Thomas Ondarra
If any profession builds our future and our prosperity, that is
management
.
Entrepreneurs, managers, innovators, in short,
managers
who put products and services on the market are responsible for our having a competitive country, a prosperous country and a country with a future.
However, if we look at how we train the
managers
of the future, we will see with dismay that we drive by looking in the rearview mirror.
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That the world has changed is a no-brainer. Just by seeing which are the largest companies today, we will verify that all, except Saudi Aramco, the Saudi oil company, are technological. A little over a decade ago, only Microsoft was in that ranking, the rest were companies that today we classify as “conventional” or “non-tech”.
It would seem logical that we train managers capable of creating and directing these types of companies, managers who master the ingredients that have led to success.
Well, I invite you to take a look at management programs.
You are not going to find artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud, robotics, recommenders, or customization tools, or how to create and manage network effects with
data-products
.
Because you can't find it, you probably won't find an elementary course on Python programming.
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If they neither master nor know any of the bricks that will build our future, how are they going, are we going to be successful? But what exactly has changed? What part of the operation of digital companies should we transfer to
management
education
? The process of digital disruption and subsequent disruption AI & Cloud is well known, it follows the same guidelines as other disruptive processes, what changes is the intensity and breadth of this disruption. Digital allowed us to move business functions previously performed by people in physical spaces, to code, to
software
. Thus, stores have become digital stores that have broken the barriers of space and
stock
available because they do not have any limitation in terms of surface, and the customization systems allow each customer to visualize their particular store without being overwhelmed and cognitively saturated by the immensity of available items.
Even more interesting is the transfer of organizational functions on a business and social scale.
For example, platforms transfer
matching
, the coordination between buyers and sellers, to the digital world.
This is especially important because this coordination function is what we know as markets.
Being able to create markets from scratch is undoubtedly one of the most powerful tools and it explains the enormous power and position of the Big Tech that control them.
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Most important, however, are the economies that support and drive this disruption. Thanks to digital technologies and the Cloud, these functions, once transferred to
software
, are executed with a marginal cost (the cost of one more customer, one more operation, one more user), practically zero, with infinite scalability and with enormous plasticity in innovation and experimentation while they can be created and put into production on a global scale at frantic speed. This makes it practically impossible to beat digital natives when they manage to translate a significant number of functions to
software
,
software
with wheels or with articulated arms (robots).
Artificial intelligence has made it possible to go one step further. It is not just a matter of transferring business or social functions such as coordination - creating markets - we can now also transfer cognitive functions, which we consider intelligence. And, as in the other cases, with a marginal cost close to zero, infinite scalability, fidelity and almost total and instantaneous deployment.
This is so because the disruption we are witnessing is based on General Purpose Technologies - GPT- technologies. This is a term coined by Manuel Trajtenberg, an Israeli economist who was president of the Israeli National Economic Council. This is a type of technology that is also known as universal. The idea is simple, they are technologies whose scope is so generic that they cover practically everything, electricity is the most classic example. But digital technologies, AI and the Cloud, go even further because they cover everything that has something to do with information, and since humans are information junkies, well, it's almost everything.
GPTs are also very important from an innovation point of view. And they are for two reasons. The first, they recombine with everything, and innovation is basically recombination. The second, because they make new developments possible, without
software
we could not even dream of making platforms or governing a logistics plant. They give wings to our imagination and allow us to materialize it, to turn it into reality. Managers do that, turn dreams of new products and services into reality, and make them viable and profitable by creating value. For this reason, it is very important that they dominate the GPTs of the moment - now digital, IA & Cloud - because they are their magic wand, what allows them to materialize their dreams.
The economies and potentials underpinning this disruption are obvious, we can now understand why its speed is so frenzied and its scope so vast. But not only the business model and the production model of companies have changed. In fact, they have changed the very structure of companies, which until now were focused on the creation of value, through operations and, in its capture, from sales. If most of the value creation and capture is now executed by software, what do managers do in these companies? Well, innovate, explore and transfer even more functions to programs by making what is already done more efficient and developing proposals that until now were impossible, but now, with IA & Cloud, they are!
Many times organizations, especially bad ones, believe that their collaborators should be "good soldiers." Well, "good soldiers" are now
software
! Now you need excellent explorers who can discover new territory, turn even more functions into
software,
and reinvent the future. But those scouts must be well equipped. If they do not know the technology, they will be able to know what and how to transform, and they will be able to imagine what could be done that is not done. Not only that, the management of human teams changes radically. Soldiers need discipline, repeatable and consistent roles. The explorers, autonomy, team sense and meritocracy. They are two different worlds.
One might wonder how we are preparing our managers of the future.
Do you know about AI?
From Cloud?
From Machine Learning?
Of innovation?
Do they know how to manage teams of explorers?
Can they read the data?
Do you know what data you need?
All of this is very important in today's companies and even more so in tomorrow's.
But we are probably training our future
managers
for the companies of the past, training "good soldiers" for an army that will no longer exist, because it will be an army of
software
and we will lack what will be essential and will make a difference, explorers who create a future! , progress and prosperity!
Change is urgent, we have an opportunity to lead it, some schools are already at it!
Esteve Almirall
, Professor of Operations, Innovation and Data Sciences at Esade.