This Tuesday session was about Business Models 2.0; more specifically, about what might come after the digital revolution – a paradigm that can be sustained by information technology.

Mr. Jean-François Soupizet, an independent consultant from France who moderated this session, launched it by stating that we used to talk about progress in the past. But since a couple of years ago we rather talk about innovation which is an actual trend and an interesting fact.

The floor was then given to Mr. Michael Stankosky, a Research Professor from George Washington University, USA who’s a specialist of organizational knowledge. His point of view about what a business model 2.0 should tackle is related to the field of a knowledge-based economy.

The idea is to capitalize on knowledge assets, which represent 70% of current business’ assets (according to the facts he gave) by making them productive. The current problem with the utilization of these strategic assets is related to awareness: some industries might have valuable intangible assets but at the same time they might not be aware of their existence or don’t have the required know-how to make them profitable. These intangible, knowledge assets include: human capital, organizational capital, relationship capital and intellectual property within the organization. He then gave the example of the Nigerian economy that increased its GDP by revaluating its movie industry.

No one knows how to benefit from knowledge, and turn it into profit. If we knew, we would make 200% return on assets. Critical for turning organization knowledge assets into significant measurable outputs (measurable outputs defined as increase of organizations effectiveness, efficiency and innovation, and ultimately increase of profitability, and return on assets) are the effective processes of: codification of knowledge, collaboration, convergence and coherence.

The next speaker was Mr. Olivier Gudet, Head of Telecom in SIG-Services in Switzerland. In his opinion, Business Models 2.0 are based on telecommunication. As we are at the beginning of the digital revolution we need to use telecommunication as a key factor in order to built new roads.

In Geneva before 2009, there were only few networks, and only B2B. Then SIG-Services built a FTTH (fiber to the home) network. In the meantime, they connected the mobile phones antenna of Sunrise and Orange and for security purposes, the webcams of a neighborhood in Geneva.

He ended his presentation quoting an example of the city of Stockholm, which gained a triple return on investment after building the FTTH network. This started a circle of opportunities for companies and citizens of Stockholm. It also fosters new investments which are often rewarded, and may lead to further investment.

Dr. Hesham A. Lofty addressed the topic of this session differently by asking the audience a simple question: “What has to be prioritized?” Today, people tend to talk about innovation or in this case about Business Model 2.0 by pointing out how profitable it could be for a firm. However, other matters should be taken in consideration, such as environmental matters. He took the example of the fish overexploitation that began a few decades ago. In his opinion, intelligence and ICT development should first and foremost be used for fixing these environmental issues, and then used for profit-making. “If we eat everything we will only then realize that we can’t eat money.”

Mr. Michal Ivantyšyn, co-founder and Director of ITAPA Congress, Slovakia, talked about the e-government strategy in Slovakia, and open data as a new driving force for the 21^st century. During his presentation he quoted several adages:

• Moore’s law – the cost of computing power halves every 18 months;
• Eroom’s law of pharmaceutical R&D – cost of medical drug research per unit doubles every 9 months;
• Parkinson law describing the rate at which bureaucracies expand over time.

Mr. Ivantyšyn opines that it is easy to change the world and make millions of dollars by using open data. Moreover, open data is the only way of stopping the expansion of bureaucracy. In Slovakia, a lot of data is now made public by the government. Foreign investors can now find out who won a public offer in Slovakia. Also, preparing project proposals in Slovakia will be much easier and much cheaper. Along with many new ways to come, this approach would help curb the ever-growing bureaucratic apparatus.

Mr. Van Khai Nguyen, CEO, Cadcamation SA, Association InnoLab Switzerland, talked about the after-digital revolution – the new manufacturing paradigm. There will be 9 billion people by 2050 but this shouldn’t be a problem, as the increase of population is slowing, and GDP is also increasing and giving welfare to the people. What we should change is the way we manufacture products. First of all, we should produce products nearer to the consumer. We should also have a fairer trade policy, so that profits don’t end up in the richer countries. The Internet of things will help with that. Objects will interact and adapt with their environment. The human must understand all of this, not to be overwhelmed by technology. Big data must help us bring new wisdom to society.

Mr. Paul K. Wormelli, Innovation Strategist at Wormelli Consulting LLC, USA, talked about the impact of new business models on government. Governments are lagging behind industry by 3 or 5 years. Two things influence the government the most:

• The biggest IT solution providers shift their strategy to adopt a consumer-driven point of view.
• We used to count things with IT, now the purpose is to provide insights with technology.

Governments recognize that they have to adopt an enterprise mindset which may lead to a lot of competition but will prioritize fresh thinking. Knowledge is not what it used to be 10 or 20 years ago. Nowadays, knowledge is in the network: the human network, technology network and social network. This has led to collective intelligence which has to be used by the government.

Governments are trying to figure out how to gather this knowledge. This should lead to higher customer/citizen satisfaction. Citizens have become vital to the governments, and should share their responsibilities, and be involved with the government. Ultimately, this involvement will transform the governmental apparatus.

The last presenter, Mr. Shakeel Tufail, CEO of SecureNinja– a security-oriented company in USA, talked about security or basically protecting an asset we value. Failure to protect one’s assets can result in loss of the asset, charges or can even cost lives. Today we estimate that 95% of cyber intrusions are due to human social interactions, which is interesting. Moreover, as we are getting more connected, our systems are rapidly becoming more complex; so rapidly that security regulations can’t keep up with this pace of change. Such a delay can have a huge negative impact on every industry. He used the example with the outage of Sony PlayStation network in April 2011 due to “external intrusion” i.e. attack by hackers.

To summarize his presentation – data, time, money, reputation, legal frameworks and governments need to be protected; otherwise it would compromise the effectiveness of the Business Model 2.0.