High-tech to become fully embedded in core business processes

18th January 2019

By: Schalk Burger

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

     

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During the next five years, the steadily growing adoption and application of innovative technologies will be firmly embedded in many of the core processes and technologies of businesses, says information technology services multinational Dimension Data group CTO Ettienne Reinecke.

This prediction is part of the company’s 2019 predictions for technology trends, which are underpinned by easier access helping to accelerate the adoption and an improved understanding of how and where to use technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and robotics, as well as virtual and augmented reality.

Companies can now access innovative technologies without having to invest in their own algorithms and platforms. Instead, they can focus on how to exploit these technologies and accelerate the rate at which they get business value, he says.

“Bots and robotic process automation are becoming part of our working and personal lives. It is relatively simple to create a bot that will access all the sales support systems of a company and provide a consolidated dashboard. These dashboards can be unique to each customer service employee, and pave the way for more informed decisions.”

Improved access to technologies – from a platform, embedded functionality and cost perspective – supports their uptake. This change has also coincided with a growth in the number of skilled people who know how to leverage these technologies, says Reinecke.

Meanwhile, Dimension Data predicts that identity will emerge as the key application for blockchain.

While blockchain-based smart contract platforms are used across multiple vertical segments in the private and public sectors, identity management is likely to emerge as one of the main applications for blockchain in the next three to five years, the company predicts.

Most of the major cybersecurity incidents that have occurred in the past few years have involved breaches of people’s personal identity information. By moving identity management into a blockchain environment, many of the current challenges can be solved.

High levels of encryption and the dispersed nature of data in a distributed ledger are inherent to a blockchain. These features immediately change the level of cybersafety that can be offered, he avers.

“Other value chains could also emerge, such as allowing individuals to own and control their identities and attributes or selectively allowing the use of such attributes by third parties in transactions or interactions. “This could fundamentally change how financial transactions or even sensitive interactions regarding our health, which are attributes relating to our identities, are conducted,” explains Reinecke.

Dimension Data also predicts that companies will learn how to extract value from data while respecting privacy. Current business models will be re-engineered by the value of the data that is generated by existing activities. The value of the data will supersede the value of traditional revenue activities, he adds.

Data sources are growing, the granularity of the data itself is improving, and, thereby, the potential value that can be extracted is growing. The challenge is how to derive insights from disparate and distributed data sources without infringing regulatory or confidentiality guidelines.

Meanwhile, the growing Internet of Everything (IoE) ecosystem will connect the online and physical worlds, and society will become increasingly technology driven as a result. The number of things connected to the Internet globally in 2008 exceeded the number of people on earth, Reinecke says.

Further, automation will acquire new meaning, data-value management will be accentuated by the richness of data and AI will ingest the data to drive intelligent insights and outcomes never seen before.

Biometrics will expand to include gestures, emotions and expressions, as well as many more aspects, which will trigger automated system reactions to ease or enhance activities.

“The IoE will transform the way we provide healthcare, and the way we live, work and learn. It will re-engineer our lives through what we increasingly refer to as the ‘human application programming interface’, enabling people to interface with connected systems in ways that are difficult to anticipate,” he concludes.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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