The Humanization of Hyperconnected Organizations

March 12, 1989 Sir Tim Berners Lee published the first web page in history. He himself, faced with the need to share his discoveries in physics, had created a protocol for sharing hypertext and images over the Internet (HTTP) and designed a programming language that allowed “browsing” in files that we later knew as “pages” using a special application (browser).

Nobody imagined at the time the importance of these innovations, which democratized the Internet by taking it to a common ground, with a simplicity for its use and use never seen before. As already pointed out in 2005 the journalist Thomas L. Friedmanthe world became “flat”, alluding to its access through a computer screen, promoting the phenomenon of globalization.

34 years have passed since that historic milestone through which organizations got closer than ever to their customers, consumers and users, who in turn became “digital”; They connected with each other creating communities, social networks and managed to develop a host of new interactions based on experience and experience, even to differentiate themselves.

The convulsed world of the present, with an active war and crises everywhere: in health, economy, politics, logistics, society and values, to mention just a few aspects, requires the reconstruction of these organizations out of conviction to face these challenges and those of the future. immediate. However, doing so is not an easy task and the question for most organizations is: how?

Until before the pandemic, the strategic planning of most companies and brands (global and national) aimed at developing their digital transformation, strongly betting that technology-based processes would foster more efficient organizations. During the pandemic, this bet was lost. The differentiation did not come from technology or digitization: according to the INEGIan estimated 1.6 million Mexican businesses closed permanently between October 2020 and July 2021, the most critical period of the crisis of the COVID-19. In addition to this data, a report on World Development 2022, carried out by the world Bank, indicated that the cash reserves of an average company were enough to cover the expenses corresponding to less than 55 days. It becomes critical again to answer the question posed before: how to stay and succeed in this aggressive environment?

Analyzing the Mexican organizations that grew during the pandemic, a common denominator stands out in two factors: their ability to adapt the business to the conditions that arose and an outstanding resilience capacity.

We talked then that beyond consolidating the processes and automating them with the most conducive technology for each organization, it turns out to be their sensitivity and agility in the face of social change that caused the best results in those organizations that realized it.

Already Philip Kotler In his book “Marketing from Human to Human” he raised the need to emphasize the change in the market approach, from a product-dominant logic to a service-dominant logic, with the support of agile methodologies and based on new technologies. emerging (as we currently witness with the triggering Artificial Intelligence open in the GPT variant that allows so many applications to use).

With the above and as part of the new strategic planning of organizations, we leave the “B2B” (business to business) and “B2C” (business to final consumer) approaches in the past, to give birth to the “H2H” model: Human to Human. The rescue of the human sense in business.

Preparing ourselves for the challenge of humanizing hyperconnected organizations is essential. To be new observers of opportunities and strengthen the mentality of change, it will be important to delve into topics such as leadership for the 21st century, the development of conscious, sustainable companies and exponential organizations, entrepreneurship and innovation with impact, organizational strategy and transformation of industries, personnel analytics and decision support (data-driven organizations), among other relevant topics.

And beyond the context of the necessary knowledge and its practical application, it is even more important to open a parenthesis in our profession and in the person we represent, to rethink who we are and what is our real contribution of value to the people with whom we work, whom we serve, with whom we live. To the extent that as people we recognize the opportunity to be part of more humane organizations in contexts of high connectivity, in this sense we will also be happier beings due to our vocation of value and service.

“Here is my secret, which could not be simpler: only with the heart can one see well; The essential is invisible to the eyes”. – The little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

*By Mariana Alfaro Cendejasregional director of the Department of Marketing and Analysis of the School of Business, South Central Region, and leader of the organizing committee of the Tec Business Summit.