Tag: Top 5 Trends

The Top 5 Workplace of the Future trends are drawn from the findings of the global Ecosystm CX Study and are also based on qualitative research by Ecosystm Principal Advisors,  Tim Sheedy and Audrey William.

1. Employee Experience as a Business Focus Will Drive Faster Adoption of Consumer Collaboration Tools

Organisations in mature economies already have employee experience (EX) and CX as their top business priorities. This comes with an understanding that offering a great customer and employee experience will lead to revenue growth, profit growth and lower costs.

For communication and collaboration solutions, if the experience is not right, employees will move on to the next best app for the right experience. The competition between the vendors across voice, video and collaboration is heightening. It may sound simple but that is where the innovation needs to happen in the industry. If employees do not like what IT has provided for them, they will download the application of their choice for work. This will be a huge challenge especially in industries that are heavily regulated such as Financial Services and Healthcare.

2. HR KPIs Will Drive IT Teams to Invest in Workplace Analytics

HR teams are ultimately responsible for driving improved EX. And a happy employee is a productive employee – so an employee’s environment (managed by the Operations or Facilities team) and their technology (managed by the IT team) will have the biggest impact on driving employee satisfaction. To drive these outcomes, we will see these three teams work closer than they ever have – and not just on a project basis, but as a permanent arrangement.

Investments in Workplace Analytics will increase, and there will be more collaboration between IT, HR and Facilities Management to drive best practices for employees. Right now, there is very little collaboration between the three departments in driving better workplace practices. Workplace Analytics will help solve problems related to poor office practices around email overload, long work hours, absenteeism, usage of rooms and other facilities, employee discontent, as well as understand the overall trends on communications and collaboration solutions usage.

3. 5G Services will Push Organisations to Rethink their Network

Today 5G is not available in many countries – and where it is available coverage is generally spotty. But this will change in 2020 as more operators launch or expand their 5G coverage. The unique capabilities of 5G to offer software-defined networks (SDNs) – designed specifically for organisations’ needs – will help businesses rethink the way they operate. They can stop thinking of their network as a physical place and start thinking of it as a set of capabilities and this takes work beyond designated physical addresses. Retailers will be able to offer complete retail environments from wherever they choose. Banks will be able to offer complete in-branch services from anywhere. Employees will be able to get access to all sorts of data and systems regardless of location. 5G is about much more than a faster network – the potential to transform enterprise networks will see a huge rethink of the network and the way IT teams provide technology services to their employees.

4. Organisations Will Wake Up to the Need for the Right Knowledge Management Solution

IT has been guilty of dictating the knowledge management (KM) requirements and platforms to the business. Many customer teams are using tools that are inherently wrong for the job. Management is using tools that do not support their needs, and information workers are given generic platforms when they have specific needs. 2020 will see a fragmentation of the KM market as businesses start to buy based on customer and employee needs – not based on what the IT team dictates.

5. 2020 Will See a Rise in CPaaS Adoption

Cloud-based platforms that enable developers to add real-time communications features within the workflow of their own business applications will be the next big area of innovation in the unified communications space. Through the use of APIs, developers can embed communication capabilities into their existing business applications, without extra hardware or software costs. Developers can embed it directly into the cloud platform so the time to market is fast. Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) will see greater adoption as more organisations look to build code and apply agile and DevOps methodologies.

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The full findings and implications of the report ‘Ecosystm Predicts: The Top 5 Workplace of the future Trends for 2020’ are available for download from the Ecosystm platform. Signup for Free to download the report and gain insight into ‘the top 5 Workplace of the future trends for 2020’, implications for tech buyers, implications for tech vendors, insights, and more resources. Download Link Below ?

Here are the top 5 CX trends and the related technology markets in 2020.  It draws on the latest data from the global Ecosystm CX Study that is live and ongoing on the Ecosystm platform and based on qualitative analyses by Ecosystm Principal Advisors Tim Sheedy and Audrey William.

