Big Data and digitization are more than just optional assists to today’s businesses. They are so key, some say that companies who fail to adopt them face an existential threat. And it’s not just traditional companies who have to get on the ball — just as the bar is rising for them, it is too for tech-native companies, who are also vulnerable to disruption by higher-tech companies.

Rob Thomas, GM of Products, IBM Analytics, at IBM, recently penned an article ironically titled “The End of Tech Companies.” Instead of forecasting a return to traditional business models, he does just the opposite. “Either you’re going to be a tech company, or you’re going to be extinct,” he said, explaining that in coming years, the adjective “tech” will simply be redundant.

He told Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), co-hosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during BigDataNYC 2016 that even digital-native companies will be disrupting each other with ever more-advanced technology.

Sink or swim for IT teams

Thomas predicted that the goal posts for IT teams will move, knocking down jobs in the process. “And so you’re going to see a big shift in skills,” he said.

He added that instead of replacing jobs, new technology will transform them and alter what bosses expect from the people who fill them.

“You take all the traditional IT jobs — I think over the next decade probably half of those jobs will probably go away. But they’re replaced by a new set of capabilities around data science and machine learning and advanced analytics — things that are leveraging cognitive capabilities, but doing it with human focus as well,” he said.

Thomas said that with IBM’s DataWorks (IBM’s answer to cognitive data demand), “We’re going to provide them a platform that automates the process of doing a lot of these analytics.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of BigDataNYC 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE