DISRUP|TEC

Digitalization, Disruption, Relocation

Life goes digital and changing our world. Airbnb, Instagram, Uber, Whatsapp, Blockchain etc.

Your industry, the business you have built and love, may already be watched by some disruption vultures. These are tech people, identifying limitations of your business model and re-inventing it, applying latest digital technology, making your company obsolete.

There is another aspect: re-location.

In the past, tech firms had one choice only to become really succesfully: Silicon Valley.

But digitalization, kind of invented there, now enables businesses to settle somewhere else, and have even some advantages, the Valley can’t offer: immigration, taxes, operation and living costs, climate and investment opportunties.

We’re in Panama for a reason, some of them.

Stay with us to speak about how to disrupt your business model yourself.

Why we are qualified to do so? Look here.

Blockchain, Digitalization, Technology

How far can BTC rise and why should it?

Peter S Onge has an interesting article here.

Without trying to quantify any future Bitcoin value, the underlying question is, under what circumstances Bitcoin would rise to extreme heights, a very interesting question indeed.

The author states that a collapse of the US Dollar would inevitably lead to such event and the question follows how this may happen.

In the article, excessive printing is one way to get it done, but the second point is the most obvious and most convincing:

“The dollar’s price could collapse … simply because nobody wants to use it anymore.”

Why would this happen, that nobody wants to use the US Dollar anymore?

Well, here are the reasons:

Increasingly global transactions are not conducted in USD anymore. This scenario is already on its way (China, Russia, Iran)
Excessive printing leads to inflation, as we can see and expect to get worse. More gov restrictions ahead like restriction of cash payments
Costs of money supply
Transaction difficulties and costs.

Introducing a FED-CBDC would solve the last point, none of the others, and opens the pandora box of even more manipulation.

Simply said, USD is the old-fashioned taxi business and BTC is UBER, autonomously driving and without sexual harassment.

So when people decide, step by step, that BTC is better to use for transactions, they will switch. This means that fewer people want to use paper money anymore and even demand a premium for such payments. Think of credit card fees.

Already today, many employees want to be paid in crypto, not in whatever fiat.

Already today, corporations keep crypto as an asset on their balance sheet. See www.microstrategy.com

San Salvador has made BTC legal tender and each business has to accept it. More countries are considering such a step, some as it means progress, others to solve their inflation problem.

But, you say, crypto is used for criminal transactions. Maybe, but in all the narco movies I have seen, the suitcases had been stuffed with dollar bills. So what?

But, you say, if BTC is such a great store of value, why would people spend instead of holding it? Well, they don’t have to. They can easily keep and use it as collateral for loans in stablecoins or even CBDC for transactions.

But, you say, If an EMP or CME is hitting earth and crashing the power supply, all is lost. Well, it is not, because as a decentralized system, there will always be network nodes alive somewhere and keeping it together.

If all the electricity in the world breaks down, as worst-case, then it’s all about survival, not money anymore.

So let us watch the USD going down and enjoy the increase in value of bitcoin.

Success stories, Technology

The only way Boeing can save the 737Max – and not by name change

It is months now since Boeing’s 737MAX has been grounded worldwide, following 2 fatal crashes. Now I am reading that it is suggested to change the type’s name, after fixing the problems, of course. Bad idea.

There is one recommendation for Boeing only: learn from Mercedes’ elk test experience.

In 1997, the brandnew Mercedes A class model had been flipped by test-driving newspaper journalists in the so-called elk test procedure – a desaster.

Mercedes did postpone market launch for 6 months and equipped all A-class vehicles with ESP (Electronic Stability Program), unheard of in this category before.

So the problem was not only solved but converted into an advantage and marketed accordingly. Buyers were not suspicious after the event but proud to own such a safe car.

So here is what Boeing has to do:

Solve the initial problem
Add an extra safety feature, only planned for a future flagship product
Thus make the 737MAX brand a synonym for a super-safe aircraft, people longing to fly with.

That’s it.

Digitalization, Industry news, Society, Technology

Privacy – remember John Lennon?

His song title Power to the people is becoming popular again nowadays, when Internet giants have no shame to exploit our personal data for undisclosed purposes. Well, mostly for money and even more power.

Source: www.johnlennon.com

As always, when a movement goes to far, opposing powers rise up, slowly first, unstoppable soon. A good sign is when industry veterans initiate or join such action, feeling that the Web is not anymore what it was supposed to be.

Have a close look at those developments:

BRAVE browser, supported by Javascript creator Brendan Eich, is giving the user all the power needed to not get skimmed off, while surfing the Web. Included is the Basic Attention Token concept, enabling users to pay for content of their choice. First step into the right direction.

