Professional services giant Deloitte releases a report every year examining the latest trends in technology. The firm's fifth Annual Tech Trends Report was released in March 2014, with the title Inspiring Disruption.
The study examines the tech trends creating sustainable, positive disruption in business operations, IT capabilities and even business models.
Kevin Walsh, head of technology consulting at Deloitte UK, explained: “Disruptive technologies present unprecedented opportunities to reimagine how work gets done, how businesses grow and how markets and industries evolve. But they also represent threats – and real challenges on how to balance experimentation for tomorrow with the realities of today. Our report examines how these trends are changing business as usual and opening the door for Chief Information Officers (CIOs) to truly transform their business operations.”
The report highlighted the following five disruptive tech trends:
### CIO as venture capitalist
Deloitte’s study emphasises the need for CIOs to develop capabilities in order to drive business growth. They should operate like venture capitalists, actively managing their IT portfolios to increase enterprise value. They also need to evaluate the performance of their portfolio in terms of value, risk, reward and time horizon.
By combining these skills with agility and aligning the necessary talent, Deloitte believes CIOs can reshape how the business of IT is managed.
### Cognitive analytics
Artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing used to be experimental concepts – but they’ve become potential business disruptors. Computers now have the ability to learn from experience and generate hypotheses by drawing from a wide range of information and connections.
Cognitive analytics can make sense of big data and provide insights that help with real-time decision-making and response to change. The more data the system receives, the more it can learn and improve its analysis.
Cognitive analytics is being used in healthcare to improve patient outcomes, and also in financial services to inform and execute trading, detect fraud and evaluate risk.
### Industrialised crowdsourcing
Through the power of the crowd, specialised skills can be sourced by enterprises as and when they’re needed. The collective knowledge of the masses can be used by companies to help with all kinds of tasks, including data entry, coding, advanced analytics and product development.
As well as access to specialised resources, industrialised crowdsourcing can produce cost savings, allowing companies to manage workloads more effectively and cover new geographic areas in quickly changing markets.
### Digital engagement
The digital revolution is evolving all the time. Digital content and assets are now delivered and consumed across a number of different channels and in various contexts – including mobile, social, in-store, in the field, on the web and on location.
Digital engagement is about the creation of content that’s consistent, compelling and personalised, whether it’s for customers, employees or business partners. In many cases it also involves augmenting or even replacing core products with digital intellectual property.
### Wearables
Wearable technology comes in various forms, including watches, glasses, bracelets and smart badges. Deloitte believes hands-free, wearable computing has the potential to reshape how work is carried out, how decisions are made and how businesspeople engage with employees, partners and customers.
Wearables allow the introduction of technology to situations where the use of laptops and smartphones is impractical, unsafe or inappropriate. Although media attention is currently directed at consumer wearables, Deloitte expects the technology will be more transformative when applied to business.
See Deloitte’s Tech Trends 2014 report here: http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-Luxembourg/Local%20Assets/Documents/Whitepapers/2014/dtt_en_wp_techtrends_10022014.pdf
