What does Being a Tech Visionary Entail: What Others are Doing vs Preparing for the Unseen
Tech Visionary
Investors and entrepreneurs in the technology industry do their best to become visionaries to predict and forecast the market’s future accurately.
On the other hand, individuals often discover that they are so preoccupied with keeping up with the day-to-day running of their businesses that they miss out on foreseeing what will happen in the future.
The dizzying velocity of advancement that we are observing in today’s world makes it seem easier than it has ever been to hop on the ever-evolving trends.
However, today’s rapidity and multifaceted nature of changemakers also make it difficult for promising and popular business leaders to make consistent decisions.
Despite this paradox, the ability to make sound judgments is critical in a business environment where everything around is transforming at speed faster than ever before.
If one wants to become a tech visionary like Sundar Pichai – the CEO of Google – or Sanjiv Bajaj – the Chairman and Managing Director of Bajaj Finserv – in this day and age, what steps should one take?
The answer may lie in a sideward glance at your competition and your industry – but without compromising on what makes your organization unique.
Taking Lessons from the Industry
Most choices that business executives or investors make are based on an analysis of the present market landscape and how that landscape is understood in light of previous experience.
It is a great method that aids in making sound managerial judgments and a visionary game plan.
So, how do you learn from what others are doing while also carving out your niche?
- Lean on the parallels and learn from others’ experiences
Discovering parallels between one’s own company and others operating in the same industry may be a beneficial strategy for evaluating the current state of one’s own technology business and, as a result, planning for the company’s future.
Executives often have a natural ability to see patterns. Locating similarities by recognizing shared characteristics is a fantastic illustration of visionary leadership.
If you share the same space within an industry, then focus on learning from your competitor’s experiences in a particular deployment or technology overlap.
It stands to reason that if you follow suit, your company will have a similar experience. This strategy is particularly useful when following successful firms in your niche.
- Be wary of information bias
As a visionary leader, if your company is in a hurry to make vital strategic decisions, but your basis for doing the same is not strong enough, it is always helpful to look for the information you need from what others are doing.
But sadly, there is a caveat to this offer. By looking for information elsewhere, leaders risk cherry-picking what they want, reinforcing their preconceived notions of the nature of their organization.
As a tech visionary, this is a risky practice in today’s fast-morphing technological industry since many factors are at play that spans multiple ecosystems and market dynamics.
- Take inspiration but find your uniqueness
As a tech visionary leader, finding your company’s niche greatly matters. After all, innovation is all about giving birth to something new and unique that can change people’s perspectives on a particular challenge.
So, while taking inspiration from other businesses is fine to solve the day-to-day concerns, leaning on established paths of success too heavily may turn you into just another company on the block.
For example, when Sanjiv Bajaj-led Bajaj Finserv entered the market in the customer durables loan segment, the established way of loan processing involved asking the consumers for a set of documents, processing the loan, and disbursing the product.
But Sanjiv Bajaj sought to do it the ‘Bajaj way’ – i.e., being innovative while creating value and transparency for the customers, old and new.
Thus, Bajaj Finserv instead introduced seamless 30-second, documentation-free loan approvals that changed the face of the industry and the company – all based on differentiation, innovation, and uniqueness.
Moreover, following in the footsteps of an established business might mean that popular business leaders will constantly be the second movers, which is a strategy that could be risky for your long-term performance.
If the executives of a firm put into practice what others have previously discovered, they risk their company falling far behind.
Accentuating distinctions in the technology, team, brand identity, business strategy, or target audience may assist corporate leaders in blazing a new road, although one that is less comfortable and likely riddled with obstacles, but one that eventually leads toward a far more satisfying journey to reach the desired destination.
Conclusion
Whether you are a top pioneer in finance, or any other field, being a tech visionary involves having a keen eye for the competition and taking valuable lessons from their experiences.
Ultimately, the goal of technology is to elevate lives and solve pertinent challenges around us. If something ground-breaking is truly working for the industry, then taking inspiration from it to build your solution is always wise.
However, being a tech visionary entails discovering things hiding in plain sight – insights, and lessons that scratching the surface won’t reveal.
Once you figure out what percentage of others’ paths you must take and where your road diverges, you can rest assured knowing that you’re building your unique vision to make you stand out from the crowd.
No matter how good tech visionaries and futuristic leaders are, predicting the future and building companies are always fraught with uncertainties.
While your beliefs and analysis may point toward emerging trends or technologies that may work, sometimes, the way out of your fix is to glance sideward at your contemporaries and competition and figure out what works.
While many popular business leaders have followed this mantra, they have also made sure to differentiate their offerings to not compromise on their uniqueness of vision and originality of invention.
So, being an aspiring tech visionary, should you never follow others? Or is there any scope for it – albeit with a few caveats? Read through this blog to know.
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Category: Business
