“Do you want it done fast, or do you want it done right?” This old adage suggests that efficiency and speed naturally come at a trade-off with quality – a troubling thought for anyone who has ever hoped to do something both quickly and properly.
In the aftermath of COP28, the emphasis on technology’s pivotal role in reducing carbon emissions is alarmingly clear. Recent breakthroughs in tech, such as regenerative AI, will account for nothing if they don’t contribute to the betterment of society, the economy, and most importantly the planet.
Stress is inevitable in entrepreneurship; managing finances, handling uncertainty, and other pressures are parred for the course. Yet learning to manage stress is an important learning curve for any entrepreneur and eventually makes for an all-around better leader.
Bringing a minimum viable product (MVP) to market is a landmark moment in the development of any tech startup – and for many founders, it marks the critical first realisation of their idea.
Startups and corporates are often depicted as advisories. The challenger and the incumbent; the plucky upstart and the behemoth. But, in truth, there are an increasing number of partnerships forming between these two groups, particularly when it comes to the development of new technologies.
The economic landscape of the past eighteen months has been interesting to observe, to say the least. While many organisations have been able to carve out a new niche under pandemic conditions; indeed, some have even flourished, a vast swathe of enterprises have been unable to translate their operations to a radically altered business landscape, and have fallen by the wayside.
Businesses are often preoccupied with ‘innovation’. Far from being merely a buzzword, the concept in fact reflects the necessary and consistent iteration that drives markets forwards and allows those who invest smartly a robust edge over their competitors. The trouble is, truly game-changing innovations are vanishingly rare.
Businesses reeling from the effects of the pandemic feel like they have been given an ultimatum: transform or die. And while we have seen unfortunate consequences for the companies that were unable to adapt fast enough, it is important to remember that more often than not, digital innovation isn’t all or nothing.
Corporate culture embodies of all the written and unwritten rules, values and attitudes that characterise an organisation. It offers an insight into how business decisions are reached, and how they will be implemented. By extension, then, internal culture is the also the foundation upon which all successful innovation must be built.
Now that we find ourselves several months into the year, digital innovation projects that were touted for early 2021 should now be well and truly underway.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated many already-present trends in almost every aspect of our lives. For businesses, this has meant an accelerated reliance on technology. Of course, companies of all kinds have had to rely on technology for decades. But 2020 has forced organisations to entirely shift processes from the physical world to the digital one.
