Trends Identified

Design as a Discipline

Design should be much more than a project phase. Design is already part of the IT vocabulary. Functional design. Technical design. Detail design. Testing design. User interface (UI) design. Technical architecture design. And, more recently, user experience (UX) design – a hot area of focus as consumer technology experiences are resetting expectations for corporate IT. Throughout its history, however, design has generally remained a discrete set of deliverables or project phases, completed by specialized teams at distinct points during a project’s lifecycle. Individual facets of design have reflected little understanding of other related project activities, much less the broader context of the business vision and expected outcomes. Meanwhile, usability, intuitiveness, and simplicity have moved from aspiration to mandate, with the business having access to new ways to get what it wants: directly procuring cloud services, digital solutions, and mobile apps that are “good enough” to meet their needs. In this open marketplace for IT, business relevance and user engagement are competitive currency. Many CIOs find their organizations lack the skills and craft to mint the new coin. What’s missing may be a commitment to design as a business discipline, a commitment that takes shape by asking: What benefits would we gain if design were a pervasive and persistent aspect of each part of the enterprise? This kind of thinking moves design from just another software development lifecycle (SDLC) phase to an integral part of the IT environment. It shifts the focus from “How do I meet the requirements?” to “Why is this important in the first place?” and “How could we innovate to improve it?” Enterprises can reach this vision, but it often takes a deliberate approach, intentionally applied, by a new mix of talent. The CIO is positioned to make it happen.

2013

Tech Trends 2013 Elements of postdigital

Deloitte

Design outside the lines

Designers need to evolve — how they work, learn, and differentiate themselves — if they are to continue having an impact across organizations.

2018

Fjord trends 2018

Fjord

Technology enabled urban planning and design

Designing IoT enabled cities with intelligent infrastructure and grids, and shared operations, can increase energy efficiency, and reduce GHG emissions and waste at the building, transport system, and municipal level.

2017

Innovation for the Earth - Harnessing technological breakthroughs for people and the planet

PWC

Safe car travel?

Despite all the rapid urbanisation and talk of bullet trains and fantastical technology like the Hyperloop coming to the fore, the car isn’t going anywhere – and in fact, in the next couple decades, there will be even more of them on the road. Driverless car technology is swiftly rolling out, with major tech companies and automakers aggressively seeking to debut human-free vehicles in coming years. But in addition, the sheer number of cars – self-driving or not – is going to skyrocket, studies show. In countries like China that are seeing a growing middle class, the environmental and infrastructural needs that an increasingly road-faring population demands is going to be a grand challenge. How do we ensure safety, fight pollution, and make sure driverless cars aren’t a menace on the road?

2017

10 grand challenges we’ll face by 2050

The BBC

Active Defense

Despite an increasing focus on securing the digital business, IT departments struggle to keep pace with recent advances in security technology. Enterprises know that endpoint security is not enough, but the move to active defense—risk-based approaches to security management, analytics-driven event detection, and reflex-like incident response—isn’t yet happening on a broad scale. Although these technologies are maturing rapidly and communities are forming to expose risks, the biggest barrier is slow adoption of solutions that already exist. IT’s core challenge: get current with best practices in security while getting smarter about the new active-defense possibilities and getting real about the journey ahead.

2013

Accenture Technology Vision 2013

Accenture

A U.S.-China cold war will first be fought on the technology front.

Despite current tensions, the U.S. and Chinese economy are too interlinked for a trade war to truly escalate in the short term, says Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer. A cold war is more likely in five or 10 years, he adds, when an economic downturn and sustained animosity have undone those ties. But for 2019, the fight is on the technology front: “There you do have a cold war. There you have the Chinese with their AI model, the Americans with our AI model. The Chinese with their internet, the Americans with our internet,” he says. He echoes former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who warned in September that our online world risked a “bifurcation” into Chinese-led and U.S.-led internets. “They're not playing nice at all,” Bremmer adds. “I do think that longer term we're heading for big trouble between the Americans and the Chinese.”

2018

50 Big Ideas for 2019: What to watch in the year ahead

LinkedIn

Inequity rises, while the global economy flattens

Despite the heady pace of technological development, income inequality has been on the rise over the last few decades in Australia as well as in other OECD countries22. A recent OECD113 report on the economic impact of aging, skill- biased technological change, globalisation, and rising environmental pressures suggests that global economic growth could slow from 3.6% in 2010-2020 to 2.4% in 2050-2060. The same report asserted that technological progress will heighten demand for high skilled labour, which over the next few decades, could push average income inequality across the OECD to levels experienced by the US today113.

2017

Surfing the digital tsunami

Australia, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)

Fragmentation of regulatory approach to ICT and big data

Despite the potential of big data and cloud computing, fragmented regulatory environments in the EU and a lack of adopted interoperability approaches and standards pose significant barriers. The lack of clear guidance in this field causes regulatory uncertainty on how to apply the relevant provisions from the existing EU regulatory framework. Member States have started to adopt different approaches, creating a risk of fragmentation of the digital single market and deterring EU wide investment and innovation.

2014

Challenges at the horizon 2025

European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)

The productivity imperative

Developed-world economies will need to generate pronounced gains in productivity to power continued economic growth. The most dramatic innovations in the Western world are likely to be those that accelerate economic productivity.

2010

Mckinsey quarterly, Global forces: An introduction

McKinsey

Diffusion of power

Developing countries in Asia will become more prominent world powers compared to North American and European nations. "China alone will probably have the largest economy, surpassing that of the United States a few years before 2030," the report explained. "In a tectonic shift, the health of the global economy increasingly will be linked to how well the developing world does — more so than the traditional West." In other words, having the most money or people won't necessarily keep a country powerful if others are more adept at staying connected to data and resources.

2017

4 mega-trends that could change the world by 2030

World Economic Forum (WEF)