Deloitte’s annual Technology Trends report examines the ever- evolving technology landscape put to business use. This year, Deloitte selected a set of topics that have the opportunity to impact businesses across industries, geographies, and size within the next 18 to 24 months.
According to The Africa Technology leader at Deloitte Consulting, Kamal Ramsingh, “these trends have the potential to disrupt and reshape organizations, business models and even industries.”
Deloitte’s Technology Trends2015 report is an in-depth examination of eight current technology trends, ranging from the way some organizations are using application programming interfaces to extend services and create new revenue streams, to the dramatic impact connectivity and analytics are having on digital marketing; and from the evolving role of the Chief Integration Officer (CIO) to changing IT skill sets and delivery models will help make sense of the dynamics behind the changes driven by the confluence of business and technology.
Ramsingh stated that “today’s disruptive technologies can challenge CIO’s to anticipate the impacts that these forces may have on their organization. While the realities of today’s demands are by no means trivial, these trends offer CIO’s the opportunity to shape tomorrow to inspire, create and transform business as usual.”
Changes in business practices over the years have been fuelled by the innovation of technology in the work space and so this year, Deloitte looked at global technology trends by researching and studying businesses around the world including some organizations in Africa countries and it discovered eight significant technology trends that could totally transform the business world. They are;
CIO as Chief Integration Officer: CIO’s need to harness emerging disruptive technologies for the business while balancing future needs with today’s operational realities.
API economy: Application programming interfaces, also known as APIs have been elevated from a development technique to a business model driver and boardroom consideration. The core assets of an organization can be shared, re used and monetized through APIs that can extend the reach of existing services or provide new revenue streams.
Ambient computing: Ambient computing is the backdrop of sensors, intelligence, agents and devices that can put the Internet of Things to work.
Dimensional marketing: This modern era for marketing is likely to bring new challenges in the dimensions of customer engagement, connectivity, data and insight.
Software- defined everything: Software- defined everything can elevate infrastructure investments from costly plumbing to competitive differentiators.
Core renaissance: Many organizations are modernizing systems to pay down technical debt, re-platforming solutions to remove barriers to scale performance and extending their legacy infrastructures to fuel innovative new services and offerings.
Amplified intelligence: Artificial intelligence is now a reality as it is a more promising application. When built to enhance an individual’s knowledge and deployed seamlessly at the point of business impact, advanced analytics can help amplify a person’s intelligence for more effective decision making.
IT worker of the future: Companies are likely to cultivate new species such as the IT worker of the future with habits and incentives that are inherently different from those available today.
Associate Director, West Africa Technology Consulting Leader at Deloitte, Oluwole Oyeniran said the trends were chosen based on interviews and discussion group with clients and insights from Deloitte Digital and Deloitte People and Programs across multiple industries including consumer business, financial services, life sciences and healthcare, and telecommunications, media and technology to understand which tools and techniques are being adopted in thriving digital businesses today. “Big companies like banks, insurance companies, public sector companies, oil and gas and the likes, really need to move on with technology as there are huge economic benefits in the fusion of business and IT. For example, technology reduces cost when delivered strategically. We are trying to trigger ideas to grow businesses through technology,” he added.
Further explaining the chosen trends for this year, Oyeniran said “this year’s trends are practical and different by the level of adoption. We have gotten positive feedback from some Nigerian companies in the sense that there is willingness to look into these trends. Some people have started looking at them and a few of the trends are a revisiting of old ideas that are coming back. Some of the trends are things that have been done at a time that was a bit too early to make a difference in any business, but now the time is right and for the most part, it is a matter of timing.”
Jumoke Akiyode
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