1. Asia will Catch up with North America and ANZ in Customer Obsession

Many Asian economies – particularly those in Southeast Asia – have not needed to focus too much on CX. The proportion of businesses starting to map customer journeys is accelerating, and there is a growing focus on making those journeys easier, more effective and more enjoyable. We are seeing this play out in the levels of interest in – and deployment of – cloud contact centres. Australia and New Zealand have been leading the deployments in the last two years. Deploying cloud and using machine learning and AI at the core to understand how to deliver personalised CX is part of a wider CX strategy for several organisations.

In 2020 we expect large organisations in Southeast Asia and North Asia to transform their CX and contact centre capabilities and make the move to cloud-based contact centre environments.

2. CX Initiatives will Dovetail with Broader Digital Ones

Many businesses have taken a bimodal IT approach to their technology platforms – driving customer-centric changes at pace while keeping their back-end systems slow. In the drive to make the entire business fast and innovative, these back-end systems are being modernised. But over 90% of businesses have not yet seen a customer or business benefit from this digital agenda.

This will change in 2020 as more businesses get some competitive advantage from the digital initiatives they are driving inside of their business. This will be driven by the linking of the customer-centric technology initiatives with the back-end ones. This means that customer applications will be infused with data and analytics from other systems, making them smarter and increasing the potential for automation and AI to drive down costs and increase personalisation and customisation.

3. Hyper-personalisation will Move from Concept to Reality – Powered by Customer Journey Analytics

The idea of creating unique experiences for each customer has been discussed for years – but few businesses are really doing it today. 2020 will see businesses outside of the top 5% experiment and deploy hyper-personalised CX. It will move from the top web brands to mass market as more companies invest in automation, predictive analytics and AI.

But hyper-personalisation is not possible without Customer Journey Analytics. Businesses need to understand the end-to-end journey of each customer to understand how to personalise it. Therefore, Customer Journey Analytics will take centre-stage in 2020. The challenge for years has been that customer teams have focused on the traditional inbound and outbound interaction with the customer. Brands now need to understand and personalise the experience before the customer interacts with the brand and after they are done interacting with the brand. The ability to apply machine learning and AI to offer insights to predict the movement and journey of the customer will be a significant focus – and challenge – for customer teams. Customer Journey Analytics will allow brands to deliver that “frictionless” service.

4. There will be a Renewed Focus on Compliance and Security in CX

With the recent banking royal commission hearings in Australia to GDPR and other global regulations around privacy and customer data handling, customer teams will now have to make sure that all forms of voice and non-voice interactions are monitored close to 100% of the time. Very few customer teams do that today and are at risk of non-compliance. As monitoring can be labour intensive, there will be a need for organisations to invest in analytics and AI applications around compliance and monitoring.

The recording of customer calls means that highly sensitive information could be stored for years and the risk of the contact centre breaching regulatory compliance requirements enhances. Solutions today have various ways to block the recording of key phrases or sections and some solutions apply APIs to the flow of the recording. As soon as the agent enters sensitive information such as credit card details, the recording stops to resume after the sensitive data is blocked or deleted. That way the sensitive conversation is not recorded or heard by anyone monitoring the call. Contact centres must adhere to this strictly, but few do. Businesses also need to know real time if an agent is misinforming the customer. Contact Centre Outsourcers will also have to re-look at how compliant they are and how much they have invested in securing customer data. There will be greater pressure on them to take on greater risks and share the risk burden with their clients.

5. Businesses will Use AI and Analytics to Measure CX

The drive to improve CX has every business and government department measuring the experience at every opportunity. A one-minute transaction in a store can prompt a five-minute survey asking for feedback. As a consequence, customers are experiencing survey fatigue. Surveys are also not the best way to measure how customers feel after they have interacted with a brand. Already, many will not participate unless there is a discount or incentive, which eats into future margins. Smart businesses will begin to use AI to detect emotions and mood, and analytics to measure experiences.

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The full findings and implications of the report ‘Ecosystm Predicts: The Top 5 Workplace of the future Trends for 2020’ are available for download from the Ecosystm platform. Signup for Free to download the report and gain insight into ‘the top 5 Workplace of the future trends for 2020’, implications for tech buyers, implications for tech vendors, insights, and more resources. Download Link Below ?