Brendan_Eich_Mozilla_Foundation_official_photo

Next worth to watch is SOLID and its POD concept, initiated by Sir Tim Berners-Lee himself, the famous WWW creator. POD stands for Personal Online Data Store, promising users to be and stay the masters of their data, enabling them to share through apps, but never losing control.

Sir_Tim_Berners-Lee

Last but not least, there is TUTANOTA, a newcomer out of Germany, offering “the world’s most secure email service, easy to use and private by design”. A fresh start, no veterans involved, as far as I know.

Another fresh approach, up to change advertisement and customer relations, is MYFAVORITO, where DISRUPTEC has been an early advisor.

Source of all pictures: http://www.wikipeda.org

Industry news, Success stories, Technology

Disrupting corporate HQ

Despite mainly supported by the public, remarkably even under black and hispanic population, NYC socialists have succeeded in killing the Amazon HQ2 project. Great.

Have written few years ago that it’s time for tech companies to move out of Silicon Valley, as there is no need for such silos anymore, not to speak about the ever-increasing costs of doing business there. However, setting up shop in NYC instead is not a real change nor improvement. Gotta get out of the comfort zone completely.

aochq2

Today, looking at this HQ2 debacle, my advise is to radically diversify geographically, whereby such advise is not addressing the big ones anymore – Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and alikes – but their upcoming challengers.

As the end of Airbus 380 has shown that it does not make sense to copy a market leader strategy, if you want to win. Have a distinct different strategy and start with HQ location:

Doing business in SF, NYC or other US metroplexes has become a struggle on many frontlines.

In tropical Panama nobody would complain about becoming home of a corporate headquarter. Instead, Panama has made special bienvenido rules for them and some have been following already. Getting much more for less is easy to understand, isn’t it?

Latin America, located in the same hemisphere, sharing culture and values, is about to learn a lesson after Chavez’ socialism of the 21st century has ruined former rich and beautiful Venezuela. Won’t happen again anytime soon.

Here’s a ranking based on 2018 results, showing how Panama has succeeded in a decade-long race to catch up and positioned to become #1 in 5 to 8 years.

LATAM2018GDPEN

There are many advantages speaking for a corporate HQ507:

happiness
business environment
financial stability
immigration
costs of living
safety
wages
taxes
investment opportunities
connectivity
weather
Special Economic Zones
- City of Knowledge
- Panama Pacifico

Impressions:

atlanticlocks — Panama Canal Atlantic locks / http://www.besserpanama.com

panama-de-noche1 — City at night / go.getit.com.pa

pblagoon_2713 — Pacific beach resort / http://www.besserpanama.com

lasperlasislands — Panama Pacific islands / http://www.besserpanama.com

The Panama Canal is the backbone of the economy, as well as financial and business services, like ship registry. Tourism is another income source as agriculture is.

If human capital is priority #1 for any hi-tec company to thrive, then Panama is in a perfect position, by itself and being located in the middle of the Americas, with direct flights from/to 80+ cities between San Francisco and Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile and Toronto.

copa routemap 2019

Young professionals will easily get permanent residency. They’ll enjoy preferrable tax rules and have endless attractive investment opportunities. Imagine to purchase a contemporary 130 m² 2bed/2bath oceanview condo for $200,000.

Having done business in Europe, South East Asia and the Americas, Panama is a perfect choice, all things considered.

Bienvenido.

Digitalization, Success stories, Technology

Finding your digitalization platform

To choose a platform for upcoming digitalization projects is a strategic decision. Large enterprises have basically 3 options:

established market leader – as used by their competitors
open source product – without influence on further development
owning a proprietary platform themselves

Obviously, the proprietary option makes a perfect solution:

differentiation from competitors – one does not become a market leader by doing what others do
control of ongoing development
IP creation and future paybacks

However, developing such a complex platform has two challenges: costs and time-to-market as the most important factor.

turned on white tablet computer at globe share graph — Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

How to overcome both issues?

There are companies out there, focused on technology, having built a product over years, permanently further developed, based on real customer requirements. Many of these companies have never had sales departments, hired more programmers instead.

They have always quickly identified, built-in and applied new developments in real-life projects. This way they have grown their customers successes significantly and made themselves enough money to independently decide what they want to develop next.

Here‘s one of them.

Sometimes they are called to save other’s failed projects, to match business-critical deadlines. Successfully.

So to get your own platform, find one of them in the marketplace and take control.

