Digital Lifescapes

As a C-suite leader, you're constantly bombarded with investment opportunities. In today's large enterprise arena, few initiatives hold the same potential as Digital Transformation (DX). Yet, securing ongoing buy-in from the board and other key stakeholders hinges on a clear understanding of market momentum and the return on investment that DX promises.  A recent IDC worldwide market study sheds valuable light on this critical topic. Let's delve into some key takeaways and explore what they mean for your organization's tech strategy. Digital Transformation Market Development The IDC study describes a market surging toward investment adoption maturity. Worldwide spending on DX technologies is forecast to reach $4 trillion by 2027, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.2 percent. This exponential growth signifies an opportunity for industry leaders to leverage digital business tools and strategies to gain a competitive edge, with Artificial Intelligence (A...

The subscription business model has been one of the big success stories of the Internet era. From Netflix to Microsoft 365, more and more companies are moving towards recurring revenue streams by having customers pay for access rather than product ownership. The subscription economy cuts across many industries -- such as streaming services, software, media, consumer products, and even transportation with the rise of mobility-as-a-service. A new market study by Juniper Research highlights the central challenge facing subscription businesses -- reducing customer churn to build a loyal subscriber installed base. Subscription Model Market Development The Juniper market study provides an in-depth analysis of the subscription business model market landscape and associated customer retention strategies. A key finding is that impending government regulations will make it easier for customers to cancel subscriptions, likely leading to increased voluntary churn rates. The study report cites the...

Most CIOs recognize the essential role that emerging technology has in enabling digital business transformation. However, what they often don't know is how prepared their employees, IT systems, and internal processes are to embrace change. Gartner has highlighted the six key trends that will have a significant impact on enterprise IT infrastructure and operations (I&O) organizations over the next 12 to 18 months. "I&O leaders have little time, skills and budget to track emerging trends and the full impact of those on I&O," said Jeffrey Hewitt, vice president at Gartner . Savvy leaders should apply the top trends within I&O for 2024 to identify which are most likely to impact their organization, and then implement effective actions in response. According to Gartner's research, the top trends in 2024 are as follows: Machine Customers Machine customers are non-human economic actors that obtain goods or services in exchange for payment, such as virtual per...

Senior executives in the world’s largest and most complex organizations will develop the insights required to achieve lasting Digital Transformation. Gartner has identified a model for digital business growth that binds together data, analytics, technology, and forward-looking transformation capabilities. The Gartner Research Board said that data and analytics (D&A) leaders are uniquely positioned to drive this strategic organizational change that will make their companies behave like 'digital native' leaders.  "The most advanced and successful D&A leaders are driving new opportunities to use digital capabilities – often data and analytics products – to capture value. Those opportunities should directly connect to the business priorities," said Mario Faria, vice president at Gartner . Digital Business Market Development At the same time, some leaders are using digital and D&A to create whole new business models. These leaders – which Gartner named the CxO ...

Expect to see and hear more commentary about fifth-generation (5G) wireless communication related national leadership policies in 2019. Physical industries are rapidly transforming on an unprecedented scale with digitization becoming a critical priority that fuels the Global Networked Economy. As an example, end-to-end 5G network slicing is promised to be a growing part of that transformation but mobile telecom service providers must change all aspects of their business before they address it. 5G Infrastructure Market Development ABI Research has forecast that network slicing stands to create approximately $66 billion in value for enterprise industry verticals -- including manufacturing, logistics, and transportation -- by 2026. 5G network slicing has become the focus of much attention in part due to its intrinsic ability to afford flexibility and dedicated resources tuned to different industrial use cases. Legacy networks and wired technology dominate in the fragmented industr...

Informed management consultants and industry analysts agree, the digital transformation journey begins with the adoption of digital marketing practices that enable companies to evolve beyond obsolete advertising-centric thinking. Today's progressive marketers have embraced change. They've learned new skills and pushed past the fears that were once holding them back. Now, digital marketing is an imperative, and digital commerce is also a top priority, according to the latest market study by Gartner, Inc. The recent Gartner survey also found that marketing budgets increased by 10 percent in 2015, with 61 percent of respondents saying they expect budgets to increase once again in 2016. "There is little doubt that digital marketing is now mainstream," said Yvonne Genovese, group vice president at Gartner . "Marketers no longer make a clear distinction between offline and online marketing disciplines." Gartner believes that as more enterprise customers op...

