Plans can give you a certain idea of the direction in which you want to go and near future plans might be helpful to see, if business goals are met. But as detailed description of where exactly you want to be at, they are not useful anymore. Technologies are evolving too fast.
Expect the unexpected
Whatever trend might develop, there is no way of forecasting the future. It has to be standard, to expect the unexpected. This trend will increase through the influence of the digital natives. Are you already prepared that these workers want to create their workspace according to their personal needs. Maybe everybody will be downloading apps on his workspace to work efficient and effective. Just like with the iPhone. Are you already developing an internal app-store for your business?Work together, not isolated
It is not appropriate anymore to have isolated groups that are responsible to develop the IT strategy or the like. The IT department has to be more open: Intern as well as towards the end user. As part of the consumerization of IT the end user needs to be granted more influence. On the market you should monitor blogs and consultants in order to compare trends and find possibilities to improve your IT strategy. The advice of suppliers and vendors has to be treated with caution, since they only promote products they can sell.
Prepare yourself
What are the most important aspects? How can you prepare yourself?1. Always have a solid ground for your decisions.
Impacts on the business and IT have to be analyzed in short time periods. If big changes occur the reaction of the business has to be quick so that you are not missing good opportunities.2. Follow trends already when they emerge and look for new ones.
Information on markets, products and technologies are constantly augmenting. Today it is already hard to stay on top of things and to sort the wheat from the chaff. You have to pay attention to changes in advance and be open for possible application of new technology. The more people involved, the sooner relevant trends can be identified. An idea that builds its market position slowly does not have to be bad – looking at it from a different perspective can reveal its relevance. Nobody would have thought that twitter will be suitable for the business communication of service issues.3. Enable participation on discussions.
Swarm intelligence is a good thing, if you use it properly. Through the exchange of information and thoughts constructive solutions for upcoming problems can be developed, especially if you make sure that the persons involved are as independent as possible and all dedicated to the same goal.Conclusion
Dynamic management is the best way to deal with the ongoing changes in the technological landscape. You can only implement an efficient dynamic management, if you focus on the two most important foundations of enterprise 2.0: collaboration and transparency. So it seems to be a wise idea to start building the foundation.
