Digital Lifescapes

Digital business growth continues to fuel the Global Networked Economy, which requires a corresponding investment in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure. Despite the trade war between the United States and China, purchases of ICT systems and services will maintain steady growth over the next five years. According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), ICT spending on hardware, software, services, and telecommunications will achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.8 percent over the 2019-2023 forecast period, reaching $4.8 trillion in 2023. ICT Infrastructure Market Development Digital transformation and the adoption of automation technologies will be driving ongoing investment in applications, analytics, middleware, and data management software -- as well as increasing demand for IT server and storage capacity. Commercial purchases will account for nearly two-thirds of all ICT spending by 2023 -- that...

As artificial intelligence (AI) evolves, applications of augmented intelligence -- the combination of human and AI capabilities -- will likely deliver the greatest benefits. CIOs should prioritize augmented intelligence to scale their employee talent as one of the most valuable contributions to business innovation. In 2021, artificial intelligence (AI) augmentation will create $2.9 trillion of business value and 6.2 billion hours of worker productivity globally, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. Augmented Intelligence Market Development Gartner defines 'augmented intelligence' as a human-centered partnership model of people and AI technologies working together to enhance cognitive performance. This includes learning, decision making and new experiences. "Augmented intelligence is all about people taking advantage of AI," said Svetlana Sicular, research vice president at Gartner . "As AI technology evolves, the combined human and A...

Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies have received a significant amount of media attention over the last couple of quarters. Regardless, the market for these emerging technologies is still in the early stages of applications growth. That said, global revenues for blockchain technology are on track to reach almost $10 billion by 2023, according to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research. Blockchain Market Development Enterprise organizations continue to show growing interest in blockchain applications, in contrast to the significant decrease in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) during 2018. Vendor Investment continues to swell, buoyed primarily by an increase in venture capital (VC) funding, notably in blockchain infrastructure development. VC funding is catching up to ICOs, with 620 investment rounds totaling $3.1 billion in 2018 -- that's up from 153 rounds at $850 million in 2017. "Tighter regulation (including securities) and taxation on cryptocu...

The retail market has undergone a radical transformation, driven by an increasing focus on customer use of technology. Indeed, shoppers are now everywhere: in retailer stores, online or both at the same time -- comparison shopping via their smartphones. It's forcing retailers to offer superior shopping experiences that are coupled with omnichannel payments. By the end of 2019, eCommerce will have a significant role to play with 44 percent of the global population purchasing physical goods and 27 percent purchasing digital goods. Since eRetail has been disrupting the sector, legacy retailers have learned to incorporate more digital channels into their own offerings. Remote Payments Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the total transaction value of remote payments for digital and physical goods will exceed $6 trillion by 2024 -- that's a growth rate of 53 percent from 2019. The new study revealed that online sales will ...

Clinical-grade remote patient monitoring (RPM) is a solution that involves the secure transmission of medical data collected on devices, via telecommunications services. It's enabled through text, sound, images or other digital media used for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of healthcare patients. The applications of emerging technologies such as the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Big Data analytics are enabling vendors to develop new use cases for remote patient monitoring. Remote Patient Monitoring Market Development In recent years, venture capitalists have increasingly invested in start-ups with competencies in these areas, especially integrated and lower-cost monitors and sensors. With this development, RPM will help to shift some healthcare services from the hospital to the home. According to the latest market study by Frost & Sullivan, RPM is forecast to become a mainstream medical service, with related rev...

The pace of cloud computing adoption will accelerate as more organizations explore hybrid IT strategies. CIOs and CTOs will fine-tune the mix of on-premises and managed cloud services for their user's varied applications and workloads. Worldwide spending on public cloud services and infrastructure will more than double over the 2019-2023 forecast period, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). With a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.3 percent, public cloud spending is forecast to grow from $229 billion in 2019 to reach nearly $500 billion in 2023. Public Cloud Service Market Development "Adoption of public (shared) cloud services continues to grow rapidly as enterprises, especially in professional services, telecommunications, and retail, continue to shift from traditional application software to software as a service (SaaS) and from traditional infrastructure to infrastructure as a service (IaaS) to empower custo...

