Internet of Behavior
Gartner’s report on the top strategic technology trends 2021 placed the Internet of Behavior as one of the key trends enabling organizations to become more flexible in the post-COVID-19 state of the world.
The Internet of Behavior means using data to influence behaviors.
An example of IoB is a telematics system that monitors driving behaviors like sudden braking or aggressive turns. Companies can use this data to improve the performance and safety of their drivers.
The socioeconomic challenges of 2020 demand a new level of plasticity from companies that need to transform in line with the key social and economic trends. People are still at the center of all business, and they need digitized processes to work in environments under lockdown.
Location independence is another critical part of the Internet of Behavior trend because COVID-19 has shown us that it’s important where employees, customers, and suppliers physically exist.
Finally, the pandemic taught us that the world out there is volatile. This is why organizations of all sizes need to be prepared to pivot at the right moment and adapt to any kind of circumstances.
Artificial intelligence (AI)
AI is clearly one of the strongest technology trends at the moment, and the pandemic generated a new level of acceptance for AI-powered tools among the public.
Experts predict that in 2021, artificial intelligence will become an even more valuable tool helping us to interpret the world around us.
Healthcare data collected during the pandemic, such as infection and transmission rates or geographic distribution, will set governments for success when applying measures to prevent the spread of infection.
Machine learning algorithms are going to receive even more data to train on. They will become more sophisticated. Governments will apply computer vision systems that monitor the capacity of public areas.
AI algorithms will analyze interactions unveiled via contact tracing solutions, identify connections, and generate insights that would otherwise go unnoticed from the manual human analysis. AI is going to help us to predict the demand for services from hospitals and healthcare providers.
All in all, AI is here to help organizations make smarter decisions about how to organize their supply chains, where to reach customers, and when to deploy resources.
Businesses will be tasked with understanding the rapidly changing patterns of human behaviors. More and more of these behaviors will be happening online – from virtual working environments and recruitment to socializing and shopping.
In 2021, we’re going to see a blossoming of tools that allow analyzing these behavioral shifts. They will become not only more sophisticated but also widespread, fitting the budgets and infrastructure requirements of an increasing number of organizations.
Robotics, vehicle automation, and drones
The pandemic revealed to us that the volume of passengers using public transport can fluctuate from week to week depending on local conditions and regulations. That’s why initiatives around self-driving vehicles are now increasing their speed.
Driving efficiency across the public transportation networks is going to become a priority for many service providers and government authorities. By reducing human labor costs, they will be able to better balance the uncertainty around customer demand.
What about robotics? This is another area that is going to become increasingly important – in particular, in the context of healthcare. For example, robotic assistance could be used to assist those members of the society who are most vulnerable. But instead of replacing human interaction with caregivers, they would offer channels of communication like access to 24/7 in-home help, providing companionship, and simply entertaining people.
Drones could be used to deliver medicine and when equipped with computer vision algorithms, monitor traffic congestion in public areas to identify locations with an increased risk of viral transmission.
Enhanced connectivity and 5G
Faster and more reliable internet connection doesn’t only increase the load time. Every successive advance in mobile connectivity from 3G unlocked brand-new use cases for the mobile internet.
- 3G allowed users to easily browse the web and made data-driven services possible on mobile devices.
- 4G opened the door to video and music streaming platforms as the bandwidth increased.
You can only imagine what 5G will do in terms of what’s possible on mobile devices.
5G means that advanced technologies such as Augmented Reality or Virtual Reality will become more achievable on mobile devices connected to the internet. Cloud-based gaming platforms are another viable proposition coming from this trend.
High-speed networks like 5G will make all the other trends we discussed here available anywhere and at any time, on the go. For example, a worker will be able to use complex machine learning applications relying on real-time access to Big Data sources in the field.
For example, a Scandinavian small business using a 5G network to automate the care and feeding of the fish. Image recognition algorithms detect which fish might be under- or over-fed and automatically dispense food and medicine required to keep them healthy.
In 2021, businesses will be looking to increase automation across their workforce, and innovations like 5G and high-speed networks will become essential.
Extended Reality, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality
The term Extended Reality covers technologies that use glasses or headsets to project virtual imagery directly into the field of vision. When virtual imagery superimposed over the real world, we’re talking about Augmented Reality. And when it’s used to place the user into an entirely virtual environment, it’s Virtual Reality.
In 2021, we can expect to see these innovations together with other trends we discussed here to help us handle the challenges posed by the pandemic. For example, the healthcare industry will employ AR applications to train medical students, perform medical examinations, and offer diagnoses remotely.
Opticians will be able to allow it to perform examinations via telemedicine by using a high-definition camera that offers a clear image of the patient’s eye. And the customer will choose from a wide range of glasses, using the AR application to see what they would look like on their face without having to leave home.
Education is another sector likely to increase its use of VR and AR solutions. This will reduce the need for students to congregate in crowded classroom conditions, especially during the time of lockdown restrictions.
Privacy-enhancing solutions
Another technology Gartner mentioned in the report is privacy-enhancing computation. This trend consists of three different technologies that aim to protect data while it’s being used:
- the first one offers a trusted environment where sensitive data can be processed or analyzed,
- the second performs the processing in a decentralized manner,
- the third encrypts data and algorithms before the processing takes place.
