I monitor with great interest the recent enterprise-level service offerings from Microsoft. The global software and services giant may argue that the superpowers they've just unleashed with Co-pilot, Fabric, etc are designed for all businesses. However, the reality is that the cost, infrastructure investment required, and lack of technical expertise needed to deploy these tools put them outside the reach of many small businesses. In the UK, there are approximately 5.5 million businesses, with an astounding 99% falling into the micro to small business category.
Admittedly, a significant minority of these businesses have yet to start or have recently ceased trading, but there remains a large population of businesses that are just struggling to pay the bills, let alone wrestle with a data strategy for the next two years. The number of micro and small businesses is likely to grow dramatically in the coming years (months!), ironically as a result of the impact of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) on the job market and the democratisation of service delivery.
Building and growing a business around the delivery of these services models (Legal, Recruitment, Healthcare, Software services, Media, Financial etc ) was once inaccessible to businesses without significant capital investment, but now are becoming more widely accessible . AI is a double-edged sword: while it is impacting white-collar roles in large enterprises, it is simultaneously enabling those same individuals to rapidly build sole operator or microbusiness offerings to adapt to a changing economic climate. Individual knowledge with agility will outperform institutional knowledge with constraints.
Though not without inconsistencies, consider how the democratisation of media has transformed broadcast and print news. Individual creators and small media companies, leveraging social media and public streaming platforms, now wield influence and power comparable to that of behemoth media corporations. These legacy corporations, burdened by institutional behaviours and rigid organizational structures which once made them great, are now spectacularly hamstrung in their ability to respond and compete. This transformation is poised to happen in other industries-and quickly.
Software service and solution delivery is next in line.