Trends Identified
Technology Complicates the Long-Term Outlook
Most of the worlds’ largest economies will struggle with shrinking working-age populations, but all countries will face the challenge of maintaining employment—and developing well-trained, resilient workers. Automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and other technological innovations threaten the existence of vast swaths of current jobs up and down the socioeconomic ladder, including high-technology manufacturing and even white-collar services.
2017
Global Trends: The Paradox of Progress
USA, US National Intelligence Council
Value-driven Application Management Services
Moving beyond labor arbitrage in Applications Management Services (AMS) With 65 percent of all IT service dollars spent on maintaining existing technology,1 companies everywhere have been hard pressed to invest more in technology improvements needed by the business. In an effort to trim maintenance costs, many organizations entered into AMS contracts.
2010
Depth perception A dozen technology trends shaping business and IT in 2010
Deloitte
Gamification Goes to Work
Moving beyond points, badges, and leaderboards. Leveling, point-tracking, and bonuses can recognize and reward desired activity. Leaderboards and progression indicators can steer individuals to the next tier of personal and business performance. Quests and countdowns can shape behavior. It’s all part of gamification – and it’s having a real impact on businesses worldwide. Gartner predicts that by 2015, 40% of Global 1000 organizations will use gamification as the primary mechanism to transform business operations1. Unfortunately, many early efforts never moved beyond tactically layering on points, badges, and leaderboards to pockets of the business. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2014, 80% of current gamified applications will fail to meet business objectives primarily due to poor design2. Gamification’s potential is much bolder – systematic adoption within and across the business, tightly integrated with the core systems that drive front- and back-office functions.
2013
Tech Trends 2013 Elements of postdigital
Deloitte
Cyber-security
Moving from background technology to a priority business discipline With intellectual property now fully convertible to ones and zeros, it was only a matter of time before defending enterprise information assets became a key concern. For too many years, security has been relegated to the technology agenda and accorded only marginal attention and budget by many organizations. Most perceived the threat to be containable, where a protect-the-perimeter approach was deemed sufficient. Responses were reactive, both to incidents and compliance requirements.
2010
Depth perception A dozen technology trends shaping business and IT in 2010
Deloitte
Smart logistics
Moving things & people with a new level of efficiency
2018
Corum Top Ten Disruptive Technology Trends 2018
Corum
The new core- unleashing the digital potential in heart of the business operations
Much of the attention paid to cloud, cognitive, and other digital disruptors today centers on the way they manifest in the marketplace: Individually and collectively, these technologies support new customer experiences, product innovation, and rewired industry ecosystems. Often overlooked, however, is their disruptive potential in core back- and mid-office systems and in operations, where digital technologies are poised to fundamentally change the way work gets done. This transformation is beginning with finance and supply chain, two corporate and agency pillars ready to embrace all things digital. From there, next-generation transaction and financial systems, blockchain, machine intelligence, automation, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are redefining what is possible in these mission-critical functions.
