7 Top Small Business Disrupters

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5.   IoT

As late as a two to three years ago a discussion of IoT was one of sensors and business devices such as utility meters.

Today we have shifted to self-driving cars, the digital assistants mentioned above, and smart devices such as doorbells, entertainment systems, home security systems, thermostats, and assorted appliances. Users are becoming dependent upon the flexibility of time and place that the IoT devices provide them – and as a result enhance their lifestyles.

6.   Software as a Business 

Airbnb, Lyft, Netflix, Thumbtack, Uber, and other software businesses are disrupting their industries even though airbnb owns no properties, Netflix originally did not offer its own content, Lyft and Uber do not own taxis, and Thumbtack is just a gateway to professional services.

As these firms come to dominate markets businesses find they must adjust their business models to work with or around these players. Ignoring them is bad for one’s health.

7.   STP

We tend to think we already live in the world of straight through processing but that is just partially true.

A credit card purchase, for example, may end up being pended for hours based upon certain analytic criteria. Bank deposits or transfers take one or more days to close. But this will change over the next five years and STP will become the standard.

This will have a major impact on data accuracy, data integrity, fraud and security to name a few areas. Executives should plan on the transaction processing conversion to STP to have major impacts to their business models and underlying applications and databases.

Summary

Like it or not these seven business disrupters will penetrate the business world and become embedded in consumer lifestyles either directly or indirectly.

Everyone will be impacted. Businesses must adopt or face the possibility of seeing their revenues shrink and potentially driving them out of business.

Thus, small business and IT executives working with auditors, compliance, legal, and risk teams along with external transactional stakeholders must understand the business objectives and needs, application requirements and impacts, including the risk and compliance exposures, before adopting one or more of the small business disrupters. 

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