2018 will bring the convergence of a few major trends in business technology, more clearly defining where the future of work is headed.
A tipping point has already been passed in the adoption of IP telephony, which has now taken the place of aging land line networks. Voice over IP (VoIP) deployments outnumber public switched telephone networks (PSTN) installations among US businesses by a wide 3:2 margin. The mobile VoIP markets in Europe and the Pacific Asia region are growing even faster, with Pacific Asia at the vangaurd.
A global communication infastructure is emerging, driven by the demand for wireless technologies and mobility.
Meanwhile, app-enabled smartphones have absorbed more and more critical functions in daily life to become absolutely indispensable in less than a decade. This year 92% of millennials and 77% of US adults depend on their smartphones to handle mission critical tasks like keeping records of important communications, managing money, securing transportation, and remembering all the little details that tend to slip away from overtaxed brains.
Worldwide smartphone has penetrated to 43% of adults, but this is only an average. Some countries have overtaken the US in smartphone usage, including South Korea, Singapore and Australia.
The third major trend involves digitalization and its drive to transform analog information into 1’s and 0’s that can be shot back and forth around the world at the speed of light. Simplification and digitalization are working hand-in-hand, driving each other in a feedback loop. In 2018, low-code and no-code development by non-technical workers will expand rapidly and could be responsible for 20% of business applications and 30% of new app features within a matter of months.
A wave of related future-of-work trends that will be making headlines in the year ahead include self-organizing global talent markets, AI-enhanced voice networks, and Internet of Things (IoT) nanosensors powered by RF backscatter.
Advances like these will allow businesses, governments, and entire cities to exchange information, innovate business models, and profit from original collective insights at unprecedented speeds. It’s definitely an exciting time to be alive and a dangerous time for businesses to sit still.
The speed of information
The mobility and speed of information is the defining event of our current moment, whether you think of it as a new industrial movement or a continuation of the third. While automation has underpinned the logic of all three industrial movements, machine learning and AI are accelerating what is possible, and shopping it out to analytical models that can make predictions identifying both opportunities and inefficiencies.
Forecasting and planning for major climate events, social unrest, and water and food scarcity are big and important applications for big data and AI, and can help create a better world. But AI can be the god of small things, too, helping businesses of all sizes optimize their operations and run leaner, more agile companies.
A major shift from Capex to Opex is poised to disrupt not just legacy manufacturing and channel partners but also the economic theories and models that policymakers have long relied on.
What will growth look like in an economy where a business can start up and run on very little investment or capital expenditure, and where labor is contracted through open global marketplaces, rather than the traditional employment relationship?
What kind of tax structure truly makes sense for businesses who are global? How can businesses who find a winning model easily replicate their success, particularly when they are solving urgent problems? RegTech companies operating at the sometimes troubled intersection of commerce and regulation can help reduce friction for businesses ready to enter new markets with tested ideas.
While AI and automation platforms will create new opportunities for small businesses to innovate and disrupt, companies who exploit inefficiencies to survive might find feel the squeeze. For example, AI will eventually automate the entire supply chain, while integrating it into a global logistics network, eliminating local surpluses and redundancies.
AI will predict demand, set prices and eventually create a dynamic market mediated not by human brokers and their interests, but by algorithms set in time to the beat of global business. This will impact B2B, B2C and everything in between.
While nobody knows exactly how emerging technologies like AI, block chain and quantum computing will reshape the business landscape, disruption will continue to displace businesses. The lifespan of a business on the S & P has decreased from 90 years in 1935 to 18 years today. If the current rate of churn remains steady (while it is actually likely to increase), only a quarter of the businesses listed today will remain in 2027. This is either a big opportunity or a wake-up call, depending on your perspective.
This major extinction event is winnowing out businesses that can’t or won’t evolve. The accelerating rate of change requires businesses to become more agile, innovative and responsive.
There are three big shift that can help businesses adapt to a world where change, at least in the short term, is the only constant.
Global Standards
Thinking globally is important for every business on earth, from the corner store to the multinational chain. Events across the world can disrupt supply chains, while talent tends to pool in specific geographies. Sourcing raw materials, locating human capital and finding markets for your goods or services is a global game.
At the same time, localization has never been more important, even for hyper-local companies, whose communities are also diverse. A highly segmented market demands personalization, adaption and responsiveness from companies, and this requires a commitment to global values.
Mobile Standards
People, ideas and technology have never been more mobile. Social media allows information to move in and out of regions and cultures that were previously more closed. Ideas can travel around the world and change markets in the time it takes you to take an elevator to the top floor.
Getting out in the world has never been more important for business leaders and innovators, who have to make sure their operations and infrastructure are mobile, too. The smartphone has become a kind of universal remote, allowing businesses to take the office with them, and decentralizing what was previously fixed in a geographic area. Mobility means agility, allowing businesses to quickly act and move as opportunities arise.
Digital Standards
82 percent of employees expect digital to change the way they work in the next three years. In reality, it’s already happened. Communication has adapted to the rise of remote teams and 1099 workers.
As a result, face-to-face meetings are increasingly rare, and 93% of employees prefer it that way. They would rather use cool and efficient new tech solutions instead of sitting through time-consuming in-person meetings. Multi-channel communications have also become the norm as 85% now connect with colleagues on more than one device throughout the day.
Blockchain, which digitizes all kinds of transactions within a distributed ledger, and quantum computing, which can better protect data by design, are developing in tandem in 2018. Both are on schedule to dramatically streamline operations and spur new business models in the year ahead.
Another way digitalization will have a major impact in the year ahead is in data analytics on the network edge. Increasingly, IoT and mobile endpoints are the locations where data is being collected. That’s why developers are working overtime to create software to analyze the data in real-time as it comes in. The combination of network applications, cloud processing and mobile apps at the network edge has been called “fog computing,” and the results it produces will give early adopters an enormous speed advantage in decision-making. Given the volatility on global markets, strategy will have to take have to take a back seat to adaptability and innovative thinking.
Where the Global-Mobile-Digital Workforce Goes Next
While 60% of workers today agree that stable jobs and long-term employment won’t exist by 2030, 74% of them are ready to learn new skills and iteratively retrain as the definition of work rapidly changes. Automation and AI will redefine job classifications in coming years, easily handling repetitive tasks and proactive decision-making. In the future of work, creativity and flexibility will be the most important professional skills that humans can have.
Business looking to thrive in 2018 and beyond must carefully review how they can make their systems and processes more mobile, global, and digital. Stationary, geo-bounded and analog processes will simply make a business less competitive as commerce accelerates.