This article presents the top 5 Cities of the Future trends for 2020 and the related technology markets. It draws on the latest data from the global Ecosystm IoT Study that is live and ongoing on the Ecosystm platform and based on qualitative analysis by Ecosystm Board Advisor Randeep Sudan and Ecosystm Principal Analyst Sash Mukherjee.

The top 5 Cities of the Future trends for 2020

Here are the top 5 Cities of the Future trends for 2020 that we believe will impact governments, businesses and citizens in 2020:

1. The Emergence of Data Smart Cities

The global economy is fast becoming digital, and data is at the very heart of a growing digital economy. Cities are increasingly adopting Data Smart strategies, a trend that will dominate the market in 2020.

Data Smart strategies focus on addressing data silos and making data available across organisational boundaries for better decision making. They expand the availability of data through real-time capture with the help of IoT devices and leverage the power and promise of data by using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data analytics. Singapore is an excellent example of how Data Smart cities are designing their data strategies. Singapore‘s data governance framework includes the concept of Single Sources of Truth (SSOT) – where all government stakeholders have access to the same data. To make access easier, there are data aggregators, the Trusted Centers (TCs).  Not only has the Government thought out the data aggregation and management angle, but also of digital enablers for the use of AI, including a code repository for AI and platform for the rapid development of AI-based solutions.

2. Intelligent Infrastructure for Smart Mobility

Traffic congestion and pollution have become an inevitable by-product of urbanisation, especially with the rise of individually owned cars. Several cities across the world have tried wide-ranging initiatives such as road space rationing and congestion pricing.  However, the success of these initiatives will lie with intelligent infrastructure and smart enforcement.

2020 will see several cities making investments in demand-responsive services, where public transportation systems can respond in real-time to the changing traffic needs of the city rather than run on predetermined routes and schedules. There will also be a rise in the number of transport options, including mass transit, car-sharing, bike-sharing, ride-sharing, and personal mobility devices.

3. Smart Energy Ecosystem

Urbanisation will see higher energy costs, and a fierce competition for resources. Smart Cities are actively focusing on smarter energy options that focus on reducing energy consumption, lowering emissions, and providing better service and support to consumers.

The Energy & Utilities industry has been the first adopters of Smart Energy solutions and as they introduce smart meters for the consumers, they open the market up. The initiatives range from promoting a greener environment, expanding the use of renewable energy, and introducing ‘smart’ solutions to utility providers, enterprises, and homes.They can also help Energy and Utilities companies to comply with government regulations and meet sustainability and carbon emission goals. On the consumer side, going forward, the Construction industry is expected to be the frontrunner in promoting energy efficiency, with increasing uptake of Smart Building solutions.

4. The Rise of the Gig Economy

All Cities of the Future need to prepare for the workforce of the future. The gig economy will have a huge number of part-time, contract workers and freelance workers. This trend will only go up as more millennials and the Gen Z enter the workforce. They will force organisations to innovate and make employee experience a key business priority.

Simultaneously, there has been a steep rise in the sharing economy, seeing peer-to-peer (P2P) economic activities, based primarily on providing a service or sharing access to goods and services. Community-based online platforms are on the rise, and several industries – such as financial services, hospitality, and retail – are being disrupted in both mature and emerging economies.

5. Increased Use of AI in Public Safety

In this world of hyper-surveillance, cities use CCTV cameras for multiple reasons ranging from traffic monitoring, remote asset tracking, and crime prevention. Airports and police departments have been actively using facial recognition. They have also been experimenting with advanced video analytics that can identify persons of interest through other parameters such as gait.

Surveillance is not the only use of AI in governments. Predictive analytics is being used by police departments and the judiciary, for risk assessment and crime reduction. AI for process optimisation also impacts public safety. While discussions and debates on ethics will be rampant, most governments will invest in AI for public safety.

Ecosystm in partnership with SGInnovate, the government-backed organisation that promotes Deep Tech in Singapore, released a series of four reports covering areas of mutual interest: Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, Cities of the Future and Healthtech.

