The digital transformation of industries is ongoing and accelerating. The internet, big data, advanced computing and sensors are combining to transform that way that things have traditionally been done.

An interesting recent example of this is General Electric which is betting that its' future growth will come from the Industrial Internet: the convergence of industrial machines, data, and the Internet. General Electric is well known for the industrial machinery it designs and manufacturers, but now it want's to be known as a digital company that also makes industrial machinery. Hence the new GE slogan "The digital company. That’s also an industrial company".

Sloan Management Review has done an excellent case study on GE's digital transformation called GE’s Big Bet on Data and Analytics.

A major component of their digital strategy is a software platform they call Predix and that can be connected to different types of industrial machines to gather data that can be stored in the cloud and made sense of using their platform. A major market they are looking at is the digital transformation of the Oil & Gas industry and in the video below you can see their vision for Intelligent Pipeline Systems.

Predicting the future is a tricky business and GE may bomb out on this strategy if the funds are not available to make pipelines intelligent. On the other hand, when you are as big and influential as GE the future may be more a matter of creation than prediction. And so it is with many companies contemplating their own digital transformation. You have to try to predict the future but you must also be involved in creating the digitally transformed version of it you envision.