Question

How does Moore’s Law affect the company known as Target?

• How is the company leveraging Moore’s Law?

• What is its policy on E-Waste?

• In 50 years from now, with Moore’s Law in effect, would the company still be in business?

Answer 1

Answer:

How does Moore’s Law affect the company known as Target?

There are different areas of business the law affects. The law itself is something special in its exponential nature. If we simplify a bit, the power of a chip is doubling every 2 years (not exactly). It is very difficult to understand the implications. A well-known story about the inventor of chess and his king demonstrate this. King asks what reward the inventor would like for that ingenious and fun game. The request was one grain of rice (or wheat) on the first square of the chess board, double on the next, and so on - double the amount of the previous square until all 64 squares are filled. As it happens, the king did not have that amount of rice in his kingdom. 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 would be the number. Moore’s law has been with us approximately 60 years, ie. 30 two-year doubling cycles. Let’s say liberally that we are halfway through the chess board now. This is probably the fastest increase in any capability in the history of mankind.

As it happens, only very few visionaries could and can devise strategies in this situation. Earlier there was time for the experience to accumulate when the technology generations corresponded to human generations. Now every business leader has to react to paradigm shifts every 2 to 10 years, depending on the business. 3-year strategy planning cycles are obsolete, annual planning a joke. At the same time the products of Moore’s law - IT solutions - are everywhere. No business can survive without IT backbone.

In this situatuation, new companies can easily leapfrog from start-up to leaders just because they do not have huge sums invested in legacy technology which will become obsolete years before the accountants had planned. Hype cycles follow each other at a dizzying pace, companies come and go.

There are balancing forces, though. One of them is natural inertia. Some technologies are available years before the majority of companies have adopted them and they become mainstream. But also, maybe paradoxically, in some ways forecasting the future has become easier rather than more difficult. The reason is simple. The big plays are played by big boys. There are relatively few companies that have the resources to drive the development and make the market. Google, Amazon, IBM etc know what will be available during the next 5–10 years because they already have it in their laboratories. They want to ensure that their technology vision turns into profits. They can struggle with their own challenges, like IBM, but they are still on the driver’s seat. All the rests are followers and users of the technologies, quick followers.

As all capable strategists know, it is relatively easy to devise a strategy compared to the challenge of implementing it. When the business environment is so turbulent as it is, companies have to be extremely agile in their reactions. Trying to make quick turns in a global company can lead to total disarray and loss of productivity/profits. Even if we have good advisors and technology providers to tell us what we should do, it rarely helps in implementing the required operating model and organizational capabilities. As a medicine to Moore’s law companies has to consider operating models as constantly adaptable platforms instead of static and extremely streamlined processes built to last forever.

Then we have people. People are slow to change, even if they know that they must. The disparity between the clock frequencies of humans and businesses is growing every day. Top management must find just the right people to drive the change, not the most willing, but the most capable.

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