Daily Post 1556
BALKANISATION OF TECHNOLOGY
The success stories of all the IT behemoths have for long been known to the world. It has been stories of bringing technologies together, consolidating processes and creating systems out of it. All these ended up in products. These products have been on of its kind; from Mac to Instagram. It gives a feeling as if it is one solid bloc but the reality is otherwise; the numbers of technical, human and process related building blocks we might not even be able to count. It has been created through an organic growth from base software development, iteration, security, business, scalability and what not. All corporates and governments globally who have been successful in today’s dynamic and real time world, has been through seamless integration of technology.
While on the other side of the spectrum are governments and lots of MSMEs who have been bearing of brunt of Balkanisation of Technology, which they have not been able to handle. With services, technologies and projects taken as one off, the technical progression does not happen. With technical progression not happening, where will the functional result come from. When functional result does not come out, how and why will progress happen? If you are still struggling in uploading files for critical compliances, you can well understand no limits of this technology balkanisation.
From software development to networking to data center to the Human Resource dedicated for the purpose, the challenge is their limited understanding and expertise in technology. Who has the bigger picture? Who drives it consistently in the direction warranted, if there is a direction at all? While the inherent Balkanisation nature of technology has been customised and used successfully by a few, the rest struggle. It was thought that Balkanisation could be successfully handled by consultants and advisors sitting over SIs and OEMs. That was a fallacy. It has gone in the opposite direction. With even integration not happening in most of the cases, either silos become endemic or the project & process gives way to a new initiative.
And the same story starts once again. You can’t proceed on the way to become a leader or gain success, if you fail to master balkanisation. You can have any number of examples to emulate even outside of MNC IT behemoths famed group. Indian companies and banks that have achieved the lead and continue to be at the pole position are Asian Paints, Bajaj Finance, HDFC Bank to name a few. The success of Estonia on the governmental side is humungous whether it is 3000 government services or providing global ease of business or eVoting or Cyber Security or even use of Blockchain Technology. Even their backend technological infrastructure defies any Balkanisation.
BATTLING TECHNOLOGY BALKANISATION IS A LONG BATTLE. THE ECSTASY OF DELIVERY BEATS IT ALL.
Sanjay Sahay