4 Technologies for the Postdigital Entrepreneur

The saturation of digital technologies is raising consumer expectations, changing their skills and transforming lifestyles. The market is moving towards a postdigital economy, in which customers demand on-demand consumption and total customization of products and services.

When you wake up, you find yourself trapped in an abandoned asylum that you will have to manage to escape. Another day, you travel to an unknown alien world that you must explore to survive. In the first case, you are in "The Inpatient" and in the second, in "Farpoint".

These virtual reality video games are the perfect example of the transformation that the consumer market is already experiencing, in all sectors. This revolution in progress has been baptized as a postdigital era, according to the report “Technology vision 2019: the post-digital era is upon us” by Accenture.

• DLT: A distributed registration technology is a database that manages several participants and is not centralized. Bitcoins are a type of DLT. They are used to facilitate transactions without the need for third-party support; large-scale collaboration and transactions between strangers and automated contracts.
• Artificial intelligence: It already plays a critical role in process optimization and influences strategic decision making. Common uses for companies are the automation of business functions and the scanning of an unprecedented amount of information.
• Extended reality: It is an immersive technology that creates new ways of experiencing the world. For companies, it means the creation of new immersive environments and information on demand.
• Quantum computing: It is a computing language based on cubits, rather than bits, that results in the creation of algorithms other than traditional ones. It will be used to solve problems that current computing cannot decipher yet, will transform cybersecurity and allow the discovery of new materials. An example is Volkswagen, which has used quantum computing to test traffic optimizations and simulate the chemical structure of batteries to accelerate their development.

First, think of SMAC

SMAC is a simple way to name the four major trends that a business needs to adapt to fully enter the digital era: social networks (social), mobile technology (mobile), analytics (analytics) and cloud technologies.

In this way, a business acquires the basic capabilities it needs to understand consumers at a deeper level than before. Companies that have not made this transition will not be able to meet the most basic demands of the post-digital economy, according to Accenture.

Toolbox: Elementary Glossary

Postdigital consumer: Enjoy the results of technological saturation. In a world of unprecedented digital options, this consumer is increasingly aware of what technology he wants and which one does not work for him.

Postdigital era: Each one in its path, business moves towards the postdigital era, in which:

• Digitalization is no longer a competitive advantage since it is assumed that all businesses are digital.
• Companies seek to change the way the market works.
• It seeks to satisfy the client through "hyper-personalization".
• Technology is the backbone of the business and offers immediacy and customization to consumers.

Postdigital worker: He is incorporating technology to do his job, but he is still hired, trained and managed in predigital ways. Companies must close the technological gap between their processes and the knowledge and skills of their employees.