The ICT Tsunami and Your Future

Abstract

This chapter brings out the essence of the sweeping waves of changes precipitated by ICT and the innovations in its wake, some of them transforming ICT itself. It highlights key issues and risks and outlines the possible ways in which they can be tackled. Since the idea is to spur the organization to greater successes using ICT, the solutions will be discussed in terms of a framework. Such an approach will ensure that the organization is in a position to exploit opportunities without collapsing from within/without; and it will also aid the “minimalist approach” which favors a high economy of effort and resources. The new waves of technology, radical business models, competition, and regulations which hit the industry at an unrelenting and ever-increasing pace are ample illustration of the fact that ICT has become all pervasive in transforming all the industries. Given this context, it becomes imperative for organizations to understand the main elements of such change(s) especially when they have decided to embrace the ICT models. Concomitantly, this will also enable them to effectively map out their future based on how relevant each of the specific elements is to their location/profile(s). This chapter will therefore explore the manner/modalities through which ICT is acting as a major force of transformation within the industries.

There is a tide in the affairs of men.Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat….

—Shakespeare (Act 4, Scene 3, Julius Caesar)