Communication service providers can no longer continue down their traditional path of revenue generation and expect to survive, due to the overwhelming evidence that their legacy business strategy is obsolete. Dramatic shifts and changes in the marketplace now require decisive action. Small incremental tweaks to old business plans and established financial models cannot result in the desired outcomes. A major crossroads has been reached. There are two options; either adapt to the apparent market realities or continue along the road to perpetual decline and eventual ruin. The global telecoms industry revenue will remain roughly flat over the next few years, with a decline in spending on voice services counterbalanced by growth in spending on mobile and fixed (broadband) data services, according to the latest market study by Ovum. In a recent market forecast analysis, it was determined that as growth slows, market realities mean that communication network service providers must fin...

The U.S. pay-TV market had an adoption rate that service providers in other nations would envy. For the longest time it seemed that the only way to go was up. The incumbent's quest for more channels was coupled with the desire to add new features like optional pay-per-view offerings and DVR capabilities in set-top boxes. The result: upward trending subscriber growth -- with a corresponding increased revenue and profit. Meanwhile, all the status-quo players supported a perpetual increase in the ongoing cost of sporting event programming. The assumption was that these high-cost sports channels would be subsidized by the masses. Everyone had to pay the price -- including subscribers that rarely or never watched ESPN. The video entertainment ecosystem was tightly controlled by the business development needs of a few large media companies. Others in the ecosystem had to adapt to their demands -- therefore most complied. Nobody seemed to care that the fundamental business models were...

To date, the traditional publishing industry has been negatively impacted by the shift from print to online distribution -- it's a disruptive market transition that has been very challenging for the majority of legacy print media companies. Moreover, consumers have resisted paying for most content on the web, and the soft economy has taken a toll on the online advertising-based models that many publishers embraced -- in the hope that it would become a replacement for their declining print revenue. The arrival of eReaders and media tablets comes at an opportune time for publishers. But there's a key question, yet to be answered. Are they fully prepared to embrace the apparent trends in the marketplace and adapt their business models? An accelerated plan of action is essential, not optional. The Amazon Kindle and Apple iPad clearly established new device categories and the customers for these products have responded by buying more digital content. eMarketer estimates th...

The mobile phone applications market continues to grow. According to the latest market study by Generator Research , in 2015 over 255 million people worldwide will have downloaded and used mobile applications -- which represents about 22 percent of the worldwide smartphone user base. Meanwhile, the revenue from mobile applications -- including in-app payments -- will grow to over $23 billion in less than five years. By way of comparison, according to IFPI -- the recorded music industry trade group -- the value of worldwide sales of recorded music in 2009 was $17 billion. The modern mobile applications market is only 5 years old, whereas the recorded music industry is over 100 years old. Although the mobile application market was pioneered in the late 1990s by companies like Nokia, the adoption was limited to mobile-savvy users who were prepared to spend time working around the technical intricacies and clumsy user interfaces typical of early smartphones. However, the launch of ...

Mobile phone network operators -- either independently or in partnership with banks, other financial institutions and mobile payment service providers -- are developing platforms and applications to offer mobile payment services. Such initiatives have seen the worldwide mobile payments market evolve significantly in recent years, with mobile handsets now readily used for a variety of payment-related transactions. According to the latest market study by Portio Research , the worldwide mobile payments volume -- denoting the face value of purchases and transactions through mobile handsets -- stood at $68.7 billion in 2009, up from $45.6 billion in 2008, and will surge nine-fold to reach $633.4 billion by end-2014. In 2009, there were 81.3 million mobile payment users worldwide and this number is forecast to grow over six-fold to reach nearly 490 million by the end of 2014, seeing the worldwide penetration of mobile payment users increasing over four-fold to reach almost 8 percent by...

Recently, Nielsen conducted a global survey of more than 27,000 consumers in 54 countries to examine attitudes about paying for online content -- and to determine which content types people were most willing to buy. The study findings uncovered that consumers are either "willing to pay" for online content, or are "open to increased advertising" by content sponsors -- but that attitudes vary greatly by geography, demographics and content type. Nielsen believes that people have therefore shown a higher propensity to pay for music, movies, games and "professionally produced" video -- in contrast to podcasts, blogs or consumer generated video. Nielsen says this now validates that people still place more value on content produced by "professionals" than by others. Likewise, people are more inclined to buy what they already pay for, rather than on what they currently get for free. Moreover, Nielsen concludes that while people are more willing to pay f...