Enterprise 4.0

We come out of a tradition of Enterprise 1.0, these days sometimes known as “old-school business”. Then the focus shifted to social networks and Enterprise 2.0 was born. Now people are talking about Enterprise 3.0, which includes Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Extended Enterprise (EE) principles.

These are all probably good shifts in the industry and are very exciting, but I still think people are missing the point. In my opinion, enterprises shouldn’t get version numbers based on concepts and technologies they adopt, but things should be much more focused on how the corporate structure is set up, from top-level management to the actual people working on ground level.

Actually, giving anything version numbers (HTML, the web, the Enterprise) are a bit silly as things keep evolving and we shouldn’t limit ourselves, but let’s leave that discussion for now.

So, what do I believe Enterprise 4.0 is all about? Personally, these are my ideals …

In the traditional set-up, companies “own” their employees. They need to sign a contract that they will work exclusively for one company, and everything that comes out of their brain basically belongs to that company, if the company wishes to actually do something with that or not.

Let’s face it; it doesn’t matter if you’re right-brain or left-brain centric, humans are naturally creative. It doesn’t matter how you see creativity; some people believe it is “random neurons firing” and is a product of our imperfect reasoning. Others believe it’s related to the supernatural. However, some of the most fascinating scientific discoveries mankind has ever made was due to pure accident or some kind of “imperfect” situation. Look at how electricity and plastic were discovered as examples.

The main thing limiting our creative abilities is us, our education, our own fears and insecurities, our perfectionism, our OCD, etc. The education system is aimed at teaching us skills, not inspiration. Companies need to make money. Managers want you to look after their immediate wants and needs, not facilitate your creative process. Schools want you to achieve top marks, often by absorbing and regurgitating information just like a parrot. We have yet to see a parrot invent any useful technology.

By now it might sound like I’m against the traditional corporate structure and the typical corporate bureaucracy. Of course I am not in favour of a bureaucracy, but that’s not the point of the article. Things have started to change and I’ve seen these changes recently at some major South African and international companies, which is very positive.

But how are we to work into the future? Let’s face it, managers are scared. I don’t believe they want to push down their employees and limit them in their abilities, but their fears of not being able to meet deadlines and keeping “control” of their employees are essentially killing most of their employees’ creative abilities. Also, we have to realise there are other selfish issues involved. Some managers are scared their employees might take their positions if they get too “smart”. These are all commonly known facts and are some of the reasons Dilbert comics are so popular.

It is still very common to require employees to come into a physical office every day, work normal office hours, report if they are unable to come to work, etc. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with that. There are too many “chancers” out there that would gladly abuse their privileges in the workplace. The simple answer would be “well, fire them if they don’t do their work properly”. Yes, until you have to contend with South African labour laws, which are also a necessary evil as there are no proper social security systems in place in South Africa other than the Unemployment Insurance Fund.

So, what is my ideal working environment? How would I see the employee of the future? I see people that are able to work their own hours, unless when real-time meetings are an absolute must. I see people that can work from anywhere in the world, unless again for physical meetings or when physical hardware or something needs to be installed or fixed in a particular location. The internet has made this possible; the technologies are largely in place.

You can work from home, you can work from an office (or a virtual office) or even the coffee shop. Wherever you have a laptop or notebook, Linutop, Eee PC, maybe even a smart phone, as long as you have 3G or WiFi connectivity you are free to move around as you please.

I prefer to work during the night and sleep during the day as I am able to focus better in the relative peace and quite of the late-night and early-morning hours.

So I might decide to move to Europe for a few months to visit my friends and family and maybe do some touring. Maybe I even want to relocate permanently. Why should this stop me from working for United States- or South African-based companies? (Ok, on the longer term, the living expenses might be an issue as the Euro is very strong at the moment, but that set apart.)

These concepts are fast becoming more and more popular all over the world, but why hasn’t it become the “standard” yet?

There are lots of challenges we need to overcome. Some of them are legal, some of them are social, and some of them are purely a bad state of mind. Fearful managers, undisciplined workers, outdated educational systems and ways of working that are not keeping pace with technology are destroying our potential as the human race.

Over the next couple of months I wish to address each one of these issues and also wish to invite everybody (particular from the enterprise) to take part in the discussion and raise their concerns. We need to determine what is possible and what is not possible. Despite all our challenges, I do believe that South Africans are some of the most innovative people in the world and with the current state of our connectivity I personally don’t think we can use the lack of a reasonable telecommunications infrastructure as an excuse anymore. Wireless connectivity in South Africa is actually not even that expensive in comparison to many other places of the world.

Now is a better time than ever for us to determine the “new” way of working and how we are going to maximise our limited resources to ensure we stay competitive in the global economy …