Which Businesses Can Survive in 30 Years to Come?

Technology has no doubt transformed our world. It was not long ago when mobile phones were revealed. Auto makers revolutionize cars each year. No need to queue up at petrol stations for fuel in some places these days as electric vehicles have shown us a new dimension.

Automatic cars pushed most manual cars out of the market and now autonomous cars are coming to the fore, navigating without drivers. Technology will take these cars even further very soon, perhaps in about 2020. Futurists say flying cars may be planned to be our next big thing to discover.

Business is rapidly changing and shaping our world. Today’s extensive innovation of highly sophisticated technology trends towards new eras. Markets have also shifted, to be smart enough to adopt modern ways. It is obvious that some companies will not survive competitively in the long run.

Higher technology companies as well as self-employed entrepreneurs will surely continue to dominate longer when robots occupy many important jobs and the stock market drifts. Human activities and services may be restricted to certain areas.

There could be rare competitive opportunities because robotic inventions can create a huge mess. Many people are already feeling the heat of the burden to be forced out of work.

Although some employment opportunities may decline, some people do not believe the machines ability and credibility of performing tasks as well as humans. Experts suggest that many technology companies are not thinking to what extent they can protect themselves if machines fail or respond negatively.

Many companies only care about profit and innovate to make significant investment decisions. They only consider beneficial factors for themselves, keeping an eye on their interests not the disadvantages or the disturbances posed to human beings. Having employees requires thinking about salary demands, annual leave, pensions and other claims.

We have seen that computers can only process information or data input based on ideas programmed into them, but artificial intelligence can new help them learn from past successes and mistakes.

New technology companies can even think beyond our imagination to make robots the leaders of tomorrow, making decisions rather than human beings. They claim this can avoid fraud and inconsistency or scandals despite humans holding the edge on professionalism, flexibility and decisiveness on tasks that machines are so far unable to grasp.

We live in interesting times.

Omar Wardere is a Somali researcher, reporter and editor. He is a committee member of National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) and member of Foreign Correspondents Association of East Africa.