The global automotive industry continues to explore ways to integrate the internet of things (IoT) technology into vehicles during the manufacturing process. Connected car capabilities provide the foundation for third parties to offer innovative new telematics-related applications. According to the latest worldwide market study by Berg Insight, the number of active aftermarket car telematics units will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.6 percent from 58.7 million at the end of 2018 to 150 million at the end of 2023. Automobile Telematics Market Development Berg Insight’s definition of an aftermarket car telematics solution includes both cellular GNSS and RF-based solutions. A growing number of aftermarket telematics services have in the past few years become available for consumers that want to add services and connectivity to automobiles. Berg Insight forecasts that shipments of aftermarket car telematics devices for consumer applications will grow from 20.3 m...

What's driving the growth of Information Technology (IT) applications, and why are senior executive buyers so opinionated about the most effective IT investment strategy? Digital business transformation is on the agenda of every forward-looking enterprise. Leaders in the C-suite are key decision-makers. Global IT spending is projected to total $3.74 trillion in 2019 -- that's an increase of just 0.6 percent from 2018, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. Note, this forecast is slightly down from the previous quarter’s forecast of 1.1 percent anticipated growth. Information Technology Market Development "Despite uncertainty fueled by recession rumors, Brexit, trade wars and tariffs, we expect IT spending to remain flat in 2019," said John-David Lovelock, vice president at Gartner . "While there is great variation in growth rates at the country level, virtually all countries tracked by Gartner will see growth in 2019." Regardless ...

The presence of cybercriminal activity online is an everyday challenge within the enterprise finance sector. Cybercrime is now an established threat to corporations and their customers. It's largely due to IT security policies that are difficult to enforce and the under-utilization of effective encryption. Coupled with the challenges of cybercrime, financial service institutions now experience business model disruption from innovative Fintech start-ups and increasing regulatory oversight from legislation such as the Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2). IT Security Market Development It's in this atmosphere that financial sector leaders must make informed decisions on where to focus their IT budget to achieve security resilience. The Return on Investment (ROI) for an IT security project is not an easy calculation -- knowledge and experience are crucial in making those decisions. The bottom line is the traditional financial sector must apply best-fit cybersecurity me...

The collaborative robot (cobot) industry is advancing globally as more companies seek to lower manufacturing costs and increase the speed of production. While the established industrial robot vendors have made some progress, the pure cobot developers are creating ergonomic systems. Guided by early innovators and adopters, the collaborative robotics market will become mainstream over the next 10 years. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, the yearly revenue for cobot arms will reach $11.8 billion by 2030 -- that's an increase from $711 million in 2019. Collaborative Robot Market Development Furthermore, the total value of the collaborative market is much greater, when accounting for software-related revenues and end-of-arm tooling (EOAT) accessories. Under this broader definition of the market, the cobot ecosystem is worth just over $1 billion in 2019 and will be worth $24 billion by 2030, with a CAGR of 28.6 percent. "The prospects for the co...

Historically, the traditional insurance sector has been reluctant to change established methods. However, the relationship between insurance companies and technology vendors has evolved, as emerging Insurtech offerings disrupt the legacy insurer business model. The overall insurance market is experiencing significant upheaval, as new technology-enabled solutions impact the prior status quo. As an example, the use of price comparison websites is commonplace and other forms of customer-facing online services are widespread. However, the internal processes of loss notification, claims management and underwriting have not changed much from those used by insurers many decades ago. Therefore, savvy Insurtech vendors can help to revolutionize outmoded methods and introduce new ideas to the insurance marketplace. Insurtech Market Development That said, traditional insurers are now becoming increasingly involved within the Insurtech space, through direct investments and strategic partne...

The world of high-performance computing (HPC) will continue to evolve, as enterprise CIOs and CTOs anticipate the future demands for IT Infrastructure capable of supporting new workloads. That said, there isn't enough computing capability today to process the amount of data being created and stored, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). The processing power required to convert the flood of structured and unstructured data into useful and valuable insights, for a new class of digital business workloads, must now scale faster than Moore's law ever predicted. HPC Platform Market Development To address this gap, the computing industry is taking a new path that leverages alternative computing architectures like DSPs, GPUs, FPGAs for acceleration and offloading of computing tasks in order to limit the tax on the general-purpose compute architecture in the system. IDC believes these architectures are key to the enablement of artificial i...

