Nexus of New Forces - Big Data, Cloud, Mobile and Social

By Michael Bennett   |   Wednesday, 11 Dec 2013, 17:17 IST

A strategic technology may be an existing technology that has matured and/or become suitable for a wider range of uses. It may also be an emerging technology that offers an opportunity for strategic business advantage for early adopters or with potential for significant market disruption in the next five years. These technologies impact the organization's long-term plans, programs and initiatives. When considering innovation, organizations cannot ignore the new forces: Big Data, Cloud, Mobile and Social. What is interesting is that most of these forces have an effect outside of the corporate walls, mostly in the cloud or directly in the consumer's pocket. The value of these forces will materialize for the organizations that can seamlessly combine the information or business functionalities with their existing systems; integration is a requirement. The connectivity and scalability of integration platforms must cope with the increased volume of information exchanges.

Analytics is increasingly delivered to users at the point of action and in context. With the improvement of performance and costs, IT leaders can afford to perform analytics and simulation for every action taken in the business. The mobile client linked to cloud-based analytic engines and big data repositories potentially enables use of optimization and simulation everywhere and every time. This new step provides simulation, prediction, optimization and other analytics, to empower even more decision flexibility at the time and place of every business process action.

Challenges in Meeting the Needs of Enterprises

I look forward to more use of mobility, more cloud (both private and public), and the utilization of 'big data'. In addition, we need to be very aware of cyber security; everything we build or buy must include a security review/security element. I would expect technology providers to offer not only tools but also ideas and education on how these tools will help drive something within the business (change, growth, productivity, etc.). I also expect them to clearly articulate that buying (for example a cloud solution), may just be the start; much work may still be necessary to integrate into existing legacy systems.

Founded in 1947, Medtronic, Inc, (NYSE: NDT) headquartered in Minneapolis, is the global leader in medical technology — alleviating pain, restoring health and extending life for millions of people around the world. The company has a market cap of $57.50 billion.