Is Every Company Now a Tech Company?
We’ve been having a lot of discussion internally about innovation and technology as it relates to non-tech industries. Are CPG companies now tech companies? What about banks and insurance companies who are innovating their technology infrastructure to upgrade customer experience across channels — are they now tech companies? What about the real estate and housing industries that use technology to show and promote their properties?
While attending the annual Grace Hopper event in Houston I wandered into the career fair and wondered what the hell Disney was doing there, and the Gap and Bloomberg, Visa, Deutsche Bank, Time, Johnson & Johnson and Nationwide. This event is for women in computing and I expected to see all the big and emerging tech companies and they were there. Massive lines of women engineers snaked around booths waiting to meet recruiters and the companies were doing their best to standout. The longest lines that first night were owned by Disney and Bloomberg where attendees waited 10 deep to meet staff and talk about career opportunities.
Looking around other major conferences and the tech ecosystem there is definitely more cross industry collaboration going on. For example, L’Oréal, Goldman Sachs and Pepsico are all corporate partners of Grand Central Tech, a NY tech community of startups and strategic partners that breaks the traditional accelerator model. (Eastwick is one of their growth partners).
I can’t think of an industry today where innovation isn’t required and where the use of technology isn’t speeding massive shifts. Each company has a tech backbone, runs some or all of their products or services on tech or relies on tech to convey their message. Understanding software, how to build or partner on platform development skills are necessary for the future.
With all we’ve seen, our conclusion is that every company is a tech company or at least will be soon. I hope to see many of you at Grace Hopper 2016, recruiting the best tech talent on the planet.