‘Ecosystm Predicts: The Top 5 Cities of the Future Trends for 2020’ report is a part of this collaboration and is available for download from Ecosystm and SGInnovate websites.

Download Report: The Top 5 Cities of the Future trends for 2020

The full findings and implications of the report ‘Ecosystm Predicts: The Top 5 Cities of the Future trends for 2020’ are available for download from the Ecosystm platform. Signup for Free to download the report and gain insight into ‘Top 5 Cities of the Future trends for 2020’, implications for tech buyers, implications for tech vendors, insights, and more resources. Download Link Below ?

This article presents the Top 5 Healthtech Trends for 2020 for the Healthcare market in 2020. The trends are drawn from the findings of the global Ecosystm Customer Experience (CX) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) studies and is based on qualitative research by Ecosystm Principal Analyst Principal Analyst Sash Mukherjee.

 The Top 5 Trends for Healthtech for 2020

Here are the top 5 healthtech trends for 2020 that we believe will impact healthcare organisations (provider, payer and life sciences), patients and consumers in 2020.

1. The Shift from Patients to Customers Will Become Real

As more devices (consumer and enterprise) and applications enter the market, people will take ownership and interest in their own health outcomes. This will see a continued growth in online communities and comparison sites (on physicians, hospitals, and pharmaceutical products). Increasingly, insurance providers will use data from wearable devices for a more personalised approach, promoting and rewarding good health practices.

Beyond the use of wearables and health and wellness apps, we will also see an exponential increase in uptake of home-based healthcare products and services, whether for primary care and chronic disease management, or long-term and palliative care. The desire for real-time access to healthcare has led to a rapid consumerisation of the industry and has forced healthcare providers to actively focus on customer experience (CX), which according to the global Ecosystm CX study is the top business priority for healthcare organisations today.

2. Healthtech Will Take Lessons from Fintech

Healthcare organisations will take lessons from other customer-focused industries such as hospitality, retail and financial services. A focus on CX will also require an omni-channel strategy.

Given the similarities between the financial and healthcare industries (stringent regulations, process-based legacy systems and so on) Fintech organisations will teach Healthtech organisations how to disrupt the industry.  Like Fintech, Healthtech play a greater role in inclusion – ensuring health and wellness for all, including universal health coverage.  As the industry focuses on value-based outcomes, governments introduce more regulations around accountability and transparency, and people expect the CX that they get out of their retail interactions, Healthtech start-ups will become as mainstream as Fintech start-ups.

3. Healthcare Providers Will Jump on the Innovation Bandwagon

Traditionally, healthcare providers have lagged behind payer and life sciences organisations when it comes to innovation. However, that is changing fast as several provider organisations now have innovation centres, where ideas on how to improve operational parameters and clinical outcomes are incubated. They are also being creative when it comes to getting funds for these programs.

Incorporating the newest scientific advances into care protocol is largely driven by finances. But technology disrupters such as IoT, AI and machine learning are being incorporated with Operations as the key area of focus. As provider organisations increase their customer-focus, CX initiatives such as access to records, reducing waiting periods, streamlining billing and so on, will be addressed in several organisations. Innovative payment solutions (involving both patients and insurance providers) may well be the low-hanging fruit for innovators as they have the potential to significantly improve both revenue cycle management and CX.

4. Data Will Cause the Next Healthcare Divide

There has always been a divide in healthcare – based on economic and geographic parameters. A new divide will open up based on how organisations are able to leverage the huge amount of data that they are sitting on. How they leverage the data will impact an organisation’s ability to improve patient loyalty and to gain an edge over their competition.

On the one hand, governments are encouraging the  three main branches of the healthcare industry that have depended on each other but worked in silos, to be more collaborative and share data. On the other hand, if we ask  healthcare organisations about their biggest challenge in implementing emerging technologies such as AI, they will cite lack of data access.  Organisations must also bear in mind that introducing tech innovations will be largely useless without changes in business processes that allow for these innovations, and without education and involvement of the entire organisation.