2017
Tech trends 2018
Deloitte
Globalization patterns are changing, with rapid growth in data flows and a larger role for highgrowth emerging economies
Much of the recent focus on globalization has been on trade pullbacks, rising protectionist measures, and public hostility. As a phenomenon, however, globalization has not gone into reverse; rather, it has shifted gears to become more data-driven and more focused on South- South flows. The seeming flattening of globalization that followed the 2008 financial crisis disguises new patterns of connectedness. While cross-border flows of goods and finance have lost momentum, data flows are helping drive global GDP. Cross-border data bandwidth grew by 148 times between 2005 and 2017, to more than 700 terabytes per second—a larger quantity per second than the entire US Library of Congress—and is projected to grow by another nine times in the next five years as digital flows of commerce, information, searches, video, communication, and intracompany traffic continue to surge. In line with its rising economic role, the developing world is now driving global connectedness. For the first time in history, emerging economies are counterparts on more than half of global trade flows, and South-South trade is the fastest-growing type of connection. In the MGI Connectedness Index, Singapore tops the latest rankings, followed by the Netherlands, the United States, and Germany. China has surged from number 25 to number seven. South-South and China-South trade jumped from 8 percent of the global total in 1995 to 20 percent in 2016. The shifting nature of the Chinese economy, toward a more R&D-intensive focus and away from low-cost manufacturing, plus China’s push through the Belt and Road initiative, may begin to create a new trade ecosystem with China at the core. By comparison, North-North trade and North-South trade have declined as a share of total trade, especially since the 2008 financial crisis. North-North trade is now 33 percent of the total, versus 43 percent in 2005 and 55 percent in 1995. Amid these shifts, our latest research suggests that China’s relationship with the world may be at a turning point. By 2017, China accounted for 15 percent of world GDP. It overtook the United States to become the world’s largest economy in purchasing power parity terms in 2014, according to International Monetary Fund data—for the first time since 1870. (In nominal terms, China’s GDP was 64 percent of US GDP in 2017, making it the secondlargest economy in the world). Behind these headline numbers lies a less-noticed shift: over the past decade, even as its economy has grown, China’s exposure to the world, as measured by the magnitude of flows of trade, technology, and capital with the rest of the world relative to its economy, has declined. At the same time, the world’s exposure to China (the magnitude of flows with China relative to the global economy) has increased since 2000. Metrics used to measure exposure include China’s importance as a market and supplier of goods and services; the importance of Chinese technology exports for global R&D spending; and China’s importance as a supplier of financing (Exhibit 2). Global value chains are also evolving. They are being reshaped in part by technology including automation, which could amplify the shift toward more localized production of goods near consumer markets. And they are changing along with global demand, as China and other developing countries consume more of what they produce and export a smaller share. As emerging economies build more comprehensive domestic supply chains, they are reducing their reliance on imported intermediate inputs. The result is that goods-producing value chains have become less trade-intensive, even as cross-border services are growing briskly—and generating more economic value than trade statistics capture, according to our analysis. Trade based on labor-cost arbitrage has been declining and now makes up only 20 percent of goods trade. Global value chains are becoming more knowledge-intensive and reliant on high-skill labor. Finally, goods-producing value chains (particularly automotive as well as computers and electronics) are becoming more regionally concentrated as companies increasingly establish production in proximity to demand.
2019
Navigating a world of disruption
McKinsey
Multi-purpose Vaccine
Multi-purpose vaccines prevent diseases caused by most variants of pathogenic bacteria and reduce the number of vaccinations a child receives. Identifying safe and effective antigens, and ensuring the stability of the vaccine is important. The technology uses DNA vaccines that target DNA sequences common in widely ranging pathogens.
2010
KISTEP 10 Emerging Technologies 2010
South Korea, Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP)
Nano- and micro-robotics systems
Nano- and microrobotics systems appear to be very promising in terms of their use in medicine, including to develop next-generation surgical devices. In this group, promising products include: movable elements of nano- and microrobotics systems based on laminated nanocomposite materials; integrated equipment based on mechatronic modules to machine complex parts; active nanostructures based on magneto-elastic materials and multiferroics with artificially created critical states, designed for micro-electromechanical systems; mechatronic modules used for spatial positioning of nanosystems and nanotechnological equipment based on incremental micromotors, roller drives and microprocessor control systems.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
Nanomaterials
Nano-scale systems often exhibit properties that improve upon or are much different from their human-scale varieties; for example, silver exhibits anti-bacterial properties at the nano-scale that are absent at the macro-scale. As scientists work with materials close to the molecular level, they can produce new and useful materials, such as nanocellulose and nanocarbon. Both have impressive performance characteristics, being respectively 10 and 50 times stronger than steel for their weight. Nanocoatings provide new ways to make structures self-cleaning, more durable and perhaps even able to receive, store and respond to stimuli. Other nanomaterials are excellent catalysts for making chemistry greener and cheaper. Over the next 15 years, nanomaterials will change the types of things we build and how we build them.
2013
Metascan 3 emerging technologies
Canada, Policy Horizons Canada