The next tech-enabled transformation: ‘Programmable economy’

The next tech-enabled transformation: ‘Programmable economy’

The natively “smart” economic system has the potential to disrupt virtually every facet of the global economy.

Gartner has raised the alert to prepare for the “programmable economy”, which it says has the potential to disrupt virtually every facet of the global economy.

The “programmable economy” is a natively “smart” economic system that supports and/or manages the production and consumption of goods and services, enabling diverse scenarios of exchange of value — both monetary and non-monetary, says the analyst firm.

The programmable economy is one of the key reports in Gartner’s Maverick research findings presented at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Florida last week.

“As the move toward digital business gathers momentum, we can already see the emergence of the next phase — autonomous business,” says David Furlonger, vice president and Gartner fellow.

He points out these these phases, however, still rely on 20th century economic models. “Gartner’s Maverick research anticipates that beyond autonomous business lies an era of more radical technology-enabled transformation that will eventually have an impact equivalent to that of the Internet.”

“In the Internet of Things (IoT), ‘things’ are becoming smarter, more connected and more relied upon to augment everyone’s life. However, there is a critical missing component to the IoT, and that is monetisation,” says Furlonger. “Success or failure with IoT will only be achieved via the development of a new economic platform and monetary operating model. Monetised ‘things’ will therefore redefine the economy.”

The programmable economy is enabled by metacoin platforms and smart technologies, will support new forms of value exchange, new kinds of markets (including dynamically defined on-demand markets), and new kinds of economies.

The latter includes the attention economy, the reputation economy, the on-demand economy and the resource optimisation economy.

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