Tech Trends 2019: Beyond Digital (part 2)

The tech-fuelled innovation agenda at many organisations this year will feature advances in AI, the next stage in cloud computing, and reimagined approaches to marketing and cybersecurity.

This article follows on from part one, issued in the Independent on Sunday 10 February 2019).

Disruptive technology change can be daunting, and yet “new technologies that may have overwhelmed organisations a decade ago when they were first introduced now drive everyday business without any fuss or fanfare,” says Bill Briggs, global CTO at Deloitte Consulting LLP. “And the technologies we’re focused on now—including cognitive, blockchain, and digital reality—will likely have the same feeling of comfort, familiarity, and even inevitability in the near future.”

This journey from uncertainty to digital transformation guides “Tech Trends 2019: Beyond the digital frontier,” Deloitte’s 10th annual report on the technology innovations likely to disrupt businesses in the next 18 to 24 months.

Meanwhile, Briggs says, emerging technology is increasingly shaping strategic business conversations across functions. “Ten years ago, CIOs, CTOs, and their technology organisations were largely responsible for helping other leaders understand the potential of new tools,” he says. “Now, the dialogue has shifted to the boardroom and the broader management team. Every executive benefits from demonstrating tech savviness, fluency, and curiosity because every company is a technology company, with existing and emerging technologies forming the fulcrum of business strategy and the future.”

We take a look at the seciond set of four technology trends which are covered in more detail by Deloitte Insights:

Intelligent interfaces. Today, people interact with technology through increasingly intelligent interfaces, moving from traditional keyboards to touch screens, voice commands, and beyond. Even these engagement patterns are now giving way to more seamless and natural methods of interaction. For example, images and video feeds can be used to track assets, authenticate identities, and understand context. Advanced voice capabilities allow interaction with complex systems in natural, nuanced conversations. By intuiting human gestures, head movements, and gazes, AI-based systems can respond to nonverbal commands. Intelligent interfaces combine the latest in human-centred design techniques with leadingedge technologies such as computer vision, conversational voice, auditory analytics, and advanced AR and VR—transforming the way people engage with machines, data, and each other.

Beyond marketing: Experience reimagined. The new world of marketing is personalised, contextualised, dynamic, and increasingly no longer orchestrated by creative agencies but by CMOs partnering with in-house technology organisations. Together, CMOs and CIOs are building an arsenal of experience-focused tools powered by emerging technologies to transform marketing from a hunch-driven exercise to one grounded in data. In experiential marketing, companies treat customers as individuals by understanding their preferences and behaviours. Analytics and cognitive capabilities illuminate the context of customers’ needs and desires and the optimal ways to engage with them. Experience management tools tailor content and deliver across physical and digital touchpoints, bringing companies closer to truly unique customer engagement. DevSecOps and the cyber imperative. To enhance their approaches to cyber and other risks, forward-thinking or- ganisations are embedding security, privacy, policy, and controls into their DevOps culture, processes, and tools. As DevSecOps gains momentum, more companies will likely make threat modelling, risk assessment, and security task automation foundational to product development initiatives. DevSecOps transforms cyber and risk management from compliance-based activities—typically undertaken late in the development life cycle—into essential framing mindsets during the product journey. Moreover, DevSecOps codifies policies and best practices into tools and platforms, making security a shared responsibility of the entire IT organisation.

Beyond the digital frontier: Mapping the future. Digital transformation has become a rallying cry for business and technology strategists. To those charged with mapping the future, it promises a triumphant response to the pressures and potential of disruptive change. Yet all too often, companies anchor their approach to a specific technology advance. To fuel effective digital transformation, leading organisations combine technology with other catalysts—from emerging ecosystems to human-centred design to the future of work, among others—because the technology trends that inspire digital transformation efforts do not take place in a vacuum. They cross-pollinate with emerging trends in the physical and social sciences and in business to deliver unexpected outcomes. It is time to move beyond the frontier of random acts of digital. Developing a systematic approach for identifying and harnessing opportunities born of the intersections of technology, science, and business is an essential first step in demystifying digital transformation and making it concrete, achievable, and measurable.

*** While disruption can seem intimidating, many organisations are increasingly harnessing connections between powerful macro forces, emerging technologies, and business priorities to create a road map to opportunities and growth. “Companies are rightfully sceptical about hype surrounding emerging technologies. They have a desire to do something real and impactful,” says Scott Buchholz, emerging technologies research director and Government & Public Services CTO at Deloitte Consulting LLP. “However, they don’t have unlimited resources. ‘Tech Trends 2019’ can spark conversations that help organisations imagine tomorrow and understand how to get there from the realities of today.”