Who could have foreseen that aircraft manufacturers would be able to “print” replacement parts onsite in hangars rather than manufacturing them on distant assembly lines? Or that doctors would harness artificial intelligence to improve cancer diagnosis and treatments?
Or that preventative maintenance systems featuring sensors and robotics would virtually eliminate unanticipated mechanical breakdowns? In many cases, such changes are being driven by a confluence of business and technology forces fueled by innovation.
Deloitte’s sixth annual Technology Trends report outlines the trends that could potentially disrupt the way businesses engage their customers, how work gets done, and how markets and industries evolve.
CIO as chief integration officer
As technology transforms existing business models and gives rise to new ones, the role of the CIO is evolving rapidly, with integration at the core of its mission. Increasingly, CIOs need to harness emerging disruptive technologies for the business while balancing future needs with today’s operational realities. They should view their responsibilities through an enterprise-wide lens to help ensure critical domains such as digital, analytics, and cloud aren’t spurring redundant, conflicting, or compromised investments within departmental or functional silos. In this shifting landscape of opportunities and challenges, CIOs can be not only the connective tissue but the driving force for intersecting, IT-heavy initiatives—even as the C-suite expands to include roles such as chief digital officer, chief data officer, and chief innovation officer. And what happens if CIOs don’t step up? They could find themselves relegated to a “care and feeding” role while others chart a strategic course toward a future built around increasingly commoditized technologies.
API economy
Application programming interfaces (APIs) have been elevated from a development technique to a business model driver and boardroom consideration. An organization’s core assets can be reused, shared, and monetized through APIs that can extend the reach of existing services or provide new revenue streams. APIs should be managed like a product—one built on top of a potentially complex technical footprint that includes legacy and third-party systems and data.
Ambient computing
Possibilities abound from the tremendous growth of embedded sensors and connected devices—in the home, the enterprise, and the world at large. Translating these possibilities into business impact requires focus—purposefully bringing smarter “things” together with analytics, security, data, and integration platforms to make the disparate parts work seamlessly with each other. Ambient computing is the backdrop of sensors, devices, intelligence, and agents that can put the Internet of Things to work.
Dimensional marketing
Marketing has evolved significantly in the last half-decade. The evolution of digitally connected customers lies at the core, reflecting the dramatic change in the dynamic between relationships and transactions. A new vision for marketing is being formed as CMOs and CIOs invest in technology for marketing automation, next-generation omnichannel approaches, content development, customer analytics, and commerce initiatives. This modern era for marketing is likely to bring new challenges in the dimensions of customer engagement, connectivity, data, and insight.
Software-defined everything
Amid the fervor surrounding digital, analytics, and cloud, it is easy to overlook advances currently being made in infrastructure and operations. The entire operating environment—server, storage, and network—can now be virtualized and automated. The data center of the future represents the potential for not only lowering costs, but also dramatically improving speeds and reducing the complexity of provisioning, deploying, and maintaining technology footprints. Software-defined everything can elevate infrastructure investments, from costly plumbing to competitive differentiators.
Core renaissance
Organizations have significant investments in their core systems, both built and bought. Beyond running the heart of the business, these assets can form the foundation for growth and new service development—building upon standardized data and automated business processes. To this end, many organizations are modernizing systems to pay down technical debt, replatforming solutions to remove barriers to scale and performance, and extending their legacy infrastructures to fuel innovative new services and offerings.
Amplified intelligence
Analytics techniques are growing in complexity, and companies are applying machine learning and predictive modeling to increasingly massive and complex data sets. Artificial intelligence is now a reality. Its more promising application, however, is not replacing workers but augmenting their capabilities. When built to enhance an individual’s knowledge and deployed seamlessly at the point of business impact, advanced analytics can help amplify our intelligence for more effective decision making.
IT worker of the future
Scarcity of technical talent is a significant concern across many industries, with some organizations facing talent gaps along multiple fronts. The legacy-skilled workforce is retiring, and organizations are scrambling for needed skills in the latest emerging, disruptive technologies. To tackle these challenges, companies will likely need to cultivate a new species—the IT worker of the future—with habits, incentives, and skills that are inherently different from those in play today.
Exponentials
The rapid growth of exponentials has significant implications. Powerful technologies—including quantum computing, artificial intelligence, robotics, additive manufacturing, and synthetic or industrial biology—are ushering in new and disruptive competitive risks and opportunities for enterprises that have historically enjoyed dominant positions in their industries. This year’s Technology Trends report explores discusses exponentials to build awareness and share new knowledge about their trajectory and potential impact.
