Over the past few years, most of the discussions about the digital transformation trends of the following year have started to seem a bit repetitive: Cloud, Edge Compute, IoT, AR… It has always seemed that the same chairs were rearranged in the same room. 2020 will be a departure from that. While the same basic technologies that have dominated these discussions will continue to be the basis of our collective journey of digital transformation, 2020 will be defined by a new class of technologies ready to take second place. Among them: 5G, AI, advanced data analysis, but also others that may surprise you. Without further ado, here are the 10 of them that, in my opinion, will be the most significant of 2020.
5G for you and me: 2020 will be the year of 5G. With some of the biggest names in the telecommunications industry, such as Qualcomm, AT&T, Verizon, Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei, ensuring that global 5G deployments are sustained, and the world’s best Android handset manufacturers already offering 5G phones, 5G will be immediately operational. 2020. The proliferation of 5G will accelerate advances in smart cities, smart vehicles, smart manufacturing and many technologies using intensive use of the Internet of Things, in addition to bringing us more bandwidth speeds faster and more reliable mobile networks. In other words, the true value of 5G will not be limited to phones.
Faster WiFi for a faster world: Although WiFi 6 and 5G technologies are completely different technologies, the two technologies will bring us much faster processing and wireless connection speeds in 2020. 5G and WiFi 6 technologies will create a perfect end-to-end combination. ultra-fast connectivity for home and office. Expect download speeds up to 3 times faster than WiFi 5, but that’s not the best measure of the value of the new standard.
The real value of WiFi 6 will be its ability to extend faster data rates to a much larger number of devices than WiFi 5 had been able to handle. This is important for two main reasons: the first is that the number of devices connected to the average Wi-Fi network is expected to drop from around 10 to 50 today, and that this increase will require a faster, more efficient and more efficient. smarter WiFi capabilities. The second reason is that the quality and volume of data consumed via WiFi networks are also increasing and that WiFi 5 cannot handle the load as well. WiFi 6 will eliminate these pain points from 2020.
Analysis represents the competitive advantage: companies that still do not invest heavily in analysis by 2020 are unlikely to do so in 2021. There is simply too much useful customer data that needs to be collected, processed and transformed into prospects for any business. remain competitive without fully using modern analysis tools. Flying blind and following your gut are no longer viable options when all the other companies use sophisticated analysis tools to identify problems, opportunities and solutions. This is the reason why we are witnessing a consolidation of analysis functionalities in the technological world, from the acquisition of Tableau by Salesforce to the creation by Microsoft of its own Power platform. All the big tech companies have already understood that the future depends on data – more precisely its processing in real time – and that, no matter which sector you are in, analysis will once again be one of the main digital transformation focal points in 2020.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning become force multipliers for data analysis: if you plan to invest in analysis, you must also invest in artificial intelligence and machine learning to be able to navigate in the vast seas of information and data you want to exploit use. The value of artificial intelligence and machine learning in data analysis can be divided into three distinct value propositions: speed, scale and convenience.
The speed and scale demonstrate the advantage of automating the analysis of large data sets as opposed to assigning human data analysts to the task. Thanks to AI and machine learning, it is now possible to analyze complex data sets in a fraction of the time it took just two years ago. It is not because computers have become faster or more efficient, but rather because the algorithms of artificial intelligence and machine learning have acquired an excellent capacity for data analysis and that this analysis can easily be implemented. scale in the cloud. From a convenience standpoint, unlike today’s data analysis tools, Adding AI and machine learning to analysis tools has made them intuitive, easy to use, and much more reliable. Although they are already achieving results in 2019, their speed and accuracy should improve considerably in 2020.
Blockchain is moving beyond Crypto: I called it last year: Blockchain was overloaded and would therefore still go bankrupt in 2019. But starting in 2020, I think we will finally start to see significant examples of use of blockchain beyond cryptocurrency. We know that Amazon Web Services is democratizing blockchain technology with its platform based on blockchain-as-a-service subscriptions. And they are not alone in this effort. Many other world leaders are also playing in this field, including Samsung, Microsoft, IBM and Alibaba, in China. Additionally, we are starting to see real use cases of technology beyond payments and cryptocurrencies. See for example how the blockchain will be used in the areas of food security, intellectual property and royalties; and real estate / property management. 2020 could be the start of the real rise of Blockchain.
