As a business manager at any level, it is your job to think about what might disrupt your business. Even if the potential disruption is a long way into the future, it may take a long time to prepare for it.
| New or Disruptive Technology | What is replaced? | My Comments |
| Video Streaming | Cable TV | Cable-TV forces you to pay for more content that you use. This has left room for Hulu and Netflix. More narrow services with even less content such as Major League Baseball (mlb.com) may threaten services like Hulu in the future. |
| Video Streaming | Video Rental Stores | Streaming is a technology rather than an improved business process |
| New storage methods | Floppy disks are replaced by CDs. CDs are replaced by DVDs, DVDs are partially replaced by USB drives, most local media can be replaced by cloud storage. | Old technologies are not replaced immediately when a new technology arrives. Many of us still have CDs and computers or other devices that can read them. Blacksmiths and Buggy makers are still working in counties inhabited by the Amish. |
| Client Portal and cloud storage for an Accounting Firm | Old procedures (mail paper), some data entry, and paper file storage | This is an example of the benefit of changed business processes to take advantage of technology. This might be considered disruptive because financial services firms that do not provide client portals will have difficulty staying in business. |
| Smart phones | Land line phones, cameras, mp3 players, cable television(?), and anything electronic we used to carry with us. | Businesses that do not realize that customers prefer to use mobile devices to interact with the business will have difficulty. |
| e-commerce | Brick and Mortar retailers. (Amazon left no room for Borders Books) | Surviving retailers will have e-commerce and a local presence (my opinion) |
| 3D Printing | Old methods of building prototypes and customer parts. It remains to be seen what will be replaced | Many local libraries have 3D printers and software that you can use. |
| World Wide Web (publishing) | e-books, blogs, news have partially replaced existing forms of publishing such as newspapers, magazines, and hard cover text books. | |
| Online Learning | Colleges and Universities that do not support Online Learning. My opinion is that this could change the job content for College Professors. Already I use some youtube videos instead of making all of them myself | I took three Data Science Courses from the University of California at Berkeley instead of enrolling at Northwestern University due to cost and convenience. |
| Uber, Lyft and the sharing economy | Speculation on my part: Hotels (airbnb), Rental Cars (uber), New Car Dealers (cars will be shared), some public transportation. | Is the big change here technology or a new business process that so far has been able to circumvent taxi cab regulations? Opinion: Venture capitalists are no longer subsidizing Uber and Lyft. Prices will continue to go up. |
| Robots and Artificial Intelligence | Speculation:
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How fast will this happen? I don't know but in general technology advances much faster than I estimate. |
In my opinion, one of the most rewarding experiences you can have as a manager is to be able to develop and execute a multi-year plan that supports the objectives of the business such as the one you reviewed in this Discussion. Building the plan is not a solo activity like it would be in a homework assignment. The manager must consult with all stakeholders including the people that will be allocating the money to implement the plan. The manager must continue to convince the stakeholders and the members of the implementation team of the value of the plan so that implementation is sustained over a multi-year period. The manager must also not change employers in the middle of the implementation period.I would also like to express my opinions on some of your comments.
Analytics: Dominican already does significant analysis on historical data to determine factors involved in student success and in students deciding to attend Dominican. This is done in the Office of Institutional Effectiveness in Parmer. I am impressed by the wealth of information and analysis we have.
More professors should be trained in the use of Canvas. I agree. The opportunity for training exists. There is a good self-study course in Canvas and there are periodic face-to-face workshops. I know of one professor that is working on doing more with Canvas because of comments in student course evaluations.