By Heath Huxtable, Executive Head/Managing Director: Braintree
The world is evolving at a rapid pace and only those who actively commit to keeping up will be relevant in a few years' time. That may sound alarmist, but it’s true. Like a 5000m track event, if someone lets the gap between themselves and the frontrunners grow too large there might not be enough time to reel them in.
Think about it. Not too long ago everyone was talking about big data, data lakes and lake houses, containers and the metaverse… and today? ChatGPT has taken the world by storm, but rest assured the next big thing is around the corner.
What does this mean? Often, it means that people jump into topics and learn about them up to a certain level of proficiency and then jump off and move on to the next trend. It’s not dissimilar to new solutions or updates within existing platforms or technology ecosystems. There really is little use in being 15% proficient at something even if we agree that 15% is surely better than nothing.
The reason there needs to be deeper focus is because in the world of technology, we are called on to build a business case. Technology has changed and evolved so quickly that most people are lagging behind in their theoretical understanding of technology and this prevents a deep understanding of technology’s business applicability.
It is all good and well to be at the forefront of the tech curve but there still needs to be effort to ensure it is made commercially viable. It’s not uncommon to find people with a proficient level of understanding of a new technology yet they have almost no idea how it can be commercialised.
The fact remains that we must incorporate tech into current business challenges. This is the missing link, as it were. Broadly, there is no problem in the industry with people willing to learn, however, there is somewhat more of a challenge in finding people who are prepared to focus deeply enough to extract the commercial business case of a new technology.