In the Global Networked Economy, your digital identity is very important. Every organization wants to know, from retailers to banks. There are two issues: fraudsters can exploit the system when an email address or password is all that's required. When the burden of proof is higher, this can be problematic for users. According to the latest worldwide study by Juniper Research, the applications of unique mobile identifier services, which provide secure digital identity verification through SIMs, will generate over $7 billion for mobile network operators in 2024. This estimate is up from an expected $859 million in 2019 -- a growth rate of over 800 percent. Digital Identity Market Development The new research findings noted that, particularly in emerging economies with limited government identity provision, mobile phones will become the primary source of digital identity for over 3 billion people by 2024. These will be used heavily because they are simpler to scale than card-b...

Why are more organizations creating Chief Digital Officer (CDO) roles? Why are CMOs and CIOs more likely to collaborate on new digital transformation projects? Digital business growth is driven by the development and deployment of superior online experiences. Three-quarters of the organizations surveyed by Gartner increased customer experience (CX) technology investments in 2018. Customer analytics continues to be one of the biggest investments, with 52 percent intending to increase funding in 2019, focusing on customer journey analysis, customer needs analysis, voice of the customer (VoC) and digital marketing. Customer Experience Market Development Gartner's 2019 survey gathered data from respondents in seven countries within North America, Western Europe and Asia-Pacific regions, across a wide range of industries. The objective of the study was to understand the priorities, technology investments and high-stakes situations faced by organizations in the planning of their CX...

The Internet of Things (IoT) has numerous applications within the energy and utility sector. As an example, smart meter penetration in North America is forecast to reach 81 percent by 2024. A smart meter is a new kind of gas and electricity meter that can digitally send meter readings to the energy supplier for more accurate consumption readings. Smart meters can also provide in-home displays that enable the consumer to better monitor and manage their energy usage. According to the latest worldwide market study by Berg Insight, the installed base of smart electricity meters in North America will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8 percent between 2018 and 2024 to reach 142.8 million units at the end of the forecast period. Smart Meter Market Development Over the next five years, smart meter penetration among electricity customers in the U.S. and Canada is projected to increase from around 60 percent in 2018 to more than 80 percent by the end of 2024. "North Americ...

Most enterprise CIOs and CTOs now operate in a 'coexistence environment' where traditional data center (non-cloud), private cloud and public cloud all are an essential part of their IT infrastructure. This technology mix will continue in the foreseeable future. Furthermore, this mix will change slowly. According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), vendor revenue from sales of IT infrastructure products for cloud environments -- including public and private cloud -- grew 11.4 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2019 (1Q19), reaching $14.5 billion. IDC also lowered its forecast for total spending on cloud IT infrastructure in 2019 to $66.9 billion – that's down 4.5 percent from last quarter's forecast – with slower year-over-year growth of 1.6 percent. Cloud Infrastructure Market Development Vendor revenue from hardware infrastructure sales to public cloud environments in 1Q19 was down 13.4 percent compared to t...

The advantage of a digital wallet is that -- for both online and offline transactions -- it affords the user an opportunity to make secure, quick payments, obviating the need for a physical card or to enter bank details for every purchase. For the unbanked, it goes further, providing a means of economic inclusion, both as an alternative to cash payments and as a way of accessing financial services such as loans and savings accounts. For the wallet provider, service evolution from the early days of online payments and person-to-person remittance has enabled several fintech vendors to achieve a strong presence across the payments and retail ecosystems. This now extends both to offering offline and online goods payments on their own and third-party storefronts, together with loyalty programs, bill payments and digital banking services. Digital Wallet Market Development Spending via digital wallets across Europe and North America will increase by 40 percent this year to nearly $7...

New satellite constellations are being launched to improve the connectivity options for the Internet of Things (IoT) market. Many application segments will benefit from these new constellations due to the larger range of coverage they offer when compared to terrestrial communication networks. Different IoT application segments require different types of communication connectivity. Some IoT apps will require real-time connectivity to have a constant flow of data and information, yet some will only require near real-time. IoT App Connectivity Market Development By 2024, there will be 24 million IoT connections made via satellite, according to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research. Their analysis unveils the long-term opportunity within the satellite space for the growth of IoT deployments, particularly in application verticals, such as agriculture and asset tracking. "Terrestrial cellular networks only cover 20 percent of the Earth’s surface, while satellite netw...

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...