Tag Archives: innovation

‘Value & Worth’: Irene Ng’s new book

23 Dec

For Irene Ng’s new book the title of our review, ‘Make of it what you will’, captures the sense of empowerment that is so evident in the digital economy.

This is an economy where the consumer plays a huge role in how products and services are used to create value.  It is an economy where suppliers must rethink their propositions.

In our increasingly digitally-enabled economy it is no longer sufficient for businesses to see sales of a product or service as their sole objective.  The value seen by the consumer will be co-created in combination with an array of services and digital devices and further conditioned by the context in which they are being used.

The author does not hide her academic credentials (including a Professorial Chair at Warwick University) but it is her pre-academic business experience that is evident throughout.  The challenges of creating and sustaining new markets will be fought in an intensely competitive arena – and one where the platforms for value co-creation are often beyond the influence of second-order supplicants.

Many business leaders will respond to these challenges with innovative creativity and startling success.  This week’s report from the GDS shows very clearly that the government is taking a lead.  Others may not be so responsive.  The world will move on and the disruption to the established order of things will be devastating for those who do not see or fully understand the changes that are already upon us.

This an explorer’s handbook as we venture into the digital unknown.

More at the Sunday Breakfast Book Review

See also our Business Advisory note at Bdaily – the UK business news network

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4G race starts as 5G warms up

28 Oct

The imminent launch by mobile operator Everything Everywhere of the UK’s 4G services (with others to follow in 2013 when spectrum is auctioned) comes just 2 weeks after announcement of government research funding for  5G.

The £11.6m from the UK’s Research Partnership investment fund will be more than matched by a further £24m from a consortium of mobile infrastructure providers and operators.  The funds enable a 5G innovation centre to get underway at Surrey University.

Since the heady days of 2G (GSM) Europe has lost pole position in mobile technologies although we should not forget that Cambridge-based ARM has a dominant presence in billions of mobile devices.

The shape of mobile things to come is highly speculative and, with pressure for ever-greater spectrum efficiency and higher-capacity links to support bigger and faster applications, there is a huge interdependency on the adequacy of the fixed digital network to handle the traffic from thousands of smaller localised mobile base stations.

The expected explosion of demand for M2M devices and ‘The Internet of Things’ may already be stretching the limits of 4G and no-one imagines that the global standards-making process for 5G is going to be an easy collaborative ride.

Full story here

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The Sunday Breakfast Review: Seizing Our Destiny

21 Oct

As a follow-up to the NextGen 12 session ‘The rise of the Intelligent City’, our Sunday Breakfast review this week looks at the latest ICF publication – Seizing Our Destiny’.

This  slim volume profiles 7 cities and considers how they have sought to adapt to the challenges of the digital economy.   Instead of drifting with the tide of national economies, these places, their people, their enterprises and institutions, are ‘seizing their destinies’ – finding ways to create local prosperity and solve local social challenges.

This movement towards identifying local initiatives as the key to wider economic revitalisation stands in stark contrast to conventional market sector analysis.

Cities may of course be deserving of special funding to alleviate complex societal and economic challenges (and there are more votes in cities) but all communities – urban or rural – should take note of the need to make a start on adaptation to the digital economy.

Resolving their local ‘digital deficit’ is just a start – it needs several supporting actions – but it is the most obvious platform for rebalancing and revitalising the economy.

Full story here

UPDATE:  (23:00 EST 21 October 2012)  ICF names Smart21 for 2013.

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NextGen Challenge: into the final digital furlong

1 Oct

The runners and riders in this year’s NextGen Challenge – the UK awards programme for advanced broadband network projects – are now in the final straight and heading towards the winning post.  The results will be announced at the  NextGen12 conference dinner in the Members’ Dining Room inside the Palace of Westminster.

The entries span the length and breadth of Britain and, in the spirit of ‘Open Access’, the competition was open to all-comers regardless of their technology choices.

