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Interview Al Dunn, Peter Vervest
Telco 2.0 - Smart business - smart networks
AL DUNN and PETER VERVEST have been leaders in founding and developing the Smart Business Network Initiative with RSM Erasmus University, the Netherlands, to promote and research the development and application of digital network capabilities. As partners in D-Age Management in the UK and the Netherlands they have worked with telcos and their customers to identify and act on the opportunities of digital networks to dramatically improve their profitable performance.
DMR: What you mean by "being networked"?
P. VERVEST: We are immersed in networks. Business thrives on networks. They enable the exchange of money, goods, information and knowledge. Digital business networks facilitate interactions and transactions between organizations and individuals. They are embedded in numerous business and social networks created by interactions between employees, owners, suppliers, customers and consumers. "Being networked" reflects this world of network immersion in which the smart business network rather than the smart individual business determines success. Organizations act in dynamic networks rather than today’s near-to-static business networks. On the customer request the network rapidly selects and assembles the required capabilities from their business network – a web of individual organizations ready to combine and jump into action. And afterwards, disperse….perhaps to react to a different business network’s request for action.
DMR: You seem to suggest an almost chaotic, seemingly unpredictable, business world where power will be taken from the individual company and handed over to a network of individuals. "Being networked", when it happens, will create great difficulties for business.
A. DUNN: It has begun. Consider Skype. It did something very simple that any telco could have done. But it took the power from the telco and put it in its network of individuals. It provided a simple network platform across which millions of individuals could link for free by giving each of its user a simple logic – its download. This logic gave them the rules of engagement for acting in the Skype network. While this does not fulfil our full definition of a smart business network, it is certainly smart. And disruptive. Given this vast loosely-coupled network of individuals we must consider their future potential in the world of being networked…with eBay, yet another smart business network. Today Skype is on Second Life – a virtual telephone company winning virtual customers in a virtual world! In the Smart Business Network Initiative we encounter many companies understanding and acting on the capability of being network. For example, an insurance company which has explored and delivered smart business network capabilities to stimulate its business and discover new ways of identifying and delivering services to its customers and potential customers.
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DMR: What you mean by "being networked"?
P. VERVEST: We are immersed in networks. Business thrives on networks. They enable the exchange of money, goods, information and knowledge. Digital business networks facilitate interactions and transactions between organizations and individuals. They are embedded in numerous business and social networks created by interactions between employees, owners, suppliers, customers and consumers. "Being networked" reflects this world of network immersion in which the smart business network rather than the smart individual business determines success. Organizations act in dynamic networks rather than today’s near-to-static business networks. On the customer request the network rapidly selects and assembles the required capabilities from their business network – a web of individual organizations ready to combine and jump into action. And afterwards, disperse….perhaps to react to a different business network’s request for action.
DMR: You seem to suggest an almost chaotic, seemingly unpredictable, business world where power will be taken from the individual company and handed over to a network of individuals. "Being networked", when it happens, will create great difficulties for business.
A. DUNN: It has begun. Consider Skype. It did something very simple that any telco could have done. But it took the power from the telco and put it in its network of individuals. It provided a simple network platform across which millions of individuals could link for free by giving each of its user a simple logic – its download. This logic gave them the rules of engagement for acting in the Skype network. While this does not fulfil our full definition of a smart business network, it is certainly smart. And disruptive. Given this vast loosely-coupled network of individuals we must consider their future potential in the world of being networked…with eBay, yet another smart business network. Today Skype is on Second Life – a virtual telephone company winning virtual customers in a virtual world! In the Smart Business Network Initiative we encounter many companies understanding and acting on the capability of being network. For example, an insurance company which has explored and delivered smart business network capabilities to stimulate its business and discover new ways of identifying and delivering services to its customers and potential customers.
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