The Law of External Dependence

“By 2020, 85% of interactions between businesses and customers will be done without human intervention” – Gartner 2014.

If Gartner is correct what do these interactions look like, what type of messaging systems will drive these interactions, what involvement will customers have in these interactions – if at all – and will customers know the interactions will actually be happening?

Types of interactions we might should consider:

Systemic alerts to the customer:

·        Banking alerts (e.g. balance notifications, payment notification, holds placed on your account, deposit acknowledgments, fraud alerts); credit threshold limits, deposits on hold alerts

·        Investment alerts: trade settlement notifications (buy, sell), dividend payments, triggered trades based on customer set limits, buy opportunity windows based on price thresholds,

·        Vehicle alerts: low air pressure in your tires, oil change notification, maintenance notifications (e.g 90,000 mile maintenance required)

·        Utility company alerts; power consumption comparisons; throttling by the power company notices; power outages, storm warnings; invitation to replace older utilities based on consumption or “draw” (e.g. washer, dryer, refrigerator, microwave, stove)

·        Retail shopping: abandoned shopping cart notices, free shipping alerts, out-of-stock notifications, shipping arrival / delivery notices, new arrivals, limited time offers, inventory notices

·        Healthcare notices: appointment reminders, annual physical reminders, teeth cleaning reminders, high blood pressure alerts, diabetes threshold exceeded alerts, cholesterol threshold alerts, heart attack notifications to hospital, ambulance company or EMT’s;

·        Travel alerts; cancelled flights, flight delays, weather warnings, reservation changes

·        Government interactions: virus outbreak messages, weather warnings, traffic alerts, war alerts, environmental alerts

Types of messages that are or will be automated:

·        Text messages

·        Email messages

·        Audible messages (broadcast / narrowcast / individual cast

·        Telephone messages

·        Visual messages

·        Biologic messages

Systems that we know and recognize:

·        Marketing systems

·        Customer service systems

·        Security, safety & warning systems

·        Healthcare maintenance & prevention

·        Regulatory & compliance systems

·        Manufacturing & production systems

·        Supply replenishment systems

·        Customer lifecycle systems

·        Diagnostic & learning systems

·        Environmental monitoring

·        Transportation & logistics

·        Decision support systems

Peter Drucker says, 85% of the information we need to succeed lies outside of the organization.  Although he was speaking primarily of corporations, I believe his statement can be applied to any of the systems we wish to consider.

Let’s consider the human body, mother earth, transportation systems and the movement of goods, regulatory & compliance systems.  If 85% of the information necessary to be successful lies outside of the organization then it makes sense that 85% of the interactions used by that organization will be with external parties / units / devices and will need to be automated. 

Now that we’ve identified these two dependencies what shall we call this condition?  Let’s call it the Law of External Dependency; suggesting to every intelligent system or organism that the ability to succeed largely depends on external information, stimuli and interaction.

None of us live in a vacuum and no intelligent system or organism can be successful in isolation.

Gartner may be point to the underpinnings of automation and systemic responses, but we should recognize that these systems are being built for human benefit and will require a great deal of time and experimentation to actually “get it right”.