The independent judging panel has the task of evaluating entries from projects in four categories – Rural and Community Leadership, Innovative Funding Solutions, Urban Network Enterprise and Collaborative Advantage.

Once again the NextGen Challenge programme demonstrates that enterprise and innovation is alive and well in this most vital of infrastructure investment areas .

Full story (and links for conference and dinner registration) here

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Letting go – job polarisation and innovation in the digital economy

26 Jul

No-one doubts that small companies are great generators of new employment but new research has also highlighted the effects of ‘job polarisation’ where the growth is found in either ‘lovely or lousy’ jobs at the expense of ‘middle income’ roles.

In this review of ICF’s latest report by co-founder Robert Bell we ask why large companies find innovation so difficult and we suggest that major firms have a wider responsibility for investment that could balance the apparent reluctance of banks to lend to small businesses.

Read the full story here

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Assistive Technology

19 Jul

Six years on, but what has changed?

Revisiting a story from 2006 about ‘assistive technology’ we review progress with ‘speech to text’ and ‘sip & puff’ options for severely disabled people with spinal injuries.

So many things that we take for granted – like using a mouse and keyboard – are huge challenges for folk like Chris but can, at least in part, be resolved by ingenuity, innovation and determination.

But such a pity about the basic connectivity.

Read the full story here

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reflections on a rainy month

15 Jul

It isn’t just the inclement weather that has disheartened UK citizens this last month.

The realities of digital dependencies have been heightened by bank systems failures, banks’ ethical failures and bank-sponsored bike breakdowns.

But it’s not just in the banking sector that regulatory reform is in the air.

Dig into all the calls for infrastructure investment (mostly in the cause of economic growth) and you find at their root the need to tackle the ‘digital deficit’ – something whose very existence many would deny or not yet comprehend.

It all adds up to a need for a post-Olympic rethink of national policy priorities.

read the full story here.

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Business, Society and Public Services

23 May

It’s good to see the ‘Circular Economy’ mentioned in the RSA’s latest report but the primary concern is that policy development in public services and economic growth is not being tackled in any cohesive way.

Based on the experience of Community Study Tours in Scandinavia, Groupe Intellex has long argued that the glue that binds these things together is investment in a high quality digital infrastructure.

It may, of course, be far more obviously necessary in remote places, with extremes of weather and transport difficulties, to maximise the use of digital interaction for basic public services such as health and education but the impact has been equally beneficial for enterprise, innovation, competition, community development and the stimulation of inward investment .

The RSA report’s main title reflects the distinct labels of Business, Society and Public Services – regarded by many as being in entirely different camps –  but the subtitle – ‘a social productivity framework‘ gets a little closer to the ‘mashed up’ realities and interdependencies of the real economy.   It’s a brave step but probably far too much for ‘Sun headlined’  ideologically-driven policy developers looking for simple solutions.

Will sleepwalkers awake when digital floods rise higher than their knees?

Download the full RSA report (PDF) here

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Beyond Metro Ethernet

17 May

The rapid pace of traffic growth in the networks used everyday by millions of businesses, governments and households shows no sign of slowing.

As more and more applications become common-place and digital networking is recognized as the essential enabler of economic growth, major operators (fixed and mobile) are beginning to understand the need for a more complete switch-over to an all-optical backhaul infrastructure.

Acknowledged Metro-Ethernet expert Dr. Arthur Smith has taken up a new role of COO at innovative Dublin-based Intune Networks in a move that will signal a bright future for all-optical packet switching.  This appointment – one of a series this year – confirms Intune’s steady build-up of high-level technological and managerial talent.

Full story here.

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Tricky times for Telco’s.

4 May

A recent report from AD Little highlights the decline of core revenues and the difficult choices facing European incumbents.

Whilst fixed line operators may look to diversify or develop OTT services, these options are viewed differently by Mobile operators.

The Groupe Intellex editorial considers the choice between yet more austerity measures and massive infrastructure investment – and this strategic choice is not just one for corporate leaders.

Full story here.

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