Virtusa Corporation on Wednesday announced the findings of detailed research that identifies trends that will drive emerging technology investments in 2020. The third annual Virtusa xLabs’ Trend Almanac details the top ten technology trends that will strategically align with business and technology investments.
Virtusa Corporation is a global provider of digital business strategy, digital engineering, and information technology (IT) services and solutions.
The major trends, which Virtusa identified in collaboration with technology and business leaders, focus on the Financial Services, Insurance, and Life Sciences industries. Aligning investments to the most influential technology trends will help businesses to stay competitive and drive growth in 2020 and throughout the new decade.
The full report identifies three overriding themes:
· The democratisation of emerging tech, reducing the investment, and skill needed to develop and capitalise on tech across infrastructure, applications, and data.
· The need for transparency, ethical practice, and good governance to balance the manic rush to explore and exploit "The New."
· A change in how companies manage tech-enabled innovation programs, ensuring that tech is seen as a means to drive better commercial outcomes, rather than being an end in itself.
“The Virtusa xLabs’ Trend Almanac exposes the new business imperatives that business and technology leaders need to invest in to remain competitive,” said Senthil Ravindran, EVP and global head of cloud transformation and digital innovation, Virtusa. “Digital transformation demands a new way of thinking and getting a jump start on the trends that will impact customers tomorrow. This Trend Almanac will be a key resource in helping businesses do just that.”
The top ten trends include:
Open Banking Goes Global: Open Banking is starting to become a global movement. To date, actual regulations and market changes have only occurred in Europe, even though, as a topic it has been on everybody's tongue. But the move by Australian regulators to implement substantial regulatory reforms this year, giving consumers greater control of their data, signals the paradigm shift to the API economy is well underway.
Value Over Volume in Healthcare: Healthcare systems around the world are sinking under the weight of escalating costs. However, there are positive signs that a transition is underway from the reigning fee-for-service delivery model, which has contributed to the cost overhang in many countries, towards the value-based care model. Regulatory and technology forces are key factors that are driving this shift. In 2020, we believe this pivot to value-based care will gain further momentum.
Shop Now, Pay Later. Point of sale finance is getting popular. In recent years, digital startup lenders have carved up the segment, leveraging the latest tech to introduce instalment loans to the millennial market, but also thinking outside the box by devising new business models. Consumers are on board, as are retailers. Meanwhile, banks have mostly been onlookers, having decided not to develop their own customer-facing solutions. In 2020, we think banks will get into the game.
From Factory to App: Automobiles Take a New Route. Consumer adoption of “mobility as a service” (MaaS) is challenging the auto manufacturers' traditional approach to "mobility as an asset." Tech-enabled innovations, such as ride-sharing, last-mile micro-mobility solutions, and the rise of autonomous cars as a utility, are driving the growing popularity of MaaS offerings. In 2020, auto manufacturers will join this trend by creating new propositions around MaaS.
Ready, Set, Quantum! After decades in the wilderness, quantum computing is finally hitting its stride. Instead of being held back by hardware hurdles, in a surprising twist, enterprises have been powering ahead with innovations on “near- term” quantum machines. No longer is this esoteric field the domain of researchers alone, it is now being addressed by a broader set of players, helped along by greater access to tools and collaborations.
Corporate Innovation Hubs Grow Up. The reputation of corporate innovation hubs has taken a hit in recent years, causing businesses to rethink their operating model. This year, there will be a greater focus on empowering a network of affiliate labs in a federated model, which will enable labs to pursue innovation rather than incremental optimisations.
Self-Aware Infrastructure. In a digital world run by infrastructure, machine learning is weakening the dependence of human supervision. Progressively, smart infrastructure will be able to self-govern, self-optimise, and self-heal, resulting in highly optimised, fault-tolerant infrastructure. As cloud service providers continue to expand their footprint in the infrastructure market, we will see the first signs of self-aware infrastructure in 2020.
Machine Learning for All. In 2020, we believe there will be more efficient algorithms to automate Machine Learning (AutoML). This will spur the adoption of AutoML at the enterprise level, helping non-tech firms access the capabilities to build ML applications quickly. This democratisation of machine learning will also make AI experts and data scientists more productive and advance the field of AI to new frontiers.
A full copy of the report can be accessed here.