GUEST OPINION: The global economy has undergone many major upheavals in the form of heightened inflation, increased interest rates and unstable oil prices. As these headwinds continue to be felt across Australia and New Zealand (ANZ), business leaders must focus on resilience and risk management.
If there is anything to be learned from the last few years, it's that companies must be antifragile. As described by author Nassim Nicholas Taleb, “antifragility” is defined as the ability to survive, evolve and flourish in chaotic or uncertain environments. Against this challenging backdrop, we foresee that 2024 will be the year of the antifragile organisation as companies hunker down to ride out another tough year.
Keir Garrett, Regional Vice President Cloudera ANZ, comments, “An antifragile organisation improves, evolves and becomes even stronger in spite of challenges. Right now, organisations are considering how best to prepare and respond to ongoing uncertainties, while still investing in innovation and growth. To strike the right balance, organisations will do well to harness the untapped power of data, consider the entire data lifecycle and how data can be monetised as a strategic asset.”
When it comes to the ANZ region, organisations of every industry are continuing to invest in IT solutions, signifying a positive view of how technology can play a role in building resilience during challenging times. Gartner forecasts IT spending in Australia will grow to 7.8% in 2024, despite tightening of budgets.
Cost savings and operational efficiencies to underpin business in 2024
Despite the rise in IT spending, indicating that businesses will continue to invest in digital transformation, the challenging economic environment will mean they may double down on initiatives that streamline costs, improve efficiencies, and maximise the resources they currently have.
However, businesses must look beyond these turbulent economic times to avoid making shortsighted business decisions. Adopting a long-term business strategy requires businesses to devote resources to infrastructure and skills. By preparing its technology, people and processes for the future, an organisation can easily pivot towards innovation, allowing it to be antifragile in good and bad economic times.
Monetising data for antifragility
Data is widely recognised as a strategic asset, and come 2024 it will become digital gold for many organisations. In the months ahead, expect to see more companies treating data as a commodity that can be monetised for new revenue streams, driving innovation beyond simply enabling cost savings.
However, this also requires data integrity, where data is accurate, complete, and consistent. By paying attention to data lineage, companies will be able to have a clear idea of where their data originates from, how it has changed and its final destination within its lifecycle. As more organisations store their data both on-premise and in the cloud, deploying data management platforms with modern architectures can deliver quicker time to insights and provide access to data and analytics across all lines of business.
Operationalising Artificial Intelligence (AI) to drive business value
In 2023, many organisations discovered how AI can be used to drive cost savings and operational efficiencies by automating repetitive, mundane and time-consuming tasks. However, advancements in AI such as generative AI and large language models continue to uncover new opportunities for innovation and creative problem-solving. In 2024, expect organisations to explore and experiment with AI more earnestly, working towards operationalising the tech and driving new revenue streams.
It will also become increasingly obvious that AI platforms do not work in isolation - the entire data architecture of the business must be integrated to allow for quick and easy access to available data. AI/ML models are only as good as the data they are fed – this requires consistent security and governance controls throughout the entire organisation.
Companies must ensure that they deploy the right AI/ML strategies and data platforms that include an integrated set of security and governance technologies and can deliver consistent data context across the organisation, regardless of where the data is stored. Using such a platform allows an organisation to trust its data to deliver reliable insights and to form the foundation for AI deployments.
Organisational resilience need not come at the cost of innovation or growth
When assessing the impact of AI on business performance, Garrett says, “If we are to succeed in 2024, we must be both optimistic and realistic about the capabilities of AI. Secure, trusted and responsible AI, at scale, will have an integral role to play in registering and developing new revenue streams, or amplifying existing ones.
“However, it will be crucial for organisations to spend the time needed to align AI deployment alongside business strategy, as opposed to moving at pace under the guise of ‘not being left behind’. Investing in trusted data will help to drive innovation and achieve greater success over time.”
Overall, it’s crucial for organisations to ensure that their technology, people and processes support one another and work in harmony. Doing so allows an organisation to build and train its AI deployments on trusted data, driving innovation and growth, even in times of uncertainty. A resilient organisation resists shocks and stays the same; an antifragile organisation improves, evolves and becomes stronger.