In the introduction to Autodesk World Press days, Autdoesk’s CEO Carl Bass introduced four big macroeconomic trends that are driving business.
Digital Life
The movement from analog to digital has infused the way we work, communicate and consume entertainment. Multitasking occurs at a degree that we wouldn’t have imagined. The youth of today are consuming and creating information simultaneously at a huge rate.
For instance on YouTube, 100 million videos are downloaded and 65,000 new videos are uploaded daily. There’s an explosion of content that far surpasses any repository for analog information. Google has indexed more than 50 times the content than is in the Library of Congress. And people want new information now. The bar has been set high.
Globalization
The fiber optic cable that was laid ten years ago created new business models through connectivity. Offshoring wouldn’t have been possible without the cheap communications channels that we have today. As the world is globalized there will be nearly ruthless commoditization. Products won’t be protected by borders or the law. Solution to ruthless commoditization is differentiation. How do we make better products? It will become necessary to separate ourselves from the pack.
Infrastructure Boom
$40Trillion will be spent on building, rebuilding and repairing. There’s a strong need in developing markets. China will build 50 airports. India is building roads and spending half a trillion on infrastructure. Saudi Arabia will spend a trillion dollars. Fixing the aging infrastructure will become a priority in the developed world. Even relatively mature communities have the need for a lot more to be built in order to keep up.
Climate Change
The rising cost and growing use of energy is a problem that needs to be solved. In the next 25 years the use of energy will double. There’s a huge problem of climate change and consumption of resources. We need to think about better ways to produce energy. As a result, we’ll see clever inventions in a race to that will push the limits of imagination. Effectiveness and efficiency of new technology will increase, and we’ll become smarter about consuming energy. Transportation needs to be smarter and more efficient. Buildings are huge consumers of energy, and we’re looking at smarter designs with zero carbon footprints.
Collectively these trends are challenging how we do things, and in all of these there’s a need to visualize, simulate and analyze, which is the core of Autodesk’s business. Bass sees a rosy future for the use of Autodesk’s technology, and frankly so do I.
