Trends Identified
Governments enhance ties with the private sector
The past year has been one of readjustment between developed and emerging economies, between the public and private sectors and between global institutions and nations. These adjustments will continue as governments, organizations and institutions define their roles in the post-crisis world.
2011
Tracking global trends - How six key developments are shaping the business world
EY
Rapid technology innovation creates a smart, mobile world
Smart technology offers the promise of remote access to health care and education, while blurring boundaries between industries. The power of the individual will grow and new competitors will emerge, disrupting industries and creating new business models.
2011
Tracking global trends - How six key developments are shaping the business world
EY
Demographic shifts transform the global workforce
Never before has demographic change happened so quickly. Global employers face the challenge that, despite a growing global population, they will soon have to recruit from a shrinking workforce due to an aging population.
2011
Tracking global trends - How six key developments are shaping the business world
EY
Industry redefined
Is every industry now your industry? Industry — the concept and the reality — is being rede ned and reinvented. In the pre-internet era, the competencies, assets and knowledge necessary to participate in any given industry sector were unique and varied significantly from industry to industry. Hard and fast industry boundaries (and high barriers to entry) arose as a result. With digital innovation and other forces acting as solvents, industry boundaries are melting and disappearing.
2018
What’s after what’s next? The upside of disruption Megatrends shaping 2018 and beyond
EY
Future of work
When machines become workers, what is the human role? When EY first wrote about the future of work in our 2016 Megatrends report, the topic was just starting to attract attention. Skeptics doubted predictions about massive disruptions of labor by AI and robots. Now, we are overwhelmed with analyses of the future of work from the mainstream press, business literature and consultants. Predictions that seemed distant two years ago are entering the real world — from the live- testing of autonomous ride-sharing in key cities to the opening of the world’s first fully automated retail outlet, the Amazon Go store in Seattle.
2018
What’s after what’s next? The upside of disruption Megatrends shaping 2018 and beyond
EY
Super consumer
When humans are augmented by AI, who gains the most — consumers or brands? We expect the evolution and interplay of AI, machine learning, ever-present sensors, smart devices and new computing interfaces to take consumer empowerment to
a whole new level — giving rise to tomorrow’s super consumer. A little like the fictional superheroes of comic books, super consumers can be defined as those who embrace new technologies, such as AI, VR, wearables and robotics, to create smarter and more powerful extensions of themselves. Whether working, playing, eating, shopping, learning or pursuing healthier lifestyles, tomorrow’s super consumers will be augmented by technology (see Human augmentation) in the service of achieving more informed and rich experiences across these different categories of living.
2018
What’s after what’s next? The upside of disruption Megatrends shaping 2018 and beyond
EY
Behavioral design
How will insights from psychology improve the partnership between humans and new technologies? The relationship between design and behavior has never been more important than in the era of human augmentation..This link has been increasingly visible in recent years. The launch of Google Glass fizzled partly because of people’s fears of being surreptitiously recorded. Smartphone and social media addictions are rising because manufacturers have designed for irresistibility. Understanding how design motivates behavior will become even more important with human augmentation. As AI, robots and other technologies become increasingly lifelike and enter spaces that have so far been exclusively in the human domain, they will trigger deep-seated human biases. Leaders must attend to the implications of behavioral design for everything, from customer engagement (see Super consumer) to fears about automation to the outcome of elections.
2018
What’s after what’s next? The upside of disruption Megatrends shaping 2018 and beyond
EY
Adaptive regulation
How could regulation be responsive to rapid change and an unknowable future? Regulation can be a contentious issue. Critics argue — often justifiably so — that it is onerous, inefficient and an impediment to innovation. But, imagine an entirely different approach. Imagine a future in which consumer safety is protected not by monitoring regulatory compliance and penalizing infractions, but by using big data and algorithms to prevent breaches before they can even occur. Imagine regulations that rewrite themselves to keep up with ever-changing market conditions. Imagine regulation conducted jointly by industry and regulators — a collaborative, rather than contentious, exercise. This is where things are headed. The future of regulation is adaptive. The reason for this shift is disruptive innovation. On one hand, disruptive technologies and business models are straining existing regulatory approaches and making them unsustainable. On the other, these technologies are creating opportunities to conduct regulation in an entirely new way.
2018
What’s after what’s next? The upside of disruption Megatrends shaping 2018 and beyond
EY
Remapping urbanization
How will cities be reshaped by technology and our greatest challenges? The urbanization of the future could look fundamentally different. Two sets of forces will converge to alter where we build and how we build: 1. How cities respond to sustainability challenges, such as climate change, chronic diseases, aging and affordability 2. How disruptive technologies that are transforming transportation and reinventing work reshape urban centers.
2018
What’s after what’s next? The upside of disruption Megatrends shaping 2018 and beyond
EY
Innovating communities
Is there a big future in small cities? The majority of humanity will live in cities by 2050. But, in what kind of cities? The conventional urbanization narrative holds that big cities will only get bigger and economic benefits will continue to accrue disproportionately to hotbed regions, such as the San Francisco Bay Area or Shenzhen in China. However, as we highlight in our “Remapping urbanization” megatrend, the future of cities is not more of the same. A counter-narrative to this urbanization story is arising as global megacities and hotbeds begin to experience the limits to growth, and the forces of disruption continue to drive change that creates new opportunities for legacy cities and smaller cities. The result will be a more distributed, inclusive and resilient global cityscape.
2018
What’s after what’s next? The upside of disruption Megatrends shaping 2018 and beyond
EY