The demand for business companies to go digital continues as they face the new year with new expectations, competitors, channels, threats, and opportunities. Digitalization has created a new breed of market that companies of all sizes- small, medium-sized or even large corporations cannot ignore. Traditional businesses have now accepted using digital transformation as a business strategy— to deliver products and services through web, reap data from every market interaction then gain insights to rapidly optimize their value chain and help them increase competitive advantage.
By transforming digitally, businesses are able to build a connection with their customers, speed up the pace of innovation and, as a result, claim a greater share of profit. Today, companies that invest in digital transformation are building an edge over those who don’t, that will enable them to succeed in reaching the expanding digital lives of consumers that encompass the rules of engagement that strongly influence customer loyalty.
With this profound effect on business organizations, allow us to share what are the IT Trends our top executives think would make an impact by the year 2019:
Blockchain
By allowing digital information to be distributed but with a highly secured transaction, blockchain technology created the backbone of the new type of Internet. What do we really mean when we say blockchain? According to Don and Alex Tapscott, authors of the book Blockchain Revolution (2016), “the blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value”. The growing list of records found in blockchain is called blocks which are linked using cryptography.
In an interview with Mr. Mike Lim, President & CEO of Exist, he stated, “blockchain has been really gaining quick traction not only because of bitcoin or cryptocurrency but because of the promise of more transparent but secured communication between B2B companies or even B2C depending on what vertical you are.” Blockchain gives internet users the ability to create value and authenticates digital information. By storing data across its peer-to-peer network, blockchain eliminates a number of risks that come with data being held centrally. Every network participant validates the transaction so that the data stored is immutable and cannot be forged.
Real-world applications of blockchain technology are becoming more mainstream resulting in the amount of transactional data to become huge. Combining blockchain and big data sparks a new level of analytics. Executives believe that the blockchain promise of secure, traceable transactions and improved transparency of information can streamline supply chain management. Thus, continuing to make a disruptive change in technology by the year 2019.
Big Data
With today’s digital technologies, it’s possible to analyze your data and turn it to insights rapidly, enabling enterprises to make better decisions.
According to Gartner, big data is high-volume, high-velocity and/or high-variety information assets that demand cost-effective, innovative forms of information processing that enable enhanced insight, decision making, and process automation. As the head of the healthcare services at Exist and the VP for Sales and Marketing, Mr. Willex Perez shared to us his thoughts: “Imagine the possibilities of what big data can do for predicting illnesses. If you collect enough clinical information you’ll be able to compare your status or your clinical values with others. After which, you can search available research or studies to check your risk rating as an individual.”
Emphasizing on healthcare, Mr. Willex added that among the growth trends the use of big data in healthcare will be essential. “With analytics, enterprises will be able to drive innovation and come up with intelligent business decisions. While organizations collect data for analytics purposes combined with IoT as another major source for data,” Mr. Willex concludes, “it is inevitable to use big data analytics to complete the picture.”
Internet of Things (IoT)
Countless business opportunities are in the fire hose of IoT data as products and services have become more connected. Internet of things refers to the network of devices such as home appliances, mechanical and digital devices that contain electronics, software, and connectivity which allows them to interact and exchange data.
Considered as one of his top IT trends, Mr. Christopher Silerio, the VP for Operations at Exist, believes IoT sensors provide us a valuable real-time update of the exchange of data with the sources. He shares, “there will be a time when there will be more data exchanges happening between sensors even without human interaction. From smart appliances or smart meters, devices will continuously send data signals to a certain component or machine, providing information in real time. It’s reasonable to say that IoT has begun to transform the business landscape and is expected to continue in 2019.”
Cloud
While IoT generates huge amounts of data, the cloud ensures that these are captured and stored properly. The simplicity and accessibility of cloud computing to manage vast amounts of data remain a catalyst enabling the rapid expansion of IoT. Cloud computing provides small to medium enterprises the ability to enjoy low implementation cost for their total IT infrastructure and software systems.
Utilizing the abilities of cloud computing, enterprises of all sizes can deploy applications a lot quicker and cheaper compared to the cost of setting up whole IT Infrastructure and service by themselves. According to Forrester’s predictions for 2018, the total global public cloud market will be $178B in 2018, up from $146B in 2017, and will continue to grow at a 22% compound annual growth rate. From this perspective, the cloud seems to be a key driver of digital transformation and economic growth.
“Cloud makes it easier for organizations to worry more about their business process rather than infrastructures. It makes it easier for startups to build their business quickly,” reveals Mr. Jonas Lim, the VP for Technical Services at Exist. “As early as almost a decade ago, we believed that cloud computing is a real game-changer and it has proven to be true as the future continues to bring us into a world of unlimited connectivity empowered by the cloud,” he further adds.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence or AI doesn’t only apply to robotics. As a branch of computer science, AI involves the development of computer programs to complete tasks which would otherwise require human intelligence. As evidence of its spread, AI is even available for use along with other cloud solutions by which businesses can just subscribe to.
Internet technology companies also make use of AI to optimize their IT infrastructures. In fact, according to Wikibon: “AI-optimized application infrastructure is one of today’s hottest trends in the IT business. More vendors are introducing IT platforms that accelerate and automate AI workloads through pre-built combinations of storage, compute, and interconnect resources.”
Mr. Jonas Lim pointed out the increasing use of chatbots in business services. Chatbots are programs built to automatically engage with received messages simulating actual human interaction. In addition, artificial intelligence might just be ready to explode with its use, particularly inside the healthcare industry.
What started with manufacturing has now spread to knock and open the doors to greater digital business scale but now with analytics and computing intelligence at the forefront of cutting-edge changes in the upcoming years. “[Like] growing population of robotics is bound to happen,” Mr. Willex added, “and although we don’t know the future, it is quite evident that interacting with AI will soon be part of our everyday lives.”
