Do you remember, back in time when the cars had only four forward gears? Then, one-day cars fitted with five gears arrived in the market. Everybody started talking about those cars being more fun. Soon, you also bought a five-speed car.

You still have vivid memories of how your relationship with the fifth gear started, don’t you? It was not a smooth relationship at the start. Too many times in those early days, you had driven along the freeway blissfully forgetful about the fifth gear and then suddenly remembering to change into it. Many of your friends had similar experiences; few of them were even too nervous to shift to the fifth gear! Thus, an entire generation forged its relationship with the fifth gear – over forgetfulness or fearfulness.

This is just an analogy for today’s hi-tech business environment.

Digital is the superhighway and your car is the business that needs to travel to meet a customer down the road. Partnerships & alliances are the fifth gear in the car; they are the IoT platforms, RPA vendors, hyper scalers, chip makers, edge providers and the AI engines.

Your business now has an additional speed option.

Of course, you would still reach your destination by driving the old-fashioned way, except that the other cars would have gotten there ahead of you. You have yourself to blame if you showed up too late only to find your customer in another car.

Don’t be one of those drivers that are either forgetful or fearful of the fifth gear.