You Are Not Missing the Boat. You Cannot Buy a Ticket.
May 4, 2018
I read “New Technology Widening Gap Between World’s Biggest and Smallest Businesses.” The idea is that if one has money, that individual gets the good stuff. On food stamps? No, iPhone X for you.
Applied to business, the argument means that a local lawn service has zero chance to compete with the landscaping service maintaining the US government’s Camp David.
The write up asserts:
Companies investing in robotics, among other digital technologies, are seeing productivity and profits increase, but the cost involved risks creating an even wider gap between the world’s top companies and their smaller rivals, new research shows.
If the argument were substantive, a small start up would have zero chance to survive. Why? The big companies win. The little outfits lose.
Access to technology, even in countries with constrained citizens, is visible. I have not visited every country in the world, but I have been in more than a handful.
The barrier is not money. The hurdles are usually knowledge centric. Bad decisions at big companies can neutralize technology. The Cambridge Analytic matter illustrates the importance of knowing what to do. Get it wrong and the company suffered.
Technology is a tool and an enabler. Technology is not an automatic slam dunk just because a company is big and has money. The ingredients for success are information, timing, judgment, and luck.
The big versus small argument, if true, would mean that large publishers would dominate information. We know that is not the case.
Therefore, grousing about the unfairness of big versus small does not work for me. However, if one cannot buy a ticket, one cannot get on the boat.
Envy or technology? I go with envy.
Stephen E Arnold, May 4, 2018
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