This trend will enable organizations to collaborate on research data securely across various regions – and even with their competitors, without sacrificing data privacy and confidentiality.
This approach emerges from the increased need to share data while maintaining top security and privacy.
Multi cloud is one of the strongest tech trends for 2021.
Distributed cloud computing
Distributed cloud refers to a trend where cloud services are distributed to different physical locations. However, the operation, evolution, and governance remain under the responsibility of the public cloud provider.
By allowing organizations to locate cloud services physically nearby, cloud providers will allow low-latency options, accommodate data localization laws, and reduce data costs.
This is also the reason why multi-cloud is becoming such a strong trend. In both scenarios, organizations get to benefit from the public cloud without dealing with the complexity and costs that come with managing their own private clouds just to achieve compliance or lower fees.
Hyper - Automation
Automation is going to be one of the key focus areas around the world in 2021. And when we take it to the next level, we can start talking about hyper-automation.
What exactly does hyper-automation mean? It’s an idea that literally anything that can be automated in an organization should be automated.
Hyper-automation will be driven by organizations that still have legacy business processes running that aren’t streamlined. These processes create expenses and issues that are costly to resolve.
Today, many companies out there support their processes by a patchwork of technologies that might not be optimized, well-connected, or efficient. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic showed that accelerating digital business processes requires automation.
Companies that don’t develop this type of business agility will be left behind in the future. That’s why automation is set to become so important in the near future.
Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity mesh is a concept that is going to influence cybersecurity practices in 2021. It refers to a distributed architectural approach to building a scalable, flexible, and reliable cybersecurity control. According to Gartner, cybersecurity mesh is going to be one of the leading technology trends in 2021.
Organizations often keep many assets outside of the traditional security parameter.
Thanks to cybersecurity mesh, security parameters can be defined around the identity of a thing or person. This helps to create a more modular and responsive security approach.
Essentially, it’s about centralizing policy orchestration and distributing policy enforcement. Perimeter protection then becomes less important; the security approach of the “walled city” can evolve to match the current needs.
Conclusion
According to the tech trends forecast for 2021, the year is shaping up to be an exciting period for the technology industry. The COVID-19 pandemic had a massive impact on our societies, economies, and ways we use technology to manage our lives.
Organizations are going to become increasingly interested in digital transformation initiatives. It’s simple – this year showed us that failure to digitize might mean failure to survive. That is why the next year is going to become so exciting.
If you want to prepare your business for the future, get in touch with us. Our experts help organizations across various industry verticals to harness the power of technology and bring their businesses into the future successfully.
Organisations looking to truly embrace digital transformation must stop focusing on their own internal problems and systems and concentrate on meeting their customers’ needs.
Speaking at the joint CMO, CIO magazines and ADMA Executive Connections event, entitled ‘Mastering Digital Transformation’, former Lonely Planet executive director and innovation consultant, Gus Balbontin, shared the challenges of digital disruption at the travel publishing business and the customer, operational and strategic lessons that must be learnt to cope in a digital age.
Once heralded as the first point of call for any traveller to plan their journey, Lonely Planet struggled to maintain its competitive edge and profit margins as digital disruption triggered a major shift in the media industry. At the same time, the need for change was compounded by socio, political and economic forces, he said.
“Taking a look at our website in 2002, we had been going at it for six years and were clearly ahead compared to TripAdvisor, who had only been going for six months,” he said. Fast forward to today, and TripAdvisor is worth over $11 billion, but Lonely Planet sold a few years ago for $75 million.
So what happened? According to Balbontin, the problem was that Lonely Planet focused too much on its own problems – selling more books – instead of its overall mission: To make it easier for more people to travel.
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“People stopped buying books, bookstores were going out of business and new competitors were entering the market and the customer expectations were shifting,” he told attendees. “There was a lot of change and we could just not keep up.”
From the outset, Lonely Planet focused too much on its own problem of pushing books, and forgot about the customer’s problem, which was finding good travel recommendations.
“It’s like wanting to sell music, but just focusing on producing and selling cassette tapes,” he joked. “Or Kodak’s problem, which was to sell more film, without addressing the real customer problem, which was how to capture life’s moments and share it. If they had focused on the customer problem early on, they should have come up with Instagram. But they never came up with that because the KPI and business incentive was too invested in creating and selling film.”
TripAdvisor on the other hand, got it right from the outset because it was chasing the customer, he said.
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“They were all about selling the travel experience, tourism, hotels, attractions, information, resources, reviews, flights as well as a host of relevant books,” he added. “The customer had problems, lots of them, and these guys with no legacy, and not investment behind them, focused on trying to fix the customer problem.”
Another factor preventing innovation was that Lonely Planet was owned by the internal systems and infrastructure it created in the name of producing books.
“Our first apps looked like books in mobile form,” he said. “Why? Because we had a book-making machine, so anything we put into it would come out looking like a book.”
In an age of almost constant disruption, you need resources and you need money, but most importantly, you need to be resourceful, Balbontin said. He advised encouraging teams by setting up an operational strategy that allows the business to be constantly agile and adaptable to shifts in the marketing landscape.
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“With disruption, we tend to point the finger a lot, but it’s important to remember failure is not opposite of success,” he continued. “Failure is the path to success. You need to be courageous to pitch your ideas and be open to judgment or even ridicule. Because that is how innovation works, it is a game of volume and it is a game of resilience.”
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