5. Life Sciences and Medical Devices Organisations Will be Forced to Rethink their R&D

The responsibility of cutting-edge research in Healthcare has always been on life sciences and medical devices organisations. Life sciences companies operate in an extremely competitive global market where they have to work on new products against a backdrop of competition from generics and a global concern over rising healthcare expenditure. Apart from regulatory challenges, medical devices manufacturers also face immense competition from local manufacturers as they enter each new market.

Sales and distribution for these organisations have been traditional – using agents, distributors, clinicians and healthcare providers. But now they need to change their go-to-market strategies, target patients and consumers directly and package their product offerings into value-added services. This will require them to incorporate CX enhancers in their R&D, going beyond drug discovery and product innovation.

Ecosystm in partnership with SGInnovate, the government-backed organisation that promotes Deep Tech in Singapore, released a series of four reports covering areas of mutual interest: Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, Cities of the Future and Healthtech. ‘Ecosystm Predicts: The Top 5 Cities of the Future Trends for 2020’ report is a part of this collaboration and is available for download from Ecosystm and SGInnovate websites.

This article presents the Top 5 Artificial Intelligence Trends for 2020 for the AI/Analytics market in 2020. It is based on the latest data from the global Ecosystm AI Study, and qualitative research by Ecosystm Principal Advisor Tim Sheedy.

The Top 5 Artificial Intelligence Trends for 2020

Here are the Top 5 Artificial Intelligence trends for 2020 that we believe will impact both businesses and consumers in 2020.

1. Digital Transformation puts Analytics Back on Top of the Tech Priority List

In an effort to help the business operate faster, IT teams are looking to better analytics to drive functions and decisions more accurately. While many business teams deploy their own technologies and systems – only the IT team is in a higher position to gather data from multiple systems of record in order to create the detailed insights that business users demand. Getting a view across the entire customer journey means analysing data across many systems – both front and back-end. Business teams struggle to get these types of insights on their own, which is why IT excels at providing great analytics to help make better and faster decisions.

Just like in previous generations of BI, the analytics market is starting to consolidate. While the ability to display data visually will always be important, it is the analytics that drives automated decisions that will often be of the most business value.

2. Automation will Lead Organisations to AI

RPA is increasingly moving beyond the usual task and process automation, to now being a business transformation lever. Additionally, there is an immense focus on incorporating AI/machine learning within RPA to make automation smart and intelligent. This allows software robots to mimic human behaviour and handle complex use cases, which was earlier not possible without human intervention.

Businesses will spend more money on their simple automation activities (RPA and analytics applications that do not learn) – but those that have already invested in automation are likely to want to take the next steps to AI.

3. AI will Start to be Embedded in Most Business Applications

To date AI has been an overlay to most applications – data is extracted from processes, learnings are made, and then the process is altered based on those learnings. In 2020 we will see mass availability of self-learning intelligent applications. The standard ERP, CRM, SCM, knowledge management solution and other business applications will have embedded intelligence. This will make it easier and faster for businesses to get the benefits of machine learning and AI without the need to hire expensive data scientists, or the requirement to learn the tools and platforms required for creating smart applications.

4. 2020 will see the Democratisation of AI

Typically organisations required data scientists, AI coders, AI platforms and so on to do well in AI but with the increasing availability of AI in business applications, typical business users will begin to get a glimpse of what will be available at their fingertips in the next few years.

We expect templatised approaches to machine learning and associated technologies. Business users and data owners will be able to create algorithms that will improve business and customer outcomes. In some cases, we even expect AI to be available to consumers. We will start to see banking and finance applications that help better money management through learning – not just basic analytics, we will see more intelligent services in the market in 2020.

5. More Businesses Will Require AI on the Edge

In the next decade or two, it is estimated that there will be 100 billion IoT devices generating and exchanging data into the cloud, without any human intervention. With so many IoT devices generating a huge quantum of data, decisions will need to be made in real-time and the current cloud environments will be a bottleneck in data processing due to latency rates, network speed and traditional data architectures. To overcome this, Edge Computing solutions will be essential to work with a variety of sensor and data input devices, information processing and decisions driven by machine learning and AI, and additionally work with cloud for the next level of analytics, decisions and management.

