Defining disruption

THE GOAL OF IT since its inception has been the timely (a relative term) delivery of information to those who need it. Behind this goal is an unspoken belief in technology: If IT could deliver to its internal enterprise customers all of the information all of the time, it would be impossible for them to make a mistake.

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If a product manager had available at his or her fingertips all the relevant pieces of data, so the belief goes, it would be the same as knowing all the integers in a mathematics problem -- there could be only one possible answer.

Take for example a company that sells high-end widgets. If the widget inventory is running low at the warehouse, should you tie up millions of dollars and order more?

Now imagine that 10,000 retail outlets that sell your widgets are submitting hourly sales reports that have been created as a Web service and feed into your ERP system and that these retailers use Wi-Fi to get real-time inventory levels from every store and regional warehouse around globe.

Imagine that the factories that make your widgets are using self-service CRM with their raw-materials suppliers to update schedules and submit production projections that go beyond a good guess. Imagine a BI (business intelligence) system that analyzes not only the structured data streaming into your enterprise but also the unstructured data from Weblogs, Office 11 XML documents, widget-related news stories, and weather reports and road conditions that might affect everything from production and delivery schedules to consumer demand.

From 10Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and digital identity technologies that help create what Gartner likes to call a "real-time enterprise" to Web services and virtualization that tightly link partners to create an extended enterprise, these are just some of the technologies that will disrupt the status quo.

But are they really disruptive? In this issue, Test Center analysts select 10 technologies that ease -- not impede -- the flow of information; such technologies are called disruptive because they bring change.

That change is not at the cost, we hope, of IT departments tearing out their collective hair, but disruptive technologies will force us to re-examine the way we work. In one form or another, each of these technologies is targeted at increasing the data flow and making information more accessible to more of the people who need it by reducing its complexity and cost.

It is obvious that this is the case in eight of the 10 technologies: Wi-Fi, Weblogs, Office 11 XML, digital identity, 10GbE, virtualization, Web services, and self-service CRM.

And it could be argued that open source/open standards and Mac OS X, the two technology areas that don't quite fit the "accessibility" profile also help gather and proliferate information: Open source certainly makes information about itself -- the source code -- available, and Mac OS X gives the enterprise another choice as to how information can be shared.

Change can shift the balance of power and leap over generations of business evolution. Disruptive technologies seed the growth of change in the same way that the automobile changed the very nature of what a business is.

The difference between a dairy farmer delivering milk with a horse and cart at 5 mph to a local market and a tanker truck rolling across the country at 75 mph meant the difference between family farms and corporate farms, between mom-and-pop and the enterprise. Changing just one variable of the formula -- in this case speed -- turned the entire economy upside down.

Although we will have to save Economics 101 for another time, it is safe to say that over the long haul these disruptive technologies that both speed up the delivery and increase the amount of relevant data will also have a dramatic impact on the evolution of business and, in the end, on the economy itself.

As technology proliferates, the U.S. economy will feel the disruption in the form of far more sophisticated global competitors. For example, the broadcasting industry, which until now has enjoyed a 50-year near-monopoly on programming thanks to its ability to offer polished shows (from I Love Lucy to CSI) that garner No. 1 ratings worldwide, is suddenly changing. The dispersal of technology and knowledge means global and local broadcasters are reaching the same level of production quality and savvy and are pushing American programs out of prime time, according to a recent New York Times article.

And this trend is destined to reach farther, across more industries: Thanks to the expanding reach of technology and better access to information, more companies can gain the sophistication to compete on the same level as the traditional, often larger players in the same market.

As global competition increases, the truth is that complacency -- not cheap labor -- is what will bring down a company or an industry. The impact is already being seen, for example, as vendors grapple with the challenges of adjusting business models to the disruptions caused by Web services.

Refusing to address or even explore technology that might change the way business gets done will only hamstring a company's ability to roll with the punches in an already punch-drunk business world.

Consider this for the short term: If the inability to have the right information has a negative impact on business decisions and ultimately a company's survival, then those who use technology to improve the flow of information and therefore the decision-making process will be the winners.

Becoming one of those winners requires faith in the capability of technology to deliver on its promise. Over time, it will require a dollar investment, too.

If we had absolutely all the relevant data would it be impossible to make a mistake? These technologies are out to prove the point.