Jul 09
7
P2P An Opportunity or A Dilemma
Most businesses – and people for that matter – like to believe in certainty. Businesses rely on there being some reasonable expectation of predictability to get shareholders to invest, to get workers to trust that they will get paid at the end of the month, etc.
For years wherever you would go looking for investment in a start up you would hear the question as to whether you, as the CEO, had fully de-risked the business and therefore the investment. Clearly investors in start-ups understand that there is always a risk. What they quite reasonably expect is that the entrepreneur has taken steps to consider the areas of risk and to minimise them through whatever means possible.
What happens though when the reality of risk in a business is almost totally out of whack with the the actuality?
I happen to believe that we have now entered a period in history where certainty has to go out of the window. And I believe that P2P could be considered to be a key reason…
We can watch what happens in the content industry and how it is impacted by P2P and use that as an exemplar of what will happen to other industries as asymmetrical modes of operation disrupt them. In my mind this is essentially what takes place when the key consumer decision making processes are moved to the edge of a network while the key distribution management responsibilities are left at the centre.
I am interested in how supply chain management will be affected by P2P in the future – among other things. Imagine both the inefficiencies and the costs that are inherent in bringing the food from the farmer to your fridge. Cows in the paddocks down the road from me product some of the best milk in the country. But that milk has to go to a centralized depot somewhere between Sydney and Melbourne to be warehoused on its way to the Woolies supermarket at the nearby town. A massive amount of transportation cost, handling cost, and time. How could P2P ensure that locally produced foodstuffs didn't have to travel a huge amount of miles in order to be consumed? As we become more energy use sensitive, I can imagine that people will want labelling on food that shows its mileage alongside its cost per 100gms. Maybe P2P will ensure that there is a new kind of efficient barter system that will emerge?
The point here is this: movies and music are able to be digitized and consequently P2P affects them quite readily. But everything is affected by digital technology and even physical goods are going to be affected by the implementation of P2P principles on supply chains and manufacturing processes. We just haven't seen how at this point in time.
And what about power generation? That is one of the great risk areas of our society at present. Will P2P be able to provide answers for us? We think so. More on this later.