Trends Identified

Ecosystem power plays
Companies are increasingly integrating their core business functionalities with third parties and their platforms. But rather than treat them like partnerships of old, forward-thinking leaders leverage these relationships to build their role in new digital ecosystems – instrumental to unlocking their next waves of strategic growth. As they do, they’re designing future value chains that will transform their businesses, products, and even the market itself.
2017
Technology vision 2017, amplify you
Accenture
Liquid Workforce
Companies are investing in the tools and technologies they need to keep pace with constant change in the digital era. But there is typically a critical factor that is falling behind: the workforce. Companies need more than the right technology; they need to harness that technology to enable the right people to do the right things in an adaptable, change-ready, and responsive liquid workforce.
2016
Accenture Technology Vision 2016
Accenture
Intelligent Automation
Companies got started with robotic process automation (RPA) to streamline processes and reduce costs. Now, the automation toolbox continues to expand — and get smarter. This includes everything from natural language processing and machine learning to orchestration software and automation platforms that help you optimize what work is best suited for people and which is best done by machines. The shift to more intelligent automation will yield returns that go far beyond cost savings, such as better customer and employee experience, improved quality due to fewer errors, and reimagined processes that change how business is done.
2017
The Essential Eight - Your guide to the emerging technologies revolutionizing business now
PWC
Additive manufacturing
Companies have just begun to adopt additive manufacturing, such as 3-D printing, which they use mostly to prototype and produce individual components. With Industry 4.0, these additive-manufacturing methods will be widely used to produce small batches of customized products that offer construction advantages, such as complex, lightweight designs.
2015
Nine Technologies Transforming Industrial Production
Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
The skills challenge
Companies that reinvent their own talent will gain an edge.
2018
Top Policy Trends of 2018
PWC
Delayed Demographic Transition
Compared with other parts of the developing world, Africa’s demographic transition is delayed and highly variable across countries. Africa’s population is projected to peak at 2.7 billion in 2060, compared to 1.0 billion in 2010 (Figure 12). The projections show the population growth rate declining, following a similar trajectory to other major global areas.
2011
Africa in 50 Years’ Time
African Development Bank
Trends in population growth
Compared with the recent past, the world population growth rate has slowed down. While 10 years ago the global population was growing by 1.24 percent per year, today it is growing by 1.18 percent per year, or approximately an additional 83 million people annually (Ibid.). With this population growth rate, the world population is projected to increase by more than 1 billion people within the next 15 years, reaching 8.5 billion in 2030.
2017
Global trends
UNDP
What business are you in
Competition In the face of an ever-growing set of concerns, the question CEOs are asking is this: How do we manage the day-to-day business while having the confidence and vision to explore a much wider range of opportunities than we’ve ever considered before? .
2015
18th Annual global CEO survey
PWC
Perfect Online Privacy
Computer scientists are perfecting a cryptographic tool for proving something without revealing the information underlying the proof.
2018
10 Breakthrough Technologies 2018
MIT Technology Review
VR
Computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional image or a complete environment, within a defined and contained space (unlike AR), that viewers can interact with in realistic ways. VR is intended to be an immersive experience and typically requires equipment, most commonly a helmet/headset.
2016
Tech breaktroughs megatrend
PWC