Virtual and Autonomous - The Second Economy

This year in Singapore Changi Airport at the new Terminal, I saw one airline kiosk issuing a boarding pass, another punched out a luggage tag, then a computer screen showed me how to attach it and another where I should set the luggage on a conveyor. I encountered no single human being. The incident wasn’t important from operations point of view but it left me feeling odd that I was out of human care, that something in our world had shifted.

That made me wonder how exactly the new technologies are changing the economy.

Have digital technologies created a SECOND ECONOMY which is virtual and autonomous one?

Is it steadily providing an external intelligence to business which is not housed internally in human workers but externally in the virtual economy’s algorithms and machines?

When I wanted to dig deeper into this, two things emerged. One- About Distribution and other about what is Intelligence in today's context?

So this new period we are entering is not so much about production anymore, it is about distribution as to how people get a share in what is produced. Everything from trade policies to government projects to commercial regulations will in the future be evaluated by distribution.

“Intelligence” in today's context doesn’t mean conscious thought or deductive reasoning or “understanding.” It means the ability to make appropriate associations, or in an action domain to sense a situation and act appropriately. 

Driverless traffic when it arrives will have autonomous cars traveling on special lanes, in conversation with each other, with special road markers, and with signaling lights. These in turn will be in conversation with approaching traffic and with the needs of other parts of the traffic system. 

The interesting thing here isn’t the form intelligence takes. It’s that intelligence is no longer housed internally in the brains of human workers but has moved outward into the virtual economy, into the conversation among intelligent algorithms. It has become external.

The physical economy demands or queries, the virtual economy checks and converses and computes externally and then reports back to the physical economy, which then responds appropriately. The virtual economy is not just an Internet of Things, it is a source of intelligent action—intelligence external to human workers.

We have entered the distributive era and so much so into Second Economy which is Virtual and Autonomous.

Rethinking Operations all the time......

Why all companies have to rethink about operations all the time?

As we know Operations is the core of any business. The 4th Revolution 'Technology' has enabled everyone to access everything anytime thus accelerating Change.

Today the best learning for companies is through Customer Interaction.

We live in an era of abundance of transparent data which is empowering customers. As a result all customers have very unique expectations and they look for personalised service all the time.

The other side of the coin is COST. So companies have to balance cost with other factors at each step.

This give the companies opportunity to re imagine and deliver differently.

Everything is changing and so is our role and operations.

By always rethinking of operations companies can redefine their cost structures and meet the unique expectations of customers.

So far companies have focused on, and become proficient in, optimizing their operations in a known and stable environment. They have built systems, such as the Toyota Production System, to drive continuous improvement in an incremental way. 

Modern Operations Management needs to significantly upgrade its capabilities.

i) To cope with the high degree of uncertainty, the Operations Management function requires new methods and tools to anticipate the future, and derive consequences and requirements from this insight.

ii) Since future solutions will require radically new ways of working, Operations Management needs to nurture capabilities to generate much more creativity and innovation. Last, but not least, the speed of change, driven by hyper competition, digital and other trends, will require a proactive and agile means of transformation.