The New Technology Landscape Guide by Cooper & Co

All stereotypes are wrong we can confidently predict with tongue firmly planted in cheek. When it comes to technology industry classifications this is certainly the case but we decided to publish this New Information & Communications Technology Landscape Guide to help people understand the changes the industry is undergoing.

No longer is it simply enterprise/business with their major suppliers and smaller nimble suppliers.

Now the position of the major suppliers is no longer disputed, they are at the top of the stock exchange food chain and are the leading enterprises in their own right dominating markets globally.

What is not clear and is consistently underestimated is the role of the digital creative (typically entertainment or ex-advertising and marketing centric and usually providing services or services bundled with a complete deliverable e.g campaign, game, movie, television advertisement – of which they only do a relatively small number each year) and the tech startups (typically disruptive innovation and product centric and since it is standardised/productised and usually internet software and software/hardware focused they are typically scalable to very large numbers).

Think of the difference between ‘digital creative’ and ‘tech and tech enabled startup’ to be something like the differences between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Or in the case of advertising perhaps New York and Silicon Valley. They both have some level of entrepreneurship and technology but the differences are stark when it comes to scale, productisation, mindset, methodologies, talent portfolio and language.

To all you industry observers and commentators in all sectors, we hope you find this useful. Comments very welcome.

Note: Originally published Mar 12, 2013. Revised to correct typos and add more context (language, timeframes, stakeholders).

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