Present dangers
The infocomm industry is good at spending money … billions … to try to create something sustainable. But there are two major limitations. The first is globalisation, which means, among other things, that individuals can work with others elsewhere seamlessly. This collaboration is capable of modifying the power of working. Talent is neutral and is everywhere. Hundreds have been enabled by globalisation and many more are knocking on the door and asking to be included.

The second is that the distinction between industries is blurring. Organisations must understand where their core businesses are and that their biggest competitor may not be in the same sector. Who are the biggest competitors of Nestle, a manufacturer of chocolates? It’s the mobile phone companies! Its core business is not chocolates and candies but laying its hands on the pocket money of kids, who can spend their money only once. This changes the rules of the game. Your biggest competitor might not exist in your sector. If you think you’re in your comfort zone, think again. Your battle will be with forces you do not know of today.

Mr Verwaayen: Choosing your people is where you show your prowess, and you have to stick to your guns.

Wake-up call
The reality is that there are conflicting business models. Google, for example, never sent a bill to a single end user.
The day they do that will be the end of Google. They also do not create innovations in infrastructure, because other people do it for them. What they do well is to disassemble the value chain as we know it. The brilliance is in the thinking. Every day, someone will challenge the essence of what we are.
It is a wake-up call for everyone. Opportunity drives what makes sense. Singapore is a wealth creation hub. From physical hubs, we are going into a knowledge society. In the digital world, we will have to defend or adapt.

The role of a leader
As a leader, there are just a few things to do: decide on the agenda – three or four key things; set the tone which describes your personality; and choose the right people. Choosing your people is where you show your prowess, and you have to stick to your guns.

Letting go
BT was in a crisis in 2001, 2002. It was crystal clear things could not continue the way they were. BT had to change, and it’s a fact that we have transformed BT. But it’s of no relevance at the end of the day.

I once brought 300 kids into a room for a motivational speech. Then I made a fatal mistake – I asked them what they would do if I were to give them the power to take away the biggest obstacle in the company. Some guy at the back raised his hand and said, “The biggest obstacle is you.”

It was a good lesson in the art of letting go. We have to let people decide what capabilities to develop. Structured pyramids are not a great way to innovate in an organisation. It is wrong for an organisation that one person or layer decides what business you should be in. You need to be able to give responsibility and empower people. We have to allow others to say they are going to break the glass again, and 25-year-olds are very good at doing that for you.

Licence to exist
Society has become more aware of roles and responsibilities. If you want to be credible, you need to look to society at large for the licence to exist. Organisations are aware that they have to contribute to the interest of society; that they have a greater global responsibility.

BT has been focused on global warming and corporate social responsibility. We have a role in educating people and developing talent. In the area of global warming, we have been investing in alternative sources of energy, such as wind energy. Climate change is high on the agenda of businesses wherever I go. Nine out of 10 companies talk about it. But when it comes to action, I’m not so sure, because it’s painful, and it’s easy to delegate to other parties such as the government or the consumer.

But 20-30 years ago, it was a non-item; today it is a requirement. It’s not philanthropy, not nice-to-have; it’s a must do. We need to look at where we can contribute. You take some and you give some. We need to find
the balance.

Mr Maloney: Businesses today are using algorithms to accelerate competition.

Mr Sean Maloney, Executive Vice President, Intel Corporation, shared his views on the processor-based economy of the future at the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore’s Distinguished Infocomm Speaker series recently. The following are some excerpts from his keynote:

The Singapore connection
Intel has always had a fascination with Singapore and a respect for the way Singapore is organised and focused on the use of knowledge for competitive advantage. The last time I was here during the dotcom bust, there was international skepticism that Singapore would recover from the downturn. That’s not what has happened. Now we see a thriving economy, a society that has always realised the importance of knowledge and the manipulation of knowledge in order to make an impact.

Algorithms and the transistor revolution
The primary use of the transistor is for the construction and deployment of the Internet. It is behind all the servers that power the Internet and the algorithms that power the economy. Businesses today are using algorithms to accelerate competition. They are abstracting real world processes and coming up with algorithmic renditions of those processes. We see this in the financial services sector, in oil and gas exploration. Today’s economic competition is now based around this. In advertising, for example, you have PageRank that tracks the number of webpage hits which enable advertisers to measure the reach and effectiveness of the online ad. Google’s US$150 billion algorithm is also leading a reconstruction of the advertising, print and publishing industry.

Revolutionising the financial services
In 1992, the financial services sector was still using techniques that would be familiar to Charles Dickens. But in the past 15 years, it has evolved rapidly with computerisation and the deployment of massive arrays of computers. The financial services sector is now delivering many services over the Internet. In 2003, about 20 per cent of trade on the New York Stock Exchange was on the Internet. In 2006, this was 80 per cent. We now have the ability to manipulate trade in very, very small amounts of time – nanoseconds can now make
a difference.

Revolutionising oil and gas exploration
The biggest part of oil and gas exploration is the computation. All the easy oil and gas is gone. It is now buried in the depths and companies require computing power to locate these resources. We need more time to process data than to trawl for data.

Revolutionising entertainment
When it comes to entertainment, consumers want to have what they want, whenever they want it, on whatever device. For a weather gauge on how the entertainment industry is doing, look at iTunes. A year ago, it was mainly music and podcasts. Now it is also about TV and movies. The winner in entertainment will be the company that can deliver the different types of content to different devices. This calls for massive computing power in the distribution of
the content.

Revolutionising healthcare
The goal in healthcare is to be able to come up with effective drugs. It’s not possible to do that with just people in white coats anymore. Now you need a state-of-the-art computer grid. Today, we are doing 1,000 combinatoric calculations per server per month. The goal is to do 1 million combinatoric calculations per server per month.

The personal Internet
Terabytes of data are being generated each month. The dotcom bust did not lead to a reduction in data, and I believe the growth will accelerate when high definition video takes off. We also have peer-to-peer applications that are doubling the amount of HTML traffic on the Internet. At the same time, people are expecting fast page loads and a rich online experience. Studies show that an acceptable user experience is about five seconds for a page load, and the industry will have to handle richer content and deliver it within this. For cell phones too, the requirement is 17-18 seconds, so we have to make devices that can handle data very quickly.

Impact of mobility
The Internet is getting so compelling that you want to take it with you. That’s the old network economics – the more people have devices, the more people will want to connect with each other, and more user content will be generated. Devices are inherently more useful if they are mobile. The move to consumer notebooks is just beginning. This year, in the United States, the number of consumer notebooks will overtake business notebooks. Notebooks will become a fashion device.

A WiMAX future
We see WiMAX about to reach maturity. Within two years, it will merge with Wi-Fi and become background technology. Wi-Fi used to come in 802.11b, a, d, g... Not any more. It will be the same with WiMAX. They will become background technology.