Technology, your best ally or your worst enemy

Companies must allocate resources to train their executives to understand the exponential changes that could alter their industry and, thus, become allies of technological changes instead of victims.

How is it possible that Apple technology controls a large part of the music industry today? Something unimaginable a few years ago for the powerful record labels. The home movie industry is increasingly being controlled by Netflix, something that the powerful Blockbuster never imagined. Kodak went bankrupt in 2012 mainly due to the digital camera, an invention that curiously they themselves created, however, they did not decide to give it importance. Radical events like these happen when the exponential growth of technology is ignored.

There is a trend that is becoming more relevant every day and that many businessmen ignore: this is "Moore's Law," which states that approximately every two years the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles. What does this mean and why should it matter to a business executive? Basically, this means that every two years computers double their capacity, which means exponential changes that can drastically affect any industry. For example, Michio Kaku, considered the Albert Einstein of our times, comments that the computer in an iPhone is much more powerful than the computers used in the 1960s for moon travel. Peter Diamandis, founder of the XPrizes, comments that today a person in Africa with a smartphone has better communication access than Ronald Reagan when he was President of the US, and if this same person in Africa has access to Google, they have access to more information than Bill Clinton when he was President. That's how exponential technology is.

In recent decades we have entered an era of digitization of industries, for example:

• Music has been digitized, we went from live music to records, CDs, then to iTunes and finally to Spotify.
• The video and photography industry has been digitized, we went from taking photos with a Kodak camera that needed developing, to digital photos that are stored on Instagram and Facebook with practically zero marginal cost to take an extra photo.
• The way children play has been digitized, it is increasingly common for children to play video games instead of playing outdoors.
• The way of doing business has been digitized, we went from having physical meetings to having meetings via Skype, from sending letters to sending emails.
• Among many other examples.

Therefore, it is interesting and vital for businesses to consider: What will be the next industries to be digitized? Experts, such as Ray Kurzweil (considered by Bill Gates the best futurist in the world) and Peter Diamandis, talk about the digitization of medicine and retail. Perhaps this sounds very crazy and futuristic, but we must consider that 3D printers today are already able to print complex things such as human hearts and kidneys. In addition, Nike already sells 3D-printed sports shoes, so it is not so crazy to think that in a few years we will be able to print a shirt, pants, or any product that we currently find in a department store from our own home. The retail industry will undergo a revolution, transitioning from the era of mass production, logistics, and storage to the era of customization, where consumers will have the clothes they want in the color and size they want. Making e-commerce more and more relevant.

Because of all these changes, it is extremely important for companies to allocate resources to train their executives to understand the exponential changes that could alter their industry and, thus, become allies of technological changes instead of being victims of them.