ComputerWeekly.com: Global Managing Director of Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work Writes About Managing Code Halos to Win in the Digital Economy

“Think for a moment about your home technology—laptops, tablets, mobile devices, gaming consoles, health sensors, and so on. Now consider all the things you do with your gadgetry: connect with friends, play games, manage your money, read books, work, watch films, listen to music, monitor your fitness, get directions, and buy any number of products. Over time, every click, swipe, “like”, buy, comment, deposit, jog, and search produces information that creates a unique pattern of accumulated data and information that becomes your virtual identity. This virtual identity is your personal Code Halo,” writes Paul Roehrig, Global Managing Director of Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work (CFW).

Roehrig, Malcolm Frank, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Marketing at Cognizant, and Ben Pring, Director, CFW, are the authors of Code Halos: How the Digital Lives of People, Things, and Organizations are Changing the Rules of Business. Excerpts from the article:

“People, organizations, and things—basically any noun—can now have a Code Halo, and this phenomenon is beginning to change how organizations—and not just the digital native companies—create economic value. Today’s companies whose growth or success is quite unlike that of others are dominating by extracting business value from the information that surrounds people, organizations, processes, and products.

Companies that have succeeded or failed have followed the same pattern—what we call The Crossroads Model. While one route can lead to new levels of market prosperity, the other can take them toward extinction.

So, what are some steps to take to stay on the right track?

Recognize the value of signal: Competing on meaning and insight now stands as a potentially large value-creation lever for most organizations.

Make design central to your value proposition. Design is not just about making beautiful applications and Web sites. That's still vital, but beauty needs to be embedded into the end-to-end process and user experience.

Compete on trust. Organizations that ultimately win will be those that generate, maintain, and compete on trust, allowing participants to opt in or out from sharing code.

Make IT Your Halo Heroes. Business leaders who want to harness the power of code need to (finally) break down the barriers between IT and the business.

To win at the Crossroads, leaders must begin to re-code the business, identify innovations that will matter in the future, and pilot new solutions that link the physical and the virtual for new kinds of business value.”

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