A decade of change: Eight top technologies driving digital transformation

These technologies enable businesses to digitally change the way people communicate with each other and their surroundings.

The decade is coming to an end. Looking back at the distant 2010, it is obviously a decade of unimaginable digital transformation.

Google, Amazon, Uber, Facebook, and Twitter are some of the major technology companies that are fundamentally changing society. These groundbreaking innovations change the way people communicate with each other, order food or hail a cab, and more. Thousands of programmers, scientists, and researchers support these platform changes. They have spent years developing these new technologies in response to people's concerns and needs.

Here is a list of some of the technologies that have enabled digital transformation since 2010:

cloud computing

The introduction of widespread cloud computing has democratized data collection and increased enterprise capabilities, allowing companies of any size to abandon expensive IT infrastructure and cumbersome maintenance systems. According to a TechRepublic survey, nearly 70% companies are using or considering using cloud services.

By moving most services to the cloud, enterprises can be more agile and better manage scale than ever before. Falling cloud computing prices have fueled the rapid growth of "as-a-service" systems, giving smaller companies access to tools that were previously cost-prohibitive. Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft and Alibaba are the largest cloud giants vying for market dominance.

Cloud computing will become one of the defining elements of the next decade as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) systems gain popularity. A recent Forrester report stated that the public cloud market will reach $411 billion by 2022. The report also said that the four major cloud vendors will account for 75% of the $75.4 billion global public cloud infrastructure market.

Automation and Artificial Intelligence

Forrester recently stated that businesses around the world are increasingly turning to automation for a variety of tasks that were once handled by humans. This is fundamentally changing the workforce and raising fears of mass unemployment over the next decade.

But this area is also changing businesses for the better in a variety of concrete ways. Dangerous, time-consuming jobs in factories are increasingly being done by swarms of robots, taking people away from jobs that have historically been harmful to health.

This can even trickle down to other areas such as customer service, with many companies now using automated systems to answer basic questions and complaints from consumers.

Part of the push for increased automation is the development of artificial intelligence, which equips robots and machines with a wider range of capabilities. Businesses are applying artificial intelligence to everything from security to human resources, allowing computers to handle tasks that are costly or redundant.

While fears about automation and artificial intelligence are real, recent research shows that people are actually happy for the introduction of automation and are happy that computers or robots can handle menial tasks.

Smartphones and mobile apps

The past decade has seen an explosion in smartphone use, connecting people to the Internet for the first time. The proliferation of smartphones has given rise to an entire ecosystem of mobile apps and tools that people now consider an integral part of their lives.

Uber and Lyft have become verbs, while food delivery apps like Seamless and GrubHub have gained popularity. People use apps to regulate and manage every aspect of their lives, using calendar platforms, fitness assistants and voice memo programs.

As smartphone usage increases, the way we communicate with each other changes. Apps like Signal, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are the primary means of communication for billions of people, enabling them to send secure text messages, photos and voice messages around the world in seconds.

Google Maps and other transportation apps make it nearly impossible to get lost, and some even let New Yorkers know which end of the subway has the easiest exit. People can transfer money to each other, buy movie tickets and watch their favorite shows all from a palm-sized device.

There are so many new apps that their development has become the laughing stock of Millennials. Regardless of industry, these can serve as a potential source of employment. We hope more everyday problems will find app-based solutions.

4G and 5G

4G has become so ubiquitous that people take it for granted that wireless internet access is a relatively new thing.

Around 2012, mobile operators began to widely roll out 4G networks, and more people could enjoy download and upload speeds several times faster than 3G networks. 4G is a game changer because it's faster and more reliable than anything 3G can offer, and is somewhat of a replacement for slow fixed-line broadband; it's also a lot cheaper than 3G.

As the decade progresses and 5G is introduced this year, coverage has steadily expanded, and mobile operators are preparing for even greater changes next year. To give some idea of the scale of these two moves, one analyst likened 4G and 5G to the phased transition from telegraph to fax.

The advent of 4G coincides with the widespread use of smartphones and other devices, and comes at a time when more and more people are using mobile devices.

internet of things

The miniaturization of sensors has transformed supply chains around the world and allowed for greater information collection and more organized systems.

Industries like manufacturing and retail are already outfitting trucks, warehousing facilities, and factories with IoT devices and other smart tools that collect information about how they are used and provide insights on how to optimize or streamline things.

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has even become its own specialty area, allowing companies to collect data on machines and tools before using machine learning or artificial intelligence to analyze it and provide recommendations.

In some cases, these systems can even make the workplace safer for employees while highlighting areas where costs can potentially be reduced. Businesses can study weak links, limit service outages and detect problems before they crop up.

As more workplaces are equipped with this technology and tools to analyze data, companies will find more ways to optimize their services in the future.

data analysis

As more countries begin to pass laws regulating companies' collection and sharing of data, the value of data is becoming increasingly clear. But the ability to analyze and collect data from websites and services has helped businesses transform and adapt to changes in their industries.

Morgan Stanley recently dubbed the 2010s the "Data Decade." Advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning are giving businesses a way to search and organize data to extract the most useful insights and help them transform their relationships with customers.

Douglas Laney, distinguished data analytics and strategy analyst at Gartner, said earlier this year that by 2022, 90% companies will have detailed business plans that “clearly mention information as an important enterprise asset and analysis as a fundamental capability.”

Businesses are more likely to make sound long-term decisions when management uses accurate data that has been analyzed and collated. Some companies are now also looking to short-term data, with platforms that provide real-time information from growing data sets.

social media

Although Facebook has been around since 2010, the social media industry looks completely different than it did back then, and some of the largest sites have emerged.

Instagram, Snapchat, and Pinterest all developed after 2010, while Facebook and Twitter have changed dramatically since their debut. This number has now reached staggering proportions, with billions of users around the world sharing their thoughts, photos, and more on multiple social media sites.

Almost all companies and world leaders are now required to have official Twitter and Facebook accounts. It would be unimaginable to go back in time and explain this to people at that time. Social media has become one of the most important ways for businesses and leaders to communicate with and listen to people, but it has also given people unprecedented access to the whims and emotions of the world’s most influential people.

Despite some backlash against social media sites since 2016, user numbers show no signs of dwindling, and the growing popularity of smartphones will bring billions of new users to the internet over the next decade.

blockchain

Blockchain has penetrated almost every industry due to its broad applicability to more organizational needs in supply chains and business aspects such as increased verification.

After debuting in 2008 as part of the shift toward virtual currencies, distributed ledger