Digital Lifescapes

The informed CEO, and board of directors for multinational enterprises, will seek digital growth from their business technology investments. Moreover, the ongoing global pandemic and the surge in digital services are making cloud computing the centerpiece of new digital experiences, according to Gartner. "There is no business strategy without a cloud strategy," said Milind Govekar, vice president at Gartner . "The adoption and interest in public cloud continues unabated as organizations pursue a 'cloud first' policy for onboarding new workloads." Global Cloud Computing Market Development In 2022, global cloud revenue is forecast to total $474 billion -- that's up from $408 billion in 2021. Over the next few years, Gartner analysts estimate cloud revenue will surpass non-cloud revenue for relevant enterprise IT markets. Gartner analysts believe that more than 85 percent of organizations will embrace a cloud-first principle by 2025 and will not be able to ...

Open Banking initiatives are driving market disruptors in financial services, with Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) and Embedded Finance. They're an enabler for the delivery of these fintech digital services transformation concepts.  While the basic concepts are not totally new, their rise to prominence was fuelled by the European Union's Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) and other key initiatives in recent years. This transition has helped shape interaction patterns between traditional and emerging actors in the payments marketplace. As such, Open Banking will be a game-changer for business model innovation in the face of customer demands for improved financial products and services. Open Banking Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the value of global payment transactions facilitated by Open Banking will exceed $116 billion in 2026 -- that's up from just under $4 billion in 2021. This extraordinary growth rate of over 2,...

Chief executives are eager to accelerate a digital business growth agenda. Focused on business model reinvention, the remediation of technical debt, sustainable IT infrastructure and more, International Data Corporation (IDC) unveiled their Worldwide CIO Agenda 2022 Predictions. The key IDC predictions will likely impact CIOs and IT professionals over the next one-to-five years. IDC analysts believe IT leaders have opportunities that will not present themselves again in their lifetimes. Chief Information Officer Agenda Predictions With forward-looking insights, IDC provides senior IT leaders and Line-of-Business (LoB) executives with actionable guidance for managing IT investment priorities and implementation strategies as they continue to navigate the winds of change. The top ten IDC predictions are: 1: Through 2026, 65 percent of CIOs will sustain a cycle of tech-based empowerment, agility, and resilience through collaborative governance, new service delivery models, and a business o...

Nothing can stop the continued growth of global wireless communications. Despite a slight decline in the worldwide mobile subscriber base resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, mobile network operators across different markets continue to expand fifth-generation (5G) infrastructure deployments. By the end of 2020, 264 million subscriptions were achieved. According to the worldwide market study by ABI Research, the 5G market will continue to accelerate and reach 2.6 billion subscriptions -- that's a significant contribution to mobile network operator revenue of $942 billion in 2026. 5G Wireless Network Market Development Driven by the investment of local network operators, China is a leader of the 5G market, holding more than two-thirds of worldwide 5G subscriptions at present. The United States is second in 5G adoption with more than 50 million subscribers, followed by the leading markets in Japan and South Korea. "Operators' effort to expand 5G networks, combined with qui...

The COVID-19 global pandemic fueled the trend of pushing executives outside of their comfort zone, while government-mandated lockdowns required their knowledge worker employees to work from home. Companies that previously avoided 'Flexible Working' models were forced to embrace the pervasive trend in a matter of weeks, as new remote working policies became a CHRO standard practice. As we enter 2022, more employers will empower their key employees to work wherever they desire and engage with customers whenever and however they prefer. Moreover, the ongoing transformation to an 'Anywhere Workspace' will drive strategic IT spending and advance cloud-based SaaS adoption. Business Technology Market Development Global enterprise IT spending is projected to total $4.5 trillion in 2022, an increase of 5.5 percent over 2021, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. "Enterprises will increasingly build new technologies and software, rather than buy and imp...

The COVID-19 pandemic created unprecedented demand for emergency care. Many healthcare sector leaders would like to be at the forefront of tech-enabled medical caregiving. However, the fragmented way that hospitals acquire solutions can introduce cost, time, and resource inefficiencies that hinder care delivery. As a result, some healthcare providers have embraced the concept of the ‘Smart Hospital’ as a means of optimizing multiple aspects of their operational performance. The current model isn't perfect, and the implementation can present challenges -- such as cybersecurity, interoperability, and solution execution. Smart Hospital Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the smart hospitals market will be worth $59 billion by 2026 -- that's up from $29 billion in 2021, representing an average annual growth of 15 percent. The concept of the smart hospital includes healthcare providers leveraging advanced analytics, connected device...