RPA takes a second breath: Robotic Process Automation is nothing new. It is widely regarded as the object of the lowest loss in the field of artificial intelligence, but it remains nevertheless a topical subject in all the conferences on technology and the manufacturing which I attended during the eight past. month. RPA has followed the path, but as interest and investment continues to grow, and RPA is trustworthy, I believe 2020 will be a very big year for investments in RPA, just like 2019 with funds paid to companies like Automation Anywhere, UiPath and Prisme Bleu. In addition, companies such as Cisco are already using RPA to create flexibility to improve their skills and increase the value of their existing workforce, and this model is poised to quickly become a winning formula. (Smart businesses: take note.)
Conversational intelligence becomes a legitimate interface: I know that Siri still fears (for the most part) and that it is still practically impossible to use voice to text to create a decent conversation message. However, I think we will see at least one form of conversational artificial intelligence becoming useful in 2020. On the software side, projects like Microsoft Conversational AI are working extremely hard to create platforms that cannot just hear properly, but who follow complex conversations and understand. the nuances of emotion, while continuing to improve over time. On the silicon side, chipsets and SOCs developed specifically for smart devices are becoming exceptionally effective at isolating human voices from noisy backgrounds and for accurately processing natural language in real time. Will we see dramatic improvements in everyday consumer technology in 2020? Probably not, but I think the foundations for the next generation of reliable conversational AI will be consolidated over the next year.
ACPC transforms the laptop market forever: we are always connected, so we need PCs always connected. We will see an expansion of ACPC this year with integrated 5G and LTE connectivity, and of course we will see smart business partnerships emerge (Lenovo and Qualcomm come to mind, but hopefully more projects will emerge as ARM. based technology makes it possible.)
As a bonus: ACPCs tend to enjoy near-day or even several days of battery life for their laptops next year, which finally makes them truly portable.
Connected vehicles, autonomous drones and smart cities are becoming our new reality: listen to me. I know we’ve been talking about it for years and haven’t gotten there yet, but I think the combination of Edge Compute and 5G will bring us a step closer to truly autonomous cars, drones and smart cars. -er) cities in 2020. Tesla is clearly the first name on the market in terms of marketing, but it is not a task that Elon Musk is trying to tackle. This occurs through close strategic alignment between automakers and technology manufacturers. Companies like Intel / Nvidia / Qualcomm and BMW / Volvo / Ford team up while Uber builds their autonomous fleet and Amazon seeks to get you all your needs via an autonomous drone. to finally bring these long-promised technologies to the market.
XaaS, UX / CX and confidentiality: how the digital transformation trends adjacent to technology will occupy a central place in 2020: I focused a lot on technologies, but let’s face it: digital transformation represents more than the sum of its technological components. Change itself is one of the main drivers of digital transformation, and change almost always transcends the tools that allow it. For this reason, I must highlight the trends adjacent to technology which, in my opinion, will dominate discussions on digital transformation in 2020: the top of my list is XaaS (all as a service), UX / CX (user experience / client) and digital privacy. .
XaaS: In 2020, “everything as a service” will gain even more speed than in 2019, even in the most hardware-oriented industries / technology sectors. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has announced that it will offer its entire portfolio as a service by 2022. This is only a great example, but all on-premises providers are moving in that direction. As we continue to observe the evolution of on-premise, off-network, cloud, hybrid, etc. technologies, the “big information technologies” will be moved on-site as a service, alongside Big Data, analysis, blockchain, etc. Everything as a service has been built in this direction for a few years now, but 2020 will be the year when it will be fully integrated.
User and customer experience: the success of the digital transformation being intimately linked to the user and customer experience (UX / CX), this emphasis will continue to stimulate commercial investment in digital transformation. On the one hand, this is all the more true as organizations are increasingly moving from internal skills and improving efficiency to implementing their vision. On the other hand, improvements in connectivity (5G, WiFi 6), computing capacities (cloud, on-board, machine learning), intelligent automation (RPA, AI) and intuitive user interfaces (conversational AI, analysis gesture, AR) will combine for 2020, a turning point for UX and CX in many sectors ranging from retail and hospitality to transport and health.
The real question will be whether companies like Amazon (via Alexa) and Facebook will partner or continue to discreetly collect all the data they can from users. Beyond this, the possibility offered to traditional high-tech companies, such as Dell, Cisco, IBM and HPE, to create a real and meaningful structure around data security and confidentiality could open the way to a renaissance of digital privacy from 2020. It will be interesting to see which companies are committed to the protection of privacy, which companies maintain the status quo and which companies continue to loot data like that of the “lost ark” “
To conclude
While older and more mature core technologies will continue to be at the center of most digital transformation initiatives, particularly in business, I think these ten specific trends will both dominate discussions on transformation digital and guide successful digital transformation programs in 2020 If you’re looking for a checklist of the ten most critical business trends to prepare (or invest) in 2020, you’ve come to the right place.
