Chief information officers and business leaders need to rediscover what first made them relevant.
This is according to commentators at Software AG's Innovation Forum, taking place in Johannesburg today.
Richard Mulholland, an entrepreneur and guest speaker at the event, said businesses seeking to remain relevant need to stop focusing on "old problems", but rather address current ones.
"Innovation is not about doing something new, but it's about finding other ways to work with things and systems that already exist."
According to Mulholland, many companies have yet to fully exploit technology by defining which legacy systems are good for them and which should be discarded. He noted many businesses found success, because they addressed a need or catered to people's problems or frustrations.
"Hate is a great motivator so you need to find things that frustrate people and change them, slay legacies, fight today's wars and jump the curves."
Patrick Shields, chief technology officer at Software AG, added companies will need to take advantage of "the mass adoption of connected digital services and devices by consumers, governments and enterprises".
To do this, said Shields, digitisation will aid businesses to address problems in real-time, driving innovation by shortening the amount of time to respond to problems. Honing in on data and analytics will go a long way to making more businesses efficient in meeting the needs of their consumers, he commented.
"If you are monitoring your customers, sentiment, what they are doing or saying, you want to be given the opportunity to respond."
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