Networked economy becomes the new normal

The global recession of the late 2000s – often referred to as the “Great Recession” – had a profound impact on business around the world. A decline that began in 2007 with the crash of the U.S. financial system went on to spark what most economists consider to be the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression nearly 80 years earlier - with the reverberations soon felt throughout the global economy. In 2008 and into 2009, businesses grappled with losses that came quickly and frequently, wiping away both revenue, profits and workforces alike.

But what goes down can bounce back up, and the global economy is no exception. Experts predicted that a slow but steady period of recovery was on the horizon, where surviving businesses would begin to recoup losses and rebuild against a shaken landscape. And while a number of businesses worldwide seem to be seeing progress and are pleased with some good news for a change, many are also asking a viable question: “Okay, now what?”

New business models that came to life during the downturn will, most likely, be here to stay. For example, the survival mode of which many businesses were operating under necessitated that people must “do more with less” – an organizational mantra adopted during lean times that will probably be a key operational consideration for the foreseeable future. Even from a go-to-market perspective, many businesses were prompted to explore new revenue channels and services.

While many companies enjoyed some uplift in revenues in the past six months, others wait in anticipation for the recovery to impact them. They are also seeing the chance to permanently embrace new and more efficient ways of doing business.

In today’s global business environment, sustainable competitive advantages will be realized by organizations that move quickly to embrace collaborative processes and the tools that allow their employees, customers and partners to intelligently connect and interact anytime, anywhere, via any device.

The power of Web 2.0 and social media is giving end-users the capability to share their own personal experience of the goods and services they invest in. This interconnected environment of sharing knowledge and ideas opens new opportunities to many businesses around the world – those that are listening and engaging with their customers on one hand, and continue developing, innovating, and offering better products and more valuable services that can meet these personalized demands, on the other.

An economy that is built on intelligent technology architecture has the potential to help organizations and individuals be productive and drive innovative collaboration irrespective of where they or their teams happen to be located. For example, when companies were cutting on travel costs, many service providers realized the tremendous opportunity associated with investing in previously untapped business technologies, such as collaboration services, such as video-based collaboration.

Numerous studies quantify how ICT accounts for the majority of productivity growth in several OECD countries in the last 10 years and in the 2009 report, “Information and Communication for Development,” the World Bank measured how various ICTs exert a positive and statistically significant impact on income per capita. The report specifically illustrated that broadband has the greatest impact on growth and a 10 percent increase in broadband penetration in low- and middle-income countries would result in an increase of 1.4 percentage points in per capita growth.

The benefits of ICT and broadband in particular, extend also to public policy goals of social inclusion and environment sustainability.

Health systems globally are challenged to meet increasing demand for quality services. Patients often have limited access to healthcare, particularly when they require specialty services or need care for chronic illness, in both urban and rural settings. Healthcare workers are under similar pressures were more is needed from them in terms of information availability, reliable access and inter-collaboration capabilities within the healthcare facility environment. Healthcare services which help connect patients with medical providers conveniently and efficiently, regardless of distance and without the need of physical presence, should address these challenges and at the same time result in a whole new business model of delivering healthcare.

A holistic transformation can also be applied to the educational system. Providing access to high-quality educational opportunities through public and private partnerships with educational leaders can help create a knowledge economy by imparting vocational training to rural youth and preparing students to become members of the global 21st century workforce.

Such intelligent and innovative use of technology can increase productivity, reduce overall costs and ultimately help transform companies, cities, countries and lives. Countries that prioritize national networking readiness can enjoy a higher competitive advantage and help capture a bigger share of foreign direct investments.

This is why we are witnessing many governments making significant investments in creating and upgrading their respective national technology infrastructures and investing in a new collaborative technology infrastructure, driving innovation that can touch every citizen.

Ümit Cinali is the Director General of Cisco Turkey.