Digital Lifescapes

The legacy insurance sector has experienced disruptive pressures from new technologies, start-up Insurtech competitors and changing customer demands. Within this environment, organic growth hasn't provided business transformation. Thus, insurance companies have relied on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to leapfrog traditional competitors. That said, the number of M&As in the industry has grown by 1,096 percent since 1985, and 128 percent in the past 10 years. However, business technology innovation and IT-enabled automation will likely drive the majority of new growth via digital transformation strategies. Insurtech Automation Market Development  Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a software solution which is designed to complete activities originally performed by humans. RPA is the future of most repetitive tasks that do not require cognitive capabilities, allowing employees to focus on things that deliver greater value. Moreover, RPA has proved to be much more a...

Managing big data apps is a challenge for many IT organizations. Moreover, chief data officers (CDOs) and their data and analytics (DA) teams are not achieving the best balance required to deliver superior performance, according to the latest market study by Gartner. "CDOs are generally focused upon the right things, but they do not have the right mix of activities," said Debra Logan, vice president at Gartner . Data and Analytics Market Development The Gartner survey found that while the creation of a data-driven culture was ranked the number one critical factor to the DA team, there were conflicting rankings for technical and nontechnical activities (data integration and data skills training), and strategic and tactical activities (enterprise information management [EIM] program and architecting a DA platform). While the implementation of a DA strategy was ranked the number three most-critical success factor by 28 percent of CDOs, another strategic activity – creati...

Worldwide spending on the Internet of Things (IoT) is forecast to pass the $1 trillion mark in 2022, reaching $1.1 trillion in 2023. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for IoT spending over the 2019-2023 forecast period will be 12.6 percent, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). "Spending on IoT deployments continues with good momentum and is expected to be $726 billion worldwide this year," said Carrie MacGillivray, group vice president at IDC . Internet of Things Market Development While organizations are investing in hardware, software, and services to support their IoT initiatives, their next challenge is finding solutions that help them to manage, process, and analyze the huge amounts of data being generated from all these connected things. The three commercial industries that will spend the most on IoT solutions throughout the forecast period are discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing, and transportati...

Fintech vendors will continue to target more international financial service applications. The World Bank estimates that official money transfer flows to low- and middle-income countries reached $529 billion in 2018 -- that's an increase of 9.6 percent over the previous record high of $483 billion in 2017. Global remittances, which include flows to high-income countries, reached $689 billion in 2018 -- that's up from $633 billion in 2017. In 2019, remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries are expected to reach $550 billion, to become their largest source of external financing. Money Transfer Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the volume of domestic money transfers via mobile phones will exceed 203 billion in 2024 -- that's up from 130 billion in 2019. Domestic person-to-person (P2P) payments will drive this growth, accounting for 80 percent of all domestic transfers in 2024. According to the Juniper asse...

In theory, a blockchain is an open, distributed ledger technology that can record transactions between two parties efficiently, in a verifiable and permanent way. That said, there is still some confusion in the marketplace for blockchain-related products and services that apply this emerging technology. By 2021, 90 percent of current enterprise blockchain platform implementations will require replacement within 18 months to remain competitive, secure and avoid obsolescence, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. Blockchain Application Market Development "Blockchain platforms are emerging platforms and, at this point, nearly indistinguishable in some cases from core blockchain technology," said Adrian Lee, senior research director at Gartner . According to the Gartner assessment, many CIOs overestimate the capabilities and short-term benefits of blockchain as a technology to help them achieve their business goals, thus creating unrealistic expectati...

Unlicensed wireless communication has transformed internet access across the globe. The upward growth trajectory continues to rise for Wi-Fi applications. More than 20 billion Wi-Fi devices are forecast to ship between 2019 and 2024, according to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research. Continued adoption in traditional markets of strength, alongside traction in mesh networking systems, smart home, automotive, and IoT applications will drive the Wi-Fi market forward to nearly 4 billion annual device shipments by 2024. Wi-Fi Device Market Development "2019 marks the 20th anniversary of Wi-Fi, though the technology shows no signs of slowing down," says Andrew Zignani, principal analyst at ABI Research . "Wi-Fi 6 is quickly gaining momentum in networking devices, while client devices are already arriving into the market and are anticipated to ramp up considerably over the next 12-18 months." According to the ABI assessment, demand for faster, more r...

Ongoing investment in cybersecurity solutions continues to grow. According to the latest worldwide market study by Canalys, cybersecurity solutions for public cloud and 'as a service' accelerated in the first quarter of 2019. Those deployment models collectively grew 46 percent year-on-year. These type of solutions accounted for 17.6 percent of the total cybersecurity market value -- that's up from 13.8 percent in the same period a year ago. Virtual security appliances and agent solutions also grew significantly, up by 18.2 percent on an annual basis. Cybersecurity Solutions Market Development Traditional security hardware and software deployments still dominate, representing almost 75 percent of the total market. Both deployment models continued to grow but at a slower rate of just over 8 percent. This growth highlights the ongoing transition in cybersecurity solutions, as organizations look to protect more data assets and workloads located in the public cloud. Mor...

The ongoing commitment to spend more on advertising is primarily driven by legacy marketers. The majority of CMOs in these organizations have difficulty embracing progressive methods of market development, such as digital content marketing. They continue to explore new media but stay within their comfort zone. As traditional advertisers witnessed the growth in smartphone use, they've shifted their digital ad spend -- such as display and search advertising -- to focus more on mobile devices. Most types of online advertising growth are now due to mobile internet use, which will overtake online desktop use. Digital Advertising Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the total spend on digital advertising is forecast to reach $520 billion by 2023 -- that's rising from $294 billion in 2019. That's a CAGR of 15 percent over the next 5 years; driven by the adoption of AI-based programmatic advertising to deliver highly targete...

Many enterprises are now investing in technologies and services that enable the digital transformation (DX) of their business models, products and services. According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), global DX spending will reach $1.18 trillion in 2019 -- that's an increase of 17.9 percent over 2018. "Worldwide DX technology investments are expected to total more than $6 trillion over the next four years," said Eileen Smith, vice president at IDC . "Strong DX technology investment growth is forecast across all sectors, ranging between 15 and 20 percent, with the financial sector forecast to be the fastest with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.4 percent between 2017 and 2022." Digital Transformation Market Development The two industries that will invest the most in digital transformation in 2019 are discrete manufacturing ($221.6 billion) and process manufacturing ($124.5 billion). For both industries, the top DX...