Deloitte On Disruptive And Emerging Tech: Welcome To 2006
Written by Frank HayesDisruption just isn’t what it used to be. On Monday (March 21) consulting giant Deloitte issued a report on what it calls 10 “disruptive and emerging technologies” that will be a big deal to big companies over the next 18 months. The list includes cloud computing, software as a service (SaaS), visualization, analytics, social computing, mobile applications, ERP—wait, these are disruptive and emerging? Some of them emerged and did their disrupting decades ago. At this point, they’re about as disruptive as a cash register or a credit card.
It’s always hard for consultants to strike a balance, looking for the sweet spot in technology and trends that all their potential customers haven’t already adopted but are far enough past bleeding-edge status that they’re not a wild-eyed gamble. This time, Deloitte missed that sweet spot by about five years—this list isn’t even interesting. But we’ll be watching closely for next year’s report to see if that newfangled E-mail thing makes Deloitte’s list.
-Marc
March 25th, 2011 at 2:52 am
Frank, I think you have fallen for the common and easy to make error that, as someone in the industry, you see stuff as old hat. Remember, more than 50 of businesses still dont have a website!! How many of the millions of businesses that exist have the technology listed. Certainly not “most”. Deloittes readers are not StorefrontBacktalk readers.
March 25th, 2011 at 7:51 am
The story you’re referencing didn’t say that those technologies were not important or valuable. They absolutely are. But when Deloitte labeled them “disruptive and emerging,” that was simply not true. If Deloitte had said that they were important and worthy of strong consideration, we would not have said a word.