As more enterprise CIOs and CTOs transition to the cloud, the opportunities for managed service providers (MSPs) expanded. At the same time, the managed cloud services market has become more complex as organizations increasingly look to their service providers for superior solutions and business technology leadership. A worldwide survey by International Data Corporation (IDC) examined the service and business requirements that MSPs and their ecosystem partners need to optimize their growth opportunities and drive competitive advantage in the market for managed cloud services. Managed Cloud Services Market Development Due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders utilize public cloud capabilities (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), innovative technologies and processes (IoT, edge computing, blockchain), and multi-cloud management platforms for their growth strategies and to ensure business resiliency. While very few organizations have shifted all of their IT applications and infrastructure to the cloud...

The COP26 Summit (in Glasgow, Scotland)  brought parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Meanwhile, the circular economy is a key sustainability strategy adopted by industry leaders in their efforts to achieve progress. While the circular economy is still in its infancy in terms of data and metrics, it's a growing phenomenon where technology sectors -- such as the Internet of Things (IoT) for asset tracking -- are set to grow rapidly within the next five years. Global technology intelligence firm ABI Research forecasts that the world will achieve over 10.5 percent circularity by 2030, as sustainability efforts and incoming legislation start to take effect. Circular Economy Tech Market Development "The circular economy is an often-misunderstood concept that goes much further than waste management and can become a blueprint for cities. It is a movement away from our take-make-waste economy ...

In today's environment where business technology is a key enabler of competitive advantage, CEOs need to be sure that someone is confidently leading digital business growth across the organization. The default is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) role. According to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner, in order to accelerate business value creation, CIOs and other IT executives should focus on three key areas -- leading from anywhere, nurturing connections, and reaching beyond. Mbula Schoen, senior research director at Gartner , said that as organizations continue to emerge from the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, CIOs and IT executives will need to generate value in fundamentally new ways. Business Technology Market Development Gartner forecasts that by the end of 2022, the share of knowledge workers working remotely will increase to 47 percent -- that's up from 27 percent in 2019. However, simply moving from onsite to remote is not the destination but merely a...

Business-to-Business (B2B) payments represent a significant upside growth opportunity for fintech vendors. While many businesses have been transferring funds to each other for a long time, the typical process remains difficult to navigate due to the many workflow challenges. B2B payments can take a variety of forms ranging from basic cash payments to sophisticated instruments like virtual cards, which solve the problems of B2B payments to varying degrees, but some core challenges remain. The ever-greater use of process automation is also a key trend within the B2B payments arena and represents a potential solution if the underlying payment systems can support the necessary elements. B2B Payments Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the transaction value of B2B domestic payments across payment methods will exceed $54 trillion in 2023 -- that's up from $49 trillion in 2021. The research findings predict a growth rate of 10 percent, re...

According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation ( IDC ), spending on compute and storage products for cloud computing infrastructure -- including dedicated and shared environments -- decreased 2.4 percent year-over-year in the second quarter of 2021 (2Q21) to $16.8 billion. This decrease comes after six quarters of year-over-year growth, and most notably compares to the 39.1 percent annual growth seen by the market in 2Q20, when the world just entered the pandemic with the first wave of business and country closures causing a spike in investments in cloud services and infrastructure. In contrast, investments in non-cloud infrastructure increased 3.4 percent year-over-year in 2Q21 to $13.4 billion recovering from a 7.2 percent decline in 2Q20. Proving, once again, that the demand for Hybrid IT infrastructure continues to fluctuate from quarter to quarter and year to year. Cloud Computing Infrastructure Market Development Spending on shared cloud infrastr...

The traditional media and entertainment (M&E) industry continues to undergo a transformative process, adapting to customer preferences, new tech, and government regulations. Meanwhile, new direct-to-consumer online entertainment services and pay-TV cord-cutting have created disruptive challenges. These rapidly evolving trends also include handling the high volumes of data generated, complexities in audience targeting and identity resolution, and the need for deeper levels of personalization. All these changes are making artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) essential to automating many digital media processes -- including content selection, content management, media workflows, customer relations, and digital advertising. Media and Entertainment Tech Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, the upside market potential for AI/ML revenue growth within the M&E sector will reach $16.5 billion by 2026. Personalization is becomi...

Leaders of Customer Care and Support teams have discovered that the legacy approach of designing and building call centers with rows upon rows of agents in tiny cubicles is obsolete. Staff turnover is typically very high in these environments. Now, there's a better approach on the horizon, as a result of experience gained from the COVID-19 pandemic era. Contact center as a service (CCaaS) will likely reach full mainstream adoption in less than two years, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. Some customer service and support early adopters of CCaaS have overcome the initial hurdles and are beginning to experience the benefits. "CCaaS is a growth market," said Drew Kraus, vice president at Gartner . "The technology offers greater software agility with a lower cost of ownership, making it a key area of investment in innovation and customer service applications that surpasses the offers of legacy premises-based or server technology." Contact Ce...

