Gartner this week revealed its predictions for 2013 (and beyond). From their role at the intersection of technology and technology consumers, they have a relatively unique perspective on what’s coming next. Not too surprisingly, Gartner predicts that social, mobile, cloud and information are the Nexus of Forces that will drive change in the enterprise.
You should take the time to read their list as it gets quite specific.
Massive transformation
Gartner goes even further to say that these forces will drive “massive transformation in many industries,” a bold statement but one echoed by the writers at SuccessfulWorkplace in our own predictions, published a short time ago. We agree with Gartner for several reasons and our own take on what they predict is as follows:
- An estimated 2 billion more people will come online and interact at some not-too-distant point through social media. Cheap smartphones are coming to the third world. A world of Western thought dominance is going to become a lot more diverse.
- Easy movement of money will make global commerce much easier but also disrupt the way work is performed and compensated. If we can very quickly pay anyone, anywhere for work or a good, it changes markets, labor and supply chains.
- Healthcare will continue to digitize, reaping enormous Big Data benefits as information and care become far less silo’d. Payments will change as we know what works and doesn’t, greatly affecting the insurance industry and patient costs.
- Information integration will become more important than the storage or application layers of current technology. Even now, it matters much less where the information is than whether you can have in the moment that you need it.
- A significant amount of pricing will be demand- or value-based rather than tied to production cost. It was once retail nirvana to price by demand, but big box retailers like Home Depot and others will move to this model as a hedge against profitability while remaining competitive.
- Consumer goods companies will buy up small, nimble technology companies as they try to compete using rapidly escalating technology for customer experience management. The CEM space is warm and is about to get white hot as the buying population shifts from traditional to non-traditional ways to shop and choose products. Loyalty will be an enormous goal.
- 3D printing will continue to find unique uses that will revolutionize engineering and production. Also called ‘additive manufacturing’, 3D printing can produce remarkable objects that open the mind to an almost endless number of possibilities. One of our favorites? Far less waste when you add than when you drill or carve (take away). Imagine needing a part for your car and going to a garage that simply prints it.
These arre the predictions that we feel will gain significant traction in 2013 but continue for the next 3-5 years. Few of these changes will occur without resistance from entrenched enterprises that control the current landscape, but will go forward nonetheless. What makes this moment so significant is the sheer number of game-changing technologies all coming to the forefront at the same moment.
All Things D
ARS Technica
Engadget
GigaOM
Mashable
TechCrunch
The Verge
Venture Beat
Wired
Chris Brogan
Brian Solis
Chris Dixon
Clay Shirky Blog
HBR Blog
IT Redux
Jeremiah Owyang
Radar O'Reilly
Seth Godin Blog
SocialMedia Today
Solve for Interesting
The TIBCO Blog
Lifehacker
It is interesting to see all of the predictions align: social, mobile & cloud. It appears these trends are commonly viewed as the next big disruption. While I agree that these categories will have an effect they miss the true disruption that is coming, perhaps without forewarning.
Social is a consumer phenomenom that allows people to collaborate and communicate. The tools of social for consumers are so well engineered that user training and adoption are eliminated as issues. Business applications, such as ERP, Best of Breed, etc. however are the antithesis of ‘social’. Workers face inflexible processes based upon rigid data that hinder collaboration and communication while requiring massive investments in training and adoption.
Mobile has been around forever (practically speaking). Again, consumers use of mobile will be unfettered as the applications they choose to use fit their needs and desires. Enter business applications and the environment shifts back to the dark ages.
Cloud has been around longer than mobile. It is a server. Period. How it is accessed is no different than how time sharing computers, network servers or even a desktop. Where it resides is no different either save the new phrase du jour of ‘Cloud’. I appreciate the speed and flexibility of the servers in the cloud to spin up to higher and higher volumes with virtual servers and market leading services from Google, Microsoft and even Amazon. But they are still the same thing in a slightly different package. Enter business applications and the environment shifts back to the dark ages.
Since Gartner tends to focus on the business environment and the corner of technology and impact; I am surprised they continue to echo what everyone else does regarding these three categories. Until the underlying business applications release their choke hold on the ‘process/transactions’ of business the promise of these tools will remain unmet.
Business requires the ability to innovate changes in how they do what they do. They very well may require the use of social/collaboration (not just posting vacation pictures and arguing with family members) between Employees, Vendors and Customers accessed mutually by Mobile devices from a Cloud server to achieve those ends. But until existing/legacy enterprise software are isolated as a record keeper and not the driver of change - business will be trapped beneath the enterprise oppression that has kept all of the other du jour categories from failing to meet their full potential.