Gartner Symposium/ITxpo: Top 10 Strategic Predictions

Gartner is known for many things, but perhaps the two most popular are its Magic Quadrants and its Top 10 lists. Granted, the lists aren’t as light-hearted (or sometimes cutting) as David Letterman’s Top 10, but they are a much better business barometer than, say, “Top 10 Things That Sound Cool When Said by Snoop Dogg” (which is awesome, by the way).

And so it goes that at this year’s Symposium/ITxpo, Gartner is unveiling at least three separate Top 10 lists. The first, “Top 10 Strategic Predictions: Digital Business is Driving ‘Big Change,’” offered attendees a glimpse into the future of this digital business world, driven by customer experience as a core tenant of technology.

“We realize the world is changing,” said Daryl C. Plummer, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “Robots are getting more personality and human traits while people are becoming more robotic. We are moving from a world where people behave the computers work to where computers work the way people behave.”

So what does that mean, exactly? It means companies must adjust their ways of doing business to accommodate a new paradigm Gartner is calling “digital business.” And so, without further ado, are Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Predictions and its recommendations for each (drum roll, please):

1) By 2018 digital business requires 50 percent less business process workers and 500 percent more key digital business jobs, compared to traditional models.

Recommendation: IT leaders develop new hiring practices to recruit for new non-traditional IT roles.

2) By 2017, a significant disruptive digital business will be launched that was conceived by a computer algorithm.

Recommendation: CIOs must begin to simulate technology-driven transformation options for business.

3) By 2018, the total cost of ownership for business operations will be reduced by 30 percent through smart machines and industrialized services.

Recommendation: CIOs must experiment with precursor “almost smart machines” technologies and phantom robotic business process automation.

4) By 2020, developed world life expectancy will increase by 0.5 years due to widespread adoption of wireless health monitoring technology.

Recommendation: Business leaders must examine the impact of increased wellness on insurance and employee healthcare costs as a competitive factor.

5) By year-end 2016, $2.5 billion in online shopping will be performed exclusively by mobile digital assistants.

Recommendation: Marketing executives must develop marketing techniques that capture the attention of digital assistants as well as people (price points, availability, etc.).

6) By 2017, U.S. customers’ mobile engagement behavior will drive U.S. mobile commerce revenue to 50 percent of U.S. digital commerce revenue.

Recommendation: Mobile marketing teams investigate mobile wallets such as Apple’s Passbook and Google Wallet as consumer interest in mobile commerce and payments grows.

7) By 2016, 70 percent of successful digital business models will rely on deliberately unstable processes designed to shift as customer needs shift.

Recommendation: CIOs – create an agile, responsible workforce that is accountable, responsive and support your organizational liquidity.

8) By 2017, more than half of consumer product and service R&D investments will be redirected to customer experience innovations.

Recommendation: Consumer companies must invest in customer insight through personal and ethnographic research.

9) By 2017, nearly 20 percent of durable goods e-tailers will use 3D printing to create personalized product offerings.

Recommendation: CIOs, product development leaders and business partners – evaluate gaps between the existing “as it” and future “to be “sate (process, skills and technologies) surrounding 3D printing.

10) By 2018, retail businesses that utilize targeted messaging in combination with internal positioning systems will see a 20 percent increase in customer visits.

Recommendation: CIOs must help expand good customer data to support real-time offers.

There they are, take them as you wish. But note the underlying theme of every single one of them, which is people. We have now entered a phase in which people will direct technology, not the other way around. IT must embrace the “human-centric” approach to IT, or its company will wither. Data, Plummer noted, is what’s important to smart machines. And data will serve to enhance the customer experience.

Plummer added these predictions are what Gartner is calling “compelling predictions,” which means they have more of a likelihood of being wrong. But as much as Gartner is banging the drum about digital business, I’d bet this list is at least 60 percent correct.