Andrea DiMaio

Yesterday I was invited to give a short keynote and moderate a round table at an event in Brussels (see webcast) where representatives from the ICT industry, government, standardization bodies and various associations met to discuss about whether and how to improve standardization processes in Europe and worldwide.

As part of my keynote, where I focused on why standards are important for users (be they corporate or consumers) rather than vendors, I concluded by presenting four possible scenarios to answer the question “How relevant will ICT standard be in the future”? I made the point that we are living very uncertain times and we cannot assume there won’t be major discontinuities in investment patterns, technology developments, buying behaviors, nor can we assume that the progression in the adoption of and attitude toward standards will be linear.

In order to capture uncertainty I chose two different forces: the length/depth of the recession and the political relevance of ICT. The four scenarios are depicted below:

In the first Scenario (Standards Are King) the predominant role of government as a buyer and influencer of technology and the fact that ICT remains high on the agenda lead to a greater adoption of standards as well as a more direct influence of government in how they are developed.

In the second scenario (Selective Standardization) a rapid recovery of the economy leads businesses in different industries to reposition themselves for growth and competitiveness: where standards can help – e.g. by commoditizing the infrastructure and allowing more attention and resources to be focused on vertical. mission-critical applications – they will be adopted, but when they get in the way of innovation and competition, they will be discarded.

In the third scenario (Consumer Is King) increased consumer spending accelerates phenomena like consumerization (i.e. the adoption of consumer technologies in enterprises). This, combined with the declining attention of governments for technology, will also lead to selective standard adoption, but with predominance of those that are dictated by a consumer market.

Finally, the fourth scenario (A Wilder West) is one in which vendors fight for survival and have to differentiate their value propositions to get a sizable slice of a shrinking market. This will play against the level of collaboration and commitment that is required for standards to thrive. Of course standards will continue to exist, but their adoption will be more patchy and tactical than in other scenarios.

As I told the audience, these are just “back-of-the-envelope” scenarios. One could probably draw very different conclusions by analyzing each of them in more depth. But I do strongly believe that scenario planning is essential to deal with an unprecedented level of uncertainty.

I also feel that the two dimensions I chose (legnth of recession and policy focus on ICT) may be very helpful to try and answer other questions in my research area, such as the future of shared service in government or the adoption of social networks and so forth.