Emerging technology trends that can change how businesses work in next 3 years

There is no denying that digital technology has become the priority of every business. This means that every company is working on digital transformations and that digital itself is no longer differentiating. To set them apart from each other companies will have to take notice of the emerging trends.

According to Accenture’s 2019 report titled ‘The Post Digital Era Is Upon Us’, five emerging trends in 2019 will shape businesses in the next three years.  

DARQ

The report said that in the coming years power of cloud and artificial intelligence will continue to advance but what will reshape business is the combination of technologies like distributed ledger, extended reality, and quantum computing (DARQ).

As many as 89 percent of businesses are already experimenting with one or more DARQ technologies, the report said. Companies like Volkswagen with early-stage tests and pilots are gaining expertise, forming key partnerships, and building up DARQ capabilities.

The company has used quantum computing to test traffic flow optimization.  Volkswagen also teamed with Nvidia to add AI capabilities to future models. In addition, it is testing distributed ledgers with an eye to protect cars from hackers, facilitate automatic payments at gas stations, create tamper proof odometers.

Get to Know Me

Another technology trend to watch out for will be Get to Know Me.

Companies are using technologies to interact with customers. And to bring this experience to the forefront companies will have to understand every customer’s technology identity that they leave behind after every interaction.

Lending platform SlicePay which serves unbanked students in India uses technological insights to build applicant profiles that replace traditional financial histories.

Netflix is another example to favour this trend. The OTT (over the top) platform came up with a download feature for Indian consumers to be in sync with connectivity and invested in mobile video encoding to guarantee the same experience to all customers, as mostly Indian consumers are primarily mobile users.

Human+ Worker

Reskilling employees will also be one way that companies can set themselves apart. A renewed focus on workforce will decide winners and losers, the report said.

One example of this is Telenor Group that challenged its employees to dedicate 40 working hours self-learning. The company found that not only did the workers meet the challenge but they exceeded it as they nearly doubled the time spent online. And for 2019, they have renewed the challenge.

Secure US to Secure ME

According to the report, to deal with threats like cyber attacks companies will have to expand the horizons of their risk assessment and threat modeling to account for a much wider threat landscape.

Siemens is helping move its entire ecosystem and industry players toward this reality with a Charter of Trust initiative that the company established in 2018. 30 Partners signing the charter agree to make commitments to a number of cybersecurity tenets. These include baking security into the design of products and technologies, collaboratively innovating on cyber security measures, providing transparency on incidents to all participants, and more, the report added. 

MyMarkets

According to the survey conducted by Accenture, 85 percent of executives agree the integration of customization and real/near time delivery is the next big wave of competitive advantage.

Paper Boat is using this technology to create an intensely customized and on-demand experiences.

The beverage brand operating in India uses hyper customization as a key driver of market growth. The company runs seasonal beverages to celebrate regional holidays and uses local variants to ensure customers in every region are delighted.

The company takes localized feedback from customers by surveying them on WhatsApp, using the aggregated data to continuously gain new insight with a proprietary analytics platform.

Its factory, fully equipped with Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, is extremely flexible: changing recipes takes at most two to three minutes, is transacted through computers, and even factors in external variables like weather and air pressure to ensure the finished beverage tastes exactly as intended, the report explained.