Trends Identified

Finding the Face of Your Data
Hidden patterns in big data can trigger breakthrough insights – if you have the data scientists to guide discovery In December 2012, an Internet search for “big data” returned more than 100 million results. A 2012 report from the Wikibon community pegged the big-data marketplace at $10 billion in 2012, growing to $48 billion in 20151. In the past year, over $1 billion has been invested into private companies that focus on big data solutions2. The majority of big-data market growth can be attributed to business’s increasing interest in related analytics capabilities to drive improved decisions through improved insight. Not surpris­ingly, some business executives feel big data is over-hyped. Others claim its value is under-realized.
2013
Tech Trends 2013 Elements of postdigital
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
Reinventing the ERP Engine
With a super-charged engine, businesses can drive new performance. ERP is no stranger to reinvention, overhauling itself time and again to remain relevant through disruptive waves of client/server and the Web. Its formula for success? Expanding the very definition of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) from financials to manufacturing to supply chain management to CRM to HR and more. Beyond new functional capabilities, it has also expanded into information – business intelligence, reporting, and analytics allow organizations to build predictive models. For a while, the focus was extensibility through integration platforms, application servers, and orchestration suites. Today’s momentum is around ubiquity. Organizations are striving to make ERP accessible in many ways – on your mobile device, in your collaboration suite, or in your social streams.
2013
Tech Trends 2013 Elements of postdigital
Deloitte
No Such Thing as Hacker-proof
You’ve been breached, or you soon will be. Now what? Who can forget that great line from the movie Field of Dreams? “If you build it, they will come.” It’s an inspiring incentive of future rewards to be reaped for challenging work today. But in the realm of cyber-threat defense, it is also an unfortunate likelihood. If you build something of value, others will likely come to steal it. No matter how you secure your environment. No matter how many redundant walls or how many futile moats you have.
2013
Tech Trends 2013 Elements of postdigital
Deloitte
The Business of IT
After reengineering the rest of the business, IT’s children deserve some shoes. With shrinking budgets and increased scrutiny over ROI, many IT organizations are under pressure for bottom-line company earnings. This manifests in two ways: enabling the business to be more effective in the market (IT for the business), and driving efficiency of IT operations (The Business of IT). To do both, IT organizations should automate and integrate their core processes and services, just as they’ve done previously for manufacturing, finance, and sales. When it comes to supporting business performance, IT has a thirty-plus year record of delivering what’s needed. First it was the transition from manual processes to technology-driven solutions. Then, from standalone systems to integrated offerings. And now, IT is striving for similar returns from information, digital, and innovation. In the years ahead, however, IT’s value proposition will likely increasingly be shaped by how well it addresses its second mandate: to improve operational efficiency in the business of IT itself.
2013
Tech Trends 2013 Elements of postdigital
Deloitte
Social Business
Reimagining business with a social mindset Even today, business leaders may dismiss the potential of social business, either relegating it to the realm of Internet marketing or ignoring the buzz as a passing fad. But that’s changing as boomers evolve into digital natives, millennials permeate the workforce and social media becomes a part of daily life. The doors are now open for social business.
2012
Tech Trends 2012-Elevate IT for digital business
Deloitte
Gamification
Gaming gets serious Gamification is about taking the essence of games – fun, play and passion – and applying it to real-world, non-game situations. In a business setting, that means designing solutions using gaming principles in everything from back-office tasks and training to sales management and career counseling. Game mechanics lie at the heart of gamification. For example, achievement levels, pointtracking and bonuses are ways for desired activities to be recognised and rewarded. Leaderboards and progression indicators can steer individuals to reach the next tier of performance. Quests and countdowns can help shape behavior – the former as a way to structure long combinations of tasks for a larger goal; the latter to motivate a flurry of activity within a finite, specified timeframe.
2012
Tech Trends 2012-Elevate IT for digital business
Deloitte
Enterprise Mobility Unleashed
Businesses are embracing mobility. Now comes the hard part Rapid technology developments in wireless connectivity and mobile devices marked the beginning of the mobility revolution. Next came the apps renaissance, when intuitive, engaging pieces of software, tailored for smartphones and tablets, began to change our dayto- day lives. The revolution has now reached business. Many organisations today find mobile initiatives popping up in every business unit, in every region and in every department. The floodgates have opened. Now what?
2012
Tech Trends 2012-Elevate IT for digital business
Deloitte
User Empowerment
The end-user renaissance forces a disruptive shift in IT In their personal lives, business users are enjoying a technology renaissance that continues to deliver simple, elegant and often innovative technology products. Then they come to work expecting the same experience. To meet those expectations, IT leaders should understand and deliver capabilities that engage each key persona of their users, enabling a given role in the way they actually perform their job. But it shouldn’t stop there. The real trick is envisioning how emerging technologies and new form factors can improve how work actually gets done. Enterprise users are clamoring for mobile and social enablement – collaboration, information and insight wherever, whenever. They’re looking to leave behind the legacy “point, click, type” world for one of “touch, swipe, talk and gesture,” and they won’t hesitate to go around central IT to get the capabilities they need. The CIO must envision the digital future and deliver the empowered present.
2012
Tech Trends 2012-Elevate IT for digital business
Deloitte
Hyper-hybrid Cloud
Adoption moves from cloud to clouds, and hybrid emerges as a dominant model As cloud offerings added vertical business capability offerings to the horizontal IT capacity services, the adoption question changed from “if” to “when” – and the answer is frequently “now.” Along the way, leading organisations moved from cautious exploration to the reality of multiple individual cloud offerings handling critical pieces of their business operations – and sourced from multiple public and private providers. In each instance, these offerings needed to be connected back to the core of the business, often through traditional data-driven on-premise integration solutions. Advance one step further, and the organisation is managing both exception and routine workflow across a growing range of disparate cloud offerings with point-to-point links to legacy systems and data. This shift from “cloud” to “clouds” provides new opportunities, but it also brings challenges beyond just integration – security, data integrity and reliability, and business rules management for business processes that depend on enterprise IT assets composed with one or more cloud services. Welcome to the world of hyper-hybrid cloud.
2012
Tech Trends 2012-Elevate IT for digital business
Deloitte