Markets are in transition. Since the commercial internet, in 1995, there were signs that, at some point, people's behavior in the markets would be 'digital first'. The change in people's behavior towards digital [first] and the arrival of digital clouds, which eliminated the need for capital to create new digital services, was what ultimately led to the great digital disruption in almost all markets and the need for digital transformation of incumbent companies.
The 2020s are expected to be the second and last decade of the great digital transformation of business. Especially because those who cannot compete in phygital spaces, will not be able to compete at all. But innovation, adaptation and evolution will remain essential forever, especially because they have always been, at least for businesses that can cause and survive changes. Now, there will be continuous digital innovation, adaptation and evolution, networked.
everything is [or will be] networked, connected
One of the most striking features of the phygital future is that all its facets are [and are defined] in a network. Networks. Digital networks, as a substrate for everything.
People's [working] methods, within businesses, are networked; if they are not - if there are not degrees of freedom of decision making and action - in a network, the efficiency and effectiveness of the articulations within the business will not be able to create - and will not follow - the network effects in the market. And markets are networks.
Business [technology] systems - at least those that want to survive - are networked. They use the network to ‘coopet’ and are inputs for network coopetition. They enable the largest and most competitive, and at the same time collaborative, set of agents [to compete and collaborate] that will define their markets. The network is a networked system.
The same goes for [business] models, which have always been networked in one way or another. Only now they are in digital networks in almost real time, enabling agents who are able to give full and individual attention to each member of their network, be it supplier, consumer, partner or collaborator, creating multifaceted and transparent forms for the creation, delivery and capture of value. Digital value. In digital networks.
Historically, one of the biggest problems with change processes is that the process itself and its results are obtained by indicators from the past [maybe even the present] and not the future of the business. One of the advantages of the phygital [business] space over analogue is that in digital, in a network, it is –should be– in [almost] real time. As well as your performance indicators.
A networked, digital and connected business has networked, digital, connected and real-time methods, systems, models and indicators. And getting "there" is not a walk, much less an adventure; it is a path, sometimes long and complex, but trafficable and full of discoveries.
And a good part of the discoveries are related to the transformation process itself and its essential elements. To transform is to discover, experiment, learn. Networked. In the market. A transition from analog, or physical, to phygital, digital first.
but no transformation is trivial