As is by now well known, the economic age we’re in isn’t defined by its tech/mobility/cloud/data/AI/robots/connectivity, at least not in terms of isolated pieces, but by the aggregation of these things and others to form a simpler and more comprehensive designation: the digitally networked age. For proof, one only has to look to market leadership for guidance, those which have deepened, widened, grown – consistently and dominant – for all of the past decade.
Accepting this to be the case, and going with the age’s stated definition, the lens through which we may assess strategic actions, splits or combinations is similarly one of network rules, parameters and vision. We can look at forms of product distribution, the processing of information, fund flows, and other basic elements of modern economics, as network forms that all evolve and dynamically flow to change the living body of the network’s interlinked topology. It is a continuous, self-energizing phenomenon – always on its way, never arrived – the way that any living body is characterized by the same.
In the case of enterprise expansions or retreats, defenses of attacks, friendships and enmities, the underlying network fundamentals map out a vertical and horizontal structure that is much like the verticals and horizontals of any other time: the former is a build or takedown of the integrated stack, the latter is a widening or narrowing of scope.
An offering that supplements the core is in this illustration vertical, and one that enters a new field is horizontal. What makes these movements more complex and interesting now than in the past (now in the digitally networked age), is the positioning of the competing networks relative to one another: a dance of sorts, a play that tests the limits and the balances of power on the stage.
With the above as a translator application – there are others – to make sense of enterprise directions, here are selected headlines from the recent news…
Speculative Fiction 