My kids grew up with the Internet. They blog. They tweet. They are on Facebook. They play online games. They buy stuff online. They can’t imagine a world without connectivity.

For that matter, neither can I. And, I’m sure, for many of you as well.

This is a new generation that has been defined by Booz & Company as Generation C. The Generation Cers are generally born after 1990, and have never lived a day without the Internet. They are always connected, creating contents, working and playing on their computers/mobile devices, joining communities. Basically, this is a generation of digital natives, who are always clicking.

While I was definitely not born after 1990, I consider myself very much a member of Generation C as well. I live a very connected lifestyle. And, other baby boomers like me, the Gen X and Gen Y, employees and employers, from industrialized countries, from developing nations are all Generation Cers.

This group is formidable. The Generation Cers are based everywhere in the world, and they consume services and use applications from everywhere in the world. By 2020, Generation C will be the largest group of consumers worldwide. Organizations from anywhere in the world with sound business models and leading edge solutions have a fair chance of targeting the Generation Cers to capture this huge Generation C market.

This generation practically lives in the cloud. We are connecting professionally on LinkedIn, acquiring applications on AppStores, doing banking online, reading eBooks and finding what we need using location-based services. We expect these services to be available when we want them, where we want them – delivered quickly, reliably and securely. We, the consumer, are driving how business is delivered today, and definitely tomorrow.

According to Booz, by 2020, this demographic will make up 40 percent of the population in the U.S., Europe, and the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries, and 10 percent in the rest of the world—and by then, they will constitute the largest group of consumers worldwide.

This presents tremendous opportunities for businesses.

Let’s look at the Asia Pacific landscape, where I am based. First, we have more than half of the world’s population. The Asia Pacific GDP is expected to grow to almost that of North America by 2015. Three of the world’s fastest growing markets are in this region – China, India and ASEAN. There are almost a billion Internet users in this region – it is the largest and fastest growing base in the world. We have the largest number of mobile phone subscribers in the world – more than 2.6 billion. In fact he world’s largest middle income purchasing power base is here, and growing. According to Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development, by 2020, this will form 42percent of global spending, which is five times that of North America. With the generally low level of IT-legacy issues in Asia Pacific, this is a market that is open to the adoption of new technology to meet the increasing demands of the Generation Cers – the cloud connected consumers.

We are at the cusp of a major inflexion point – transformation of business models, organizational structures and customer engagements.What should organizations do today, no matter where they are located, to win the hearts, minds and share of wallet of the Generation Cers?

1.    Cloud it! · 

• This generation is connected and demanding; they are early adopters of cloud services with an ever-increasing dependence on online applications and services.  They have very high expectations for both the enterprises they do business with as well as those they work for. 
• To not just keep up, but to stay ahead of this consumer group, organizations need to embrace the agility and flexibility that cloud offers – innovating on it, leveraging it and providing quality services via it.
• Organizations need to develop credible cloud-based consumer-facing business services and mobile applications, increase the adoption of social networking technologies and social media platforms to interact with their customers and clients. They will see the benefits of customer satisfaction and loyalty, increased revenue and market share, and access to this exciting new market segments.

2.    Automate and manage IT! ·  

•  While leveraging the cloud to own the leadership space in this Generation C era, organizations need greater agility, greater competitive advantage, and greater flexibility to scale. To achieve this, organizations need to simplify, control and dynamically automate business services. Automation and management are the key to speed, visibility, scalability and cost reduction for business service delivery in this era.

3.    Secure it!·      

• A no-brainer. With the massive data breaches in the world today, security is critical. Organizations need to secure across platforms, supporting the myriad of devices and protecting the copious amount of confidential data stored in public and private clouds.

It is staggering – the massive opportunity  this presents. There is a  tremendous impact that the Generation C consumption is having on business decisions and delivery worldwide. Organizations cannot ignore the fact that we are at the dawn of the new era and they must have a strategy to win in this market.