Ecosystm in partnership with SGInnovate, the government-backed organisation that promotes Deep Tech in Singapore, released a series of four reports covering areas of mutual interest: Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, Cities of the Future and Healthtech. ‘Ecosystm Predicts: The top 5 Artificial Intelligence trends for 2020’ report is a part of this collaboration and is available for download from Ecosystm and SGInnovate websites.

Download Report: The Top 5 Artificial Intelligence Trends for 2020

The full findings and implications of the report ‘Ecosystm Predicts: The Top 5 Artificial Intelligence Trends for 2020’ are available for download from the Ecosystm website. Signup for Free to download the report and gain insight into ‘the Top 5 Artificial Intelligence Trends for 2020’, implications for tech buyers, implications for tech vendors, insights, and more resources. Download Link Below ?

The Top 5 Cybersecurity Trends for 2020 are drawn from the findings of the global Ecosystm Cybersecurity Study and is also based on qualitative research by Ecosystm Principal Advisors Alex Woerndle, Carl Woerndle and Claus Mortensen.

1. API Vulnerabilities will Become a Main Hacker Target

APIs grant access and provide transparency for developers – providing access and insights from both internal and external data. But they are inherently insecure. We have already seen several high-profile API breaches and announced API bugs. For example, in October 2018, Google had to shut down Google+ after an API bug exposed details for over 500,000 users.

We believe the problem will get significantly worse in 2020, with API attacks quickly becoming one of – if not the most – frequent target for hackers.

2. Operational Technology Security will Continue to Lag in 2020

Operational Technology (OT) refers to the hardware and software used to monitor and manage how devices that run on an organisation’s infrastructure perform. These devices have become smarter, remotely accessible and increasingly connected to networks. However, they were never designed with this in mind.

With organisations continuing to focus on data breaches – the investment in OT security will continue to lag. This will create a ‘security debt’ over coming years for those that do not invest in preventative controls now.

3. AI Training will Receive Attention from Regulators and the Public as a Possible Infringement of Privacy

News that Amazon’s Alexa was eavesdropping on its users, and that Apple’s Siri and Google’s Assistant, also kept recordings to help train their AI raised many concerns about how data to train AI is collected and stored. Apart from the initial consternation in the press and on social media, nothing much seems to have happened from a regulatory perspective.

2020 will be the year when AI training relying on consumer data will start to become regulated.

4. Major GDPR Fines in 2020 will Force MNCs to Invest in Security Compliance

GDPR came into effect in May 2018, but we still have not seen huge amounts of fines being issued in the EU. Only two fines were issued in 2018, while at least 17 were known to be issued in the first half of 2019, totalling about EUR 52 million. In the third quarter of 2019, at least 12 fines were issued totalling about EUR 328 million.

The trend is clear: Expect to see a magnitude of companies across EU be penalised in 2020. We also expect several fines above EUR 100 million and GDPR impacting countries outside the EU.

5. Mergers & Acquisitions will Ratchet up Significantly in 2020

The fragmented global security market consists of thousands of vendors and consultancies. Every day a swathe of new start-ups announces their ground-breaking new technology. Coupled with significant investments in tertiary education and industry certifications for a growing workforce, the next generation of cybersecurity entrepreneurs are entering with force.

We believe that this creates both threats and opportunities for established cybersecurity providers that need to remain innovative and growing. Similarly, this presents smaller or more niche cybersecurity start-ups with an avenue for funding or acquisition.

Ecosystm in partnership with SGInnovate, the government-backed organisation that promotes Deep Tech in Singapore, released a series of four reports covering areas of mutual interest: Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, Cities of the Future and Healthtech. ‘Ecosystm Predicts: The Top 5 Cybersecurity Trends for 2020’ report is a part of this collaboration and is available for download from Ecosystm and SGInnovate websites.

