Digitization is impacting companies in every industry as business leaders implement digital technologies and processes to transform all aspects of their operating models. Yet, even with the growth and innovation that digitization will drive, many people fear it will eliminate jobs at a record pace.
In addition, by 2020, four in 10 industry incumbents will be displaced by disruptive competitors (according to the “Digital Vortex” research conducted by the Global Center for Digital Business Transformation, or DBT Center), further heightening the uncertainty around job security
At this important point in the evolution of business and technology, the question we should ask is: Will digitization eliminate jobs or redefine them?
The answer depends on how companies are digitized. If you look at technology simply as a way to reduce costs at the expense of your most important asset—people—job losses will mount. If, however, you approach digitization correctly by first reimagining work—understanding which new roles and skills will be needed in a digital world—the future of jobs is bright.
To help business leaders reimagine work, the DBT Center just released a new study, “Workforce Transformation in the Digital Vortex.” The research shows how empowering people with “digital accelerators” that combine business process change and technology creates the three capabilities of digital business agility—hyperawareness, informed decision-making, and fast execution.
Digital Business Agility Is Achieved with Six Digital Accelerators that Enable Hyperawareness, Informed Decision-Making, and Fast Execution

These digital capabilities and accelerators can help organizations reimagine work and the jobs and skills workers will need as they digitize their businesses.
Hyperawareness with insight capture and work-pattern sensing
Developing hyperawareness requires people with strong communication and analytic skills—especially the ability to listen, formulate insights, and share information. Cultural change management will be required across all levels of the organization to share and act on these new insights.
Informed decision-making with ubiquitous analytics and collaborative decision-making
Informed decision-making requires workers who can embrace new technology, learn new skills, and provide honest feedback. Successful employees will also benefit from education and experience in Big Data, analytics, artificial intelligence, user experience, and system design.
Fast execution with agile talent pipeline and intelligent talent allocation
To help with fast execution, consider dedicating those with social media experience, analytics abilities, and good people skills to discover and recruit talent. Allocate budget to pay rewards for hiring top job candidates.
Digitization is not just about deploying technology to cut costs. The real goal is to drive business growth through innovation. That means reimagining work and empowering people in a digital context and creating a more efficient and fulfilling work experience along the way.


Why are we fixated on “fast fabric?” Think about the advantages it creates for SAP workloads: You can load data faster into the HANA nodes at startup or recovery. You can ingest data faster when pulling from the customer network. And node-to-node communication is considerably faster resulting in quicker responses to queries.
In 2014, Avasant conducted a scan of the market and discovered increased investments by companies in service orchestration as a way to tackle challenges not addressed by other integration models. Based on the above statistics, I believe now is the time for companies to get SOAM ready. So what does that look like?


The extensions come in response to many applicants’ requests for more time because of difficulties filing with USAC’s new online tool, the EPC system. But if you’ve already filed for E-rate this year, there is more good news in that USAC is optimistic that the window extensions won’t cause delays in application review or funding decisions. In fact, they plan to start reviewing next week!