Why every company is a tech company in 2024
The tech industry impacts virtually every surface & society on the planet—here, I acknowledge it.
In today’s world, every company across all industries relies on technology in fundamental ways. You can see it in the naming of “hot industries” like:
HealthTech;
FinTech;
ClimateTech;
EdTech;
AgTech;
TravelTech, etc.
At its core, technology is an enabler.
It’s become integral for key business functions like marketing, sales, product development, HR, and more.
That’s just its functional role, not even considering the underlying tech that cultivates its omnipresence.
Three Vignettes
At Booking.com, there was debate on “Are we a tech company?” Initially it was “No, we’re a travel company, enabled by tech.” Overtime, that changed.
We embraced the idea that “Yes, Booking.com is a tech company…but our purpose is still focused on travel, making it easier for everyone to experience the world.”
Then: the pandemic.
It accelerated digital transformation, forcing companies of every size & industry to rethink how they operate.
We humans needed ways to connect, communicate, and collaborate when a large portion of society found themselves working remotely, relying on virtual interactions for continued existence.
A few months ago, at a CFO networking meetup organized by Ted Bachman—Linda Thomsen Schulte, VP of Platform Engineering at Mastercard, gave an enlightening talk.
Her central thesis was to educate Chief Financial Officers—CFOs—on the power of tech-enabled data driven decision making in the world of Big Data, Machine Learning, and Generative AI.
A spark of inspiration struck: “Every company is a tech company.”
I needed to clarify & crystallize in writing.
I can go from a meetup of content creators to another for CFOs—and they’re all talking about, seeking information, and trying to understand the rapidly evolving landscape of technological tools.
People are building profitable businesses on multitude of CMS platforms, glued together with a slew of SaaS products, forming a unique tool set to best serve their needs.
What This Means
For organizations and individuals using tech:
Literacy: Grow tech literacy across digital, information, communication, security and problem solving. Understand tech’s harm, like biased algorithms. And its physical impacts, like server energy use affecting climate.
Risk: Changing platforms—say from Wordpress to Shopify; Workday to Hireology; or Twitter to Post—takes significant investment. From the cost of the new service itself, finding “like” integrations & functionalities, and how their unique functionalities has day-to-day and long-term impact: every choice comes with this risk. Tech-enabled products may stop functioning because of a change in business priorities or even if they shut down the servers. One great, recent example is the bankruptcy of Van Moof, a tech-enabled bicycle manufacturer based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Customers locked out of their own e-bikes in the cycling capital of the world because their servers went offline.
Data - Data is a key asset. Who to trust with your data is a critical business decision. Keep it secure and ensure ethical use; breaches can lead to legal ramifications and damaging public trust.
Conclusion
For us people creating these tools & services, we have a responsibility to create technology that doesn’t just respond to this evolutionary explosion.
We need to create tech that’s:
Interoperable & Flexible;
Ethical & Sustainable;
Secure & Transparent; and
Inclusive & Easy to Use.
Tech is now an aspect ingrained in all enterprises.
To stay relevant, companies must develop tech capabilities tailored to their needs.
Every company is now—in some way, shape, or form—a tech company.