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The Digital Revolution Seems to Fundamentally Change How Business Works

The Digital Revolution Seems to Fundamentally Change How Business Works
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Some of us are part of this, and some of us aren’t — yet. The digital revolution can be seen as a threat or the gateway to vast opportunities. John Sheridan, the CEO of Australian company Digital Business Insights explains.

Our guest today is Mr. John Sheridan, the CEO of Digital Business Insights.

“The digital revolution seems to be about technology, about computers, smartphones and telecommunications, and so on. But really, the digital revolution is about people, it’s about how that technology changes people. We have a revolution that is changing the world in quite a fundamental way, but it is all down to people, as they can either adopt the changes that are taking place, or they can try and hold it back.

“The fundamental difference is that power has shifted from the vendor to the consumer. Today, customers are in a position where they can check things out. Very quickly, through the use of any search engine, information can be checked out, compared, discussed with others, and suddenly, that whole power base shifts. …That is a huge shift.”

This also affects, of course, the way that businesses are run. John said: “Yes, what we’ve done over the last 10 years or so, is conduct about 50,000 business surveys right across Australia and beyond, really trying to find out how and why businesses use the technologies that they do. …So now we are in a position to help businesses travel on the journey of selecting and using the new technology. People just don’t understand what’s going on. All this stuff is new. Many are intimidated by it, especially successful businesspeople who may have spent 40 or 50 years getting to the top of the ladder… suddenly this revolution comes along, and they are like babies again.

“This new revolution will move as quickly as people are prepared to allow it to. We see increasing connectivity today through the internet, it is now possible for people to connect with others in different cities and towns, countries, right across the world, and this is completely beyond the control of the traditional media channels… In the past, if you had a new idea or a new product or whatever, you had to go through a very traditional process, in terms of finding out, reaching out, and trying to find out where other like minded people existed, like a club, or a university, or some sort of meeting place… On the internet, you have the ability to engage with like minds and exchange similar ideas with not just 5 or 6 or 7 other people but with literally thousands… Once you have a collaborative idea, you can actually use web-based platforms to bring those ideas into life. That’s what we do, we build platforms to help change what happens in the business world in Australia. Small businesses can now do the things only big businesses could afford to do. It makes doing business less about the size of the business, as small businesses can now collaborate to take big businesses on in their own terms.”

Can this be stopped?, was the last question. “The only thing that could possibly stop it would be a world wide nuclear war that actually wiped out humans and made it impossible for telecommunications to work. In the absence of that, it is pretty much impossible for this revolution to be stopped now, the genie has been let out of the bottle, and the possibilities are as large as anybody’s and everybody’s imaginations allow those possibilities to be.”

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