Scope
Physics, Economics, Cybernetics, Aesthetics … and now Digitalics. What is digitalics? Just as
the zeitgeist -- the spirit of the times -- captures the changing mood as we move along the arrow
of time, digitalics represents the current state of the weltgeist -- the spirit of a new hyper digital
world where we find ourselves today.
This digital world is the new, happening place that none of us can, or even wish to, escape from
in our personal, social and professional lives. Whether it is checking your WhatsApp or
Facebook timeline, moving money on NEFT, marketing products on social media, hiring on
Linkedin, listening to the voice of the customer on Twitter or cutting e-Waybills for your trucks
that move across state borders -- everything happens in the digital world. Or rather where the
digital touches the physical in the tangled web of click-and-mortar. That is digitalics at work.
Digitalics is different from computer programming, computer science and even from information
technology as much as, say, physics is different from manufacturing science. The underlying
principles may come from physics but in manufacturing we create new, unique and useful
products without which modern society cannot move forward. Tata Motors implementing SAP
software or installing a new welding robot is an example of information technology whereas
Uber devising a new way to connect the users, owners and drivers of cars in a way that is
optimum for each is an example of digitalics at work.
Traditional management practices have been significantly impacted by the emergence and
acceptance of these new tools and techniques from the digital world. Moving beyond IT systems that were focussed on one, operational, aspect of the business, digitalics is now a necessary
skill that is required across all management functions irrespective of the business domain. The
democratisation of technologies like the smartphone means that these are used both by the
guard at the gate to keep track of visitors and by the CEO at the airport lounge to have a video
conference with his global team. It also means that managers in traditional roles must not only
be familiar with terms like deep learning, cybersecurity, IOT and blockchain but must also be
knowledgeable enough to consider integrating these tools into the enterprise that she
manages. That is why managers need to understand digitalics.
Digitalics is more than just a subject that can be explicitly defined through the curriculum of a
standard 3-credit course in a B-School. It encompasses a wide range of concepts, ideas and
disciplines that will imagineer -- imagine and engineer -- new applications for the hyper-digital
world. It is a way of life, like sanatan dharma, that weaves itself into the warp and weft of the
modern management process.
Business management has traditionally been viewed as processes that are clustered into
buckets like Finance, Marketing, Operations, OB & HR. But today, these management verticals
are twisted beyond recognition by powerful developments in horizontal technology like data
science and fintech. That is the power of digitalics at work.
Digitalics is the art and science of optimising the productivity of people, products and processes
that glitter at the intersection of management verticals and technology horizontals.
