By: Daniel R. Matlis, President Axendia, Inc.
Thriving in the Age of Mind Boggling Change
“Change is the Only Constant” said Heraclitus of Ephesus two and a half millennia ago. While change has been the constant throughout human history, the rate of change seems to be accelerating exponentially.
Change, and the need to adapt to “Mind Boggling Change” was a key theme at QAD Explore 2017 in Detroit last month. “Adapting to this rapid change is an imperative,” said Pam Lopker President of QAD. Ray Kurzweil, inventor, futurist and Director of Engineering at Google explained that while the human brain operates linearly, the rate of change growing is exponential. In information technology, this is represented by Moore’s law. Correspondingly, the rate of information processing is growing exponentially.
The consequences for human health are truly mindboggling. Our ability to understand, model and simulate biological systems is turning complex biological problems into computational and information technology ones. As a result, Kurzweil predicts that in 15 years we will grow replacement organs based on patient DNA, and by 2030s there will be nano-robots the size of blood cells that will reverse tissue damage from inside the human body. He also predicts that nano-robots will connect our brains to the cloud. At that time, human intelligence will evolve to allow our linear brains to think exponentially.
To support effective enterprises in the age
of mind boggling change, QAD announced the QAD Enterprise Platform at Explore. According to Tony Winter, QAD’s CTO, the platform’s foundational services are architected for change and are designed to enable access to the system anytime, anywhere, from any device. The platform architecture is based on:
- Upgradable and device independent apps
- Technology independence
- Protection from upgrades
- Cloud flexibility
The age of mind boggling change will hit Life-Science and Health-Care organizations especially hard given the multitude of forces converging to drive change at an unprecedented rate.
We are seeing paradigm shifts from:
- Sick-Care → Well-Care
- One Size-fits-all → Personalized and Precision Medicine
- Regional → Global
- Vertically Integrated → Smart-sourced
- Tribal Knowledge → Intelligence & Analytics
- Point Solutions → Integrated Platforms
- Supply Chains → Supply Networks
- Reactive → Predictive
- Manual Processes → IoT and Connected Manufacturing
- Compliance → Quality
To meet the imperative of exponential change, companies must 
abandon legacy practices, organizational silos and systems in favor of processes and platforms that foster a culture of improved outcomes. They must support rapid response to
customer and market demands, holistically manage risk and change, and enable ubiquitous access to drive effective decision making. Companies that adopt integrated, closed loop approaches will thrive in the age of mind boggling change.