Blockchain, Industry news, Society, Technology

Moving along

While Cryptocoin enthusiasts are having a difficult time for a while already, the technology behind is moving along unstoppable, not just nicely.

For some eye-opening insight and outlook, George Gilders latest book Life after Google is a great read. It appears to confirm the fact that even the biggest tech firms will be overrun sooner or later. Overrun by people thinking out of the box again, developing new technologies and making it a business from the beginning, finding adequate means to fund it, not the old-fashioned VC way.

There goes the centralized web and the centralized funding, once grown up together. Everything has its time.

Ironically this new tech movement is taking up pace right at the time when the old gatekeepers begin to abuse their power openly and evily. Nice coincidence.

What an environment has been created over time to oust a genius like Brendan Eich as Mozilla CEO for giving $1,000 for a case they find wrong? And this is just one example.

For a guy like me, grown up in East Germany, such Social Warrior movement is like going back in a time machine, but worse.

However, nobody and nothing is useless, can still serve as a bad example.

Blockchain, Digitization

“Time to separate money and state”

While writing this post, Bitcoin is approaching the $12,000 mark, again.

Willy Woo has published an analysis showing that the number of bitcoin users doubles every 12 months. Sounds familiar? Because this is the characteristic of exponential growth.

bitcoin-google-trends-growth-1300x624

When exponential growth is based on a massive transformative purpose, then disruption is unavoidably going to happen. And here’s this purpose as wisely stated by @ErikVoorhees on November 28, 2017:

Why does Bitcoin keep growing? Because it’s time to separate money and state.

Naturally, somebody who has been working decades in the same industry doesn’t like disruption. It devalues their knowldege and experience, undermines the standing they are used to. So it is no surprise that Nobel laureates Stiglitz and Shiller are not fans of bitcoin & co.

Here is an articulate scenario:

Digitization-based disruption is already happening everywhere. For society, government and finance industry it’s just beginning.

Blockchain, Digitalization, Technology

Blogging about blocking

We live in exciting times.

As the Internet from the beginning has made millionaires and billionaires, and still is, same thing is happening in a new domain right now: bitcoin.

bitcoin_com — Source: http://www.bitcoin.com

Coming from roughly $800 in January 2017, the famous cryptocurrency posterchild’s share price did exceed $5,800 on October 15.

coindesk-bpi-chart

And while there are very contrary opinions about the future share price development, there is no doubt about the underlying blockchain technology.

Start-ups, IT heavyweights, banks and other financial institutions, logistics companies, consulting firms, governments and regulators are eager to check the opportunities it may offer.

blockgeeks_com — Source: http://www.blockgeeks.com

New and disruptive business models, coming with reduced transaction costs and increased security are the promises.

A period of trial & error has begun. Concepts are developed, whitepapers written, pilots set up and tested … all that bringing progress, new ideas, corrections, contributing towards the next stage.

And as always, participating is the key to success. So the focus of this Website will be extended, covering blockchain concepts and project experiences.

Stay tuned.

Digitalization

Business disruption gone wrong

2 weeks ago I have transferred administration of one of my business domains to DOMAIN.COM, in order to have all my domains under one roof, simplifying life.

Was I wrong. Just the opposite happened.

First it took 2 days until my Website was up and running again. Could be normal or not. Then I found that my Webmail wasn’t working. Could be fixed by changed settings myself, with help of my home admin.

Then I had gotten one or 2 emails with a subject “Confirm your domain”. There was no more explaining text and not even a signature, which was strange, so I checked the domain it came from: domain-inc.net.

Here’s the Website:

Bildschirmfoto vom 2017-07-03 11-23-03

Didn’t look like something official, so it was ignored as spam. Not a good idea.

Few days later my domain was suspended and since then I am spending lots of time in the domain.com support chat.

After having sent more verification documents on saturday, we’ve been told that over the weekend the verification department does not work.

This monday morning we’ve been told that the verification department is understaffed today because of tomorrow’s national holiday and we now don’t expect them to be back to work before wednesday.

Reminds me of some stories in the past with a similar background: Almost all serious businesses have streamlined their everyday processes to efficiency and it works very well. Most of the time. But when something goes wrong, it gets really complicated. As here and now.

Some time ago we’ve sent an overnight package by UPS or Fedex or DHL. Didn’t arrive in time and not at all. So we’ve had to resend it, using the same carrier. At pick-up, the employee seriously insisted to get paid for this order as well, not accepting the fact that we’ve paid already, weren’t served as contracted and even had experienced real damage.

So before a business gets disrupted in a constructive, forward-moving way, more attention has to be spent on avoiding unintentional disruptions.