Transforming Business: Big Data, Mobility, and Globalization

Epilogue: The Next Decade

We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction.

BILL GATEs

Although even the most astute forecasters would have likely underestimated the impact from the intersecting generational, technological, and enterprise forces that originated in the 1980s, today's enterprises can hopefully learn from the lessons of their counterparts, based on the primary and secondary evidence offered throughout this book. It would be foolhardy to consider what the next 30 years may reveal, but we the authors are prepared to make the following predictions as to how enterprises will continue to be reshaped over the next decade:

• Employee subsidization of IT costs will be common—It is impossible for IT budgets or resources to increase commensurately with demand, as evidenced by the unending trajectory of data and mobile traffic in the enterprise. To attempt to meet the demand, enterprises will increasingly turn to innovative business models whereby employees help subsidize the costs for innovative enterprise services. These services have tangible value, and, according to the 2012 Alcatel-Lucent study, employees are willing to help pay for their deployment. ...