Perspectives

3D printing is ushering in a new atomic model for physical objects and a new era of pan-industrial competition. Any factory anywhere can potentially manufacture not just parts, but complete products for any number of industries, continually iterate and hyper-personalise these at low cost in response to market demand.

As both consumers and organisations struggle with cognitive overload from the rapidly escalating volume and velocity of data from ever more connected devices, AR offers up a much-needed panacea. Where current internet technologies place access to the right information at the right time at our fingertips, with AR, we will now have it in plain sight.

The disruptive potential of AI is perhaps unprecedented, and while the popular media focuses on a dystopian vision of the future, AI is augmenting our human capability perceptually, cognitively and physically, transforming everyday experiences as well as enabling a collaborative human and machine led transformation. 

The ‘big data’ generated by smart connected products is business’ new core asset, and capability in analytics the key to unlocking trapped value from the aggregation of multiple data sources within new data lakes. For those who move quickly, there is the opportunity to significantly expand their current industry boundaries.

I'm delighted to be joining the team at 2nd Road, a leading strategic innovation consultancy helping organisations design and deliver new futures, and now part of Accenture Strategy. 2nd Road draws on 25 years of experience providing consulting services in the areas of strategy, innovation, and organisational systems across multiple industries and sectors. The publication of monthly insights on this website will necessarily be placed on hold for the time being.