If you answer the phone and hear a recorded message instead of a live person, it's likely a robocall. A robocall is a phone call that uses a computerized autodialer to deliver a pre-recorded message. In 2020, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) received 2.8 million consumer complaints about robocalls. Offering solutions to robocalling and associated fraudulent business practices, computerized mitigation platforms are an integral part of the solution. Platforms that are focused on actionable systems to disrupt unsolicited and potentially criminal phone calls help telecom service providers and industry regulators. Issues of whether one-size-fits-all developments are sufficient to be effective across the spectrum need to be addressed, and whether a single telecom network operator working unilaterally with a third-party platform could compromise desired or mandatory industry-wide standards. Robocall Mitigation Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Jun...

While most senior executives at progressive organizations have already evolved their human resource policies to accommodate employee desire for flexible working models, others still resist change. Unfortunately, many of the laggards are now experiencing the "Great Resignation" phenomenon. The global pandemic required business leaders to rethink when, where, and how their knowledge workers and front-line employees perform their work. Yet even with the ongoing pandemic recovery slowly underway, some organizations are still trying to determine their workforce approach. According to the latest worldwide market study and recent survey data from International Data Corporation (IDC), stability and geography will likely define the balance of future work strategies. Distributed Workforce Market Development On a global basis, physical office sites are expected to be the dominant location for work as legacy organizations eventually find themselves in a more stable environment. However, ...

The adoption of fifth-generation (5G) wireless technology apps will create demand for new categories of software and related services. Topping that list of requirements is securing connections and devices from cyber threats. ABI Research forecasts that by 2026, Internet of Things (IoT) cellular wireless network connections will number more than 3 billion -- with 4G LTE and LPWA networks bearing most of these connections -- driving the $8 billion market for IoT security services. IT Security Services Market Development The opportunity to deliver secure IoT communications on these networks will be key to the successful deployment of connected things on a global scale, and for the eventual transition to 5G New Radio (NR). According to the ABI assessment, the security industry is amid significant new technology developments to provide secure cellular connectivity solutions to IoT stakeholders across the board. With the emergence of new cellular standards such as NB-IoT, LTE-M and 5G MMTC, ...

Across the globe, more organizations are investing in the modernization of information technology (IT) infrastructure and associated service offerings. For many senior executives, the motivation is obvious and compelling. While most of the IT spending within the commercial enterprise sector is targeted at fueling their digital business growth agenda, the public sector also has its own compelling goals and objectives. Worldwide government IT spending is now forecast to total $557.3 billion in 2022 -- that's an increase of 6.5 percent from 2021, according to the latest global market study by Gartner. Government IT Market Development "Governments will continue to accelerate investments in digital technologies to respond and recover from the continuing evolution of public health uncertainties due to the COVID-19 pandemic," said Irma Fabular, vice president at Gartner . According to the Gartner assessment, the disruptions caused by the pandemic have also reinforced a key digit...

Building on significant advances in big data, analytics, and the Internet of Things (IoT), more innovative transit service offerings aim to increase public transport ridership and reduce emissions or congestion within metropolitan areas. By providing these services through smartphone apps, the transit services also significantly increase user convenience, providing information on different human mobility offerings -- including public transport, ridesharing, and autonomous vehicles. Mobility-as-a-Service Market Development According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) subscribers will generate $53 billion in revenue for MaaS platform providers by 2027 -- that's rising from $5.3 billion in 2021. Let's start with a basic definition. MaaS is the provision of multi-modal end-to-end travel services through single platforms, by which users can determine an optimal route and price. The study identified a monthly subscription model as key to incr...

In early 2020, as the world responded to the COVID-19 pandemic disruption, many organizations were forced to rapidly transform their communications networks and IT infrastructure to support an unprecedented shift to remote work. Before the pandemic, approximately 38 percent of employees were remote full-time or had a flexible work arrangement where they split time between home and office locations. During the pandemic, the percentage of remote workers that CIOs had to support reached almost 72 percent. Future Enterprise Technology Market Development Enterprise leaders have been forced to adapt to a new state, shifting from traditional office-based operations to distributed workforce environments that must still provide the same level of connectivity, security, and efficiency across the organization. According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), addressing connectivity across geographies and transforming networks to become more virtual and agile...

The global mobile communication sector is in the midst of a significant network infrastructure upgrade to support the introduction of new high-bandwidth and low-latency broadband service offerings.  Telecom service provider data centers have an important role in fifth-generation (5G) network deployments. Providers undergoing their transition to Stand-Alone (SA) 5G must understand the technical demands of telco data centers and the key enablers of those offerings. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, the major prerequisites of 5G and the emerging transport solutions would help operators position themselves to successfully capitalize on the new revenue opportunities from delivering differentiated 5G connectivity services. 5G Transport Network Market Development "The rise of the telco data center has a high degree of confluence with the requirements of SA 5G architectures. SA 5G and its increasing reliance on telco data centers can be attributed to the incr...