the last 20 years. Some quick examples include: records tape cassettes CD MPEG players; digital cameras; smartphones; video tapes DVD IP streaming; storage density; computing; social media; typesetting/printing presses laser printers. And the list goes on and on. What needs to be understood is that the pace of disruption is accelerating. It is suggested that the volume of disruption expected in the next 10–15 years will exceed the volume of disruption since the industrial revolution. So what is driving the digital revolution? The answer is computing power. Today, a PlayStation has 170 times the computational
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power of a 1987 Super Computer. In 18 years, the device size has shrunk massively. Most people aren’t truly aware of the speed of change and disruption. So what type of disruptive technologies can we expect in the next 10–15 years? The Gartner Hype Cycle provides an indication of what technologies will come to maturity, and when they should impact us. This Hype Cycle doesn’t cover battery technologies, renewable technologies, nanotech or new materials.
Opportunities The key disruptive technologies that are expected to impact the customer cabling industry are: Internet of Things; mobile health monitoring; cloud computing; consumer telematics; autonomous vehicles; mobile robots and computing power. These technologies will also create significant opportunities for the information and communications and technology industry, as we will need to design and build: • Infrastructure-to-car wireless sites — It is expected that all traffic-lighted intersections and overpasses/bridges will need a 5.9 GHz WLAN AP that will be used to communicate to autonomous vehicles.
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