Download Report: The top 5 Cybersecurity trends for 2020

The full findings and implications of the report ‘Ecosystm Predicts: The Top 5 Cybersecurity Trends for 2020’ are available for download from the Ecosystm platform. Signup for Free to download the report and gain insight into ‘the top 5 Cybersecurity trends for 2020’, implications for tech buyers, implications for tech vendors, insights, and more resources. Download Link Below ?

This article presents the Top 5 Cloud Trends for 2020 for the Cloud market in 2020. It is based on the latest data from the global Ecosystm Cloud, IoT and Cybersecurity studies, that are live and ongoing on the Ecosystm platform, and qualitative research by Ecosystm Principal Advisors Claus Mortensen and Craig Baty. 

The Top 5 Cloud Trends for 2020

Here are the Top 5 Cloud Trends for 2020 that we believe will impact both businesses and consumers in 2020.

1. Major Cloud Providers Will Push for Open Source

Open Source has always played a big role in Cloud and as we move into 2020, its role will only grow bigger. Infrastructure and Platform Clouds may not have been dominated by Open Source in the past, but all major Cloud players such as AWS, Microsoft, and IBM have been focusing on Open Source recently.

In 2020, major cloud providers will switch to Open Source to create a development environment that can achieve more than they would be able to develop fully in-house.

2. Open Source will Drive the Adoption of Serverless Computing

Serverless computing is a cloud model where the Cloud provider runs and manages the server and the allocation of machine resources. Beyond just the individual servers, many vendors are now offering to totally replace the data centre with a virtual version that runs in the Cloud.

It has the potential to become a widely used solution for mid-range businesses. A dynamically scaled and priced data centre could offer them a much more flexible IT environment where they do not have to worry about capacity planning and scaling – even when compared to a more traditional Cloud environment.

3. Cloud and IoT Will Drive Edge Computing

Edge computing has been widely touted as a necessary component of a viable 5G setup, as it offers a more cost-effective and lower-latency set up than more traditional infrastructure. Also, with IoT being a major part of the business case behind 5G, the number of connected devices and endpoints is set to explode in the coming years, potentially overloading an infrastructure based fully on data centres for processing the data

Although some are touting Edge computing as the ultimate replacement of Cloud, we believe it will be complementary rather than a competing technology – at least in the foreseeable future and certainly as far as 2020 is concerned. Edge computing will allow Cloud providers to better cater to companies that need low latency, quick access to data and data processing. On the mobile side, it will allow them to push workloads to the handset, reducing the backend workload and potentially enhancing data privacy.

4. ‘Cloud Creep’ Will Get Worse Before It Gets Better

What we have previously referred to as “shadow IT” is rapidly spreading – and worsening – as organisations move to the Cloud and many organisations are now suffering from what is referred to as “cloud creep”. There are several implications of cloud creep – the most significant ones being security issue and cost.

As the use of stand-alone Cloud services grows, the risk of sensitive data being used, stored and shared in non-compliant ways increases. As for cost, while LoB sourcing of Cloud services may save the strain on the IT department’s budget as the money may come from a different “bucket”, it makes it very difficult to get a true picture of the organisations total IT spend and it may mean that consolidation benefits from well-managed sourcing and usage cannot be achieved. A third and increasingly important factor is energy footprint and savings. A fall-out from cloud creep is increased “server sprawl” whereby virtual machines (VMs) and applications remain under-utilised, leading to poor productivity and proficiency.

5. Alliances and Partnerships Will be Formed as the Battle for the Top Heats Up

The global Cloud market has been consolidating around 5 players: AWS, Microsoft, Alibaba, Google and IBM. Nothing really suggests that this trend will change in 2020.

But even for the current top 5 players, their ability to compete will increasingly come down to their ability to expand their service capabilities beyond their current offerings. Ecosystm expects these players to further enhance their focus on expanding their services, management and integration capabilities through global and in-country partnerships. One particular area might be partnerships – focusing on Cloud migration between Clouds and from Cloud to on-premises.

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The full findings and implications of the report ‘Ecosystm Predicts: The Top 5 Cloud Trends For 2020’ are available for download from the Ecosystm website. Signup for Free to download the report and gain insight into ‘the top 5 Cloud trends for 2020’, implications for tech buyers, implications for tech vendors, insights, and more resources. Download Link Below ?

Here are our predictions on the Top 5 IoT Trends for 2020, that we think, will shape the Internet of Things landscape over the next 12 months.

The Top 5 IoT Trends for 2020

The Top 5 IoT Trends for 2020 are based on the findings of the global Ecosystm IoT and AI studies, and is also based on qualitative research by Ecosystm Principal Advisors Francisco Maroto and Kaushik Ghatak.

1. 5G Providers Will Be Forced to Operate Outside their Comfort Zone

Network and communications equipment providers have much to gain and more to lose as organisations look to leverage 5G for their IoT use cases. Each industry will have their different and distinct use cases – the use cases for Oil & Gas will be different from Retail use cases, which will be different from Healthcare industry requirements.
Telecommunications providers will find themselves depending on systems integrators (SIs) with relevant industry experience, to translate the value proposition of what they are offering. However, the telecommunications providers are not companies with actual skin in the game. If 5G uptake does not take off, the bigger losers will be the network and communications equipment providers – the real investors in the technology.

2. Satellite IoT Connectivity Solutions Will Start to Compete Against and Work with LPWANs

Current satellite communications technologies have not been designed specifically for IoT and may fail to meet the specific requirements of the IoT market, especially when it comes to price and ease of use.
This is set to change as both incumbents and new entrants in the satellite space seek to grow their IoT markets in 2020. Satellite communications companies are designing a spectrum strategy and a go-to-market strategy that include collaboration with Low Power WAN (LPWAN) vendors.

3. IoT Sensor Analytics Will Become the Fastest Growing AI Workload

Many organisations will actually start their digital journey and their investments in AI even before they invest in automation – when they start to analyse the data from their IoT sensors and make sense of the ‘data sprawl’ that is created as the number of data collection points proliferate. Organisations’ desire to transform, starting with automation, will further drive the adoption of IoT. The global Ecosystm AI study reveals that organisations investing in IoT sensor analytics also look to invest in computer vision and automation solutions. IoT adoption will enable organisations to focus on incorporating AI/machine learning to make automation smart and intelligent.

4. Construction Will Become the Unsuspecting Influencers for IoT Adoption

The construction industry is fast emerging as the arena for end-to-end IoT-driven services especially as new-age companies link architects with contractors with building managers with facilities management to create a new meaning of ‘Smart Buildings’. Realtors become unsuspecting influencers as they establish Smart Building ecosystems. According to the findings of the global Ecosystm IoT study, the top solutions that construction companies have implemented and are evaluating, are primarily aimed at ensuring operational and employee safety. However, the industry will also see an uptake of customer management IoT solutions aimed at providing better customer experience (CX).

5. The Edge Will No Longer Be at the Edge

2020 will mark the end of the hype around the Edge and the way we think about it. Real-time analytics will be performed at so many places along with the network and infrastructure that IT management will be forced to rethink their distributed and enterprise computing strategies. The main industries that will see a growth in Edge uptake in 2020 will be Manufacturing, Retail, Energy, Healthcare, Transportation and Logistics.

As the Edge technology develops, the application of AI will steadily move away from centralised servers (on-premise or cloud) to the edge devices themselves. There are two important benefits to this – Firstly, it minimises time lag between data acquisition and secondly, any targeted hacking attempt can be immediately identified and mitigated, rather than being at the mercy of the security systems implemented by the cloud provider.While AI-enabled edge devices tend to be costlier than
their “dumb” counterparts, the value they can bring in terms of being able to immediately act upon the data, and the additional security they can potentially provide, can be significant factors that offset the high initial cost of deployment.

Download Report: The Top 5 IoT Trends For 2020

The full findings and implications of the report ‘Ecosystm Predicts: The Top 5 IoT Trends For 2020’ are available for download from the Ecosystm website. Signup for Free to download the report and gain insight into ‘the top 5 IoT trends for 2020’, implications for tech buyers, implications for tech vendors, insights, and more resources. Download Link Below ?