Leverage Convergence with a Divergent View

Once upon a time, life was very simple. We were proud of our black & white television that showed just one program at a time,for limited hours. The bulky phone occupied a prominent place of privilege in those houses that were fortunate to get a connection after years of waiting. The telephone was shared by not just the family but at times by an entire village. Life was very simple those days. A phone was a phone was a phone, meant for talking if and when it worked and a TV was a TV, meant for watching audio-visual programs and a radio set was a radio set, meant for audio infotainment.

The last 10 years have changed everything though. Technological advancements, globalising economies and the Gen-Y ready to experiment are a potent mix driving unprecedented upheavals in almost all sectors of the global economy.

Storage & interface devices are shrinking rapidly, voice, data, images and other multimedia are converging and customer expectations are changing with a high degree of impatience. A broad range of technologies are being converged into single multipurpose products and services. We may have 100 items of different types of technology that perform  very  similar tasks with a different brand value. For example, TV, telephones, computer, and music were operated on different control devices. But with convergence  of technology, we can use the internet for listening to music, watching videos or making calls. Similarly, accessing of internet on mobile phones or digital TV decoders also offers a great example. To put it simply, convergence of technology wraps up data,  voice and images into one box to bring about ubiquitous connectivity. To put it another way, convergence of technology is the merging of  communication,  data/information  processing, audio and visual into one platform.

Life is becoming increasingly complex and extremely simple simultaneously, with converging technologies and improving user-friendliness and portability of devices.

All of this has a profound impact on business  models,  no matter which  industry or geography you may be based in. Businesses globally, have to adapt to changing buyer expectations or perish against ruthless global competition with very low entry barriers. While technological convergence creates  resistance and challenges, it also reduces barriers of capital and  geography. It is important for  business managers to  recognize  the implications of technology developments and convergence on the way they conduct business, internally to the organization and externally with clients, prospects and other industry influencers. If we stop and ponder, we will note that the death of distance and round-the clock high-availability with rapidly dropping costs of connectivity has resulted in the collapse of the traditional entry barriers of size and scale. As a result, even a budding business man from a remote corner of, say, China or India can successfully compete and take away business from a large international business house.  To take advantage of this, large businesses with their deeper pockets and bigger work-forces have to explore their potential to transform every aspect of their business. They need to be aware of the potential threats too, to protect their self interests and those of their employees, clients and prospects.

The main advantages of convergence in communication technologies can be summarised as follows –

1. High availability of communication channels from anywhere to anywhere at costs affordable even to populations of developing nations
2. Multiple channels of communication between individuals and corporations
3. Huge, resilient, multi-modal network of connectivity encompassing the Internet
4. Wired communication network for public telephony
5. Wireless networks of cellular and satellite connectivity
6. Reach out to millions of customers and prospects in a matter of seconds with personalized, customized messages that are unique to the individual's specific requirements
7. Get connected to the Internet with the cell phone as the interface device and monitor business parameters remotely

Just take this example and analyze - you can be at 30,000 ft above the surface of earth and still be monitoring the progress of a crucial project in some remote corner of the globe. This is the force of convergence in technologies that is rapidly democratizing and homogenizing the world.
Time to make a decision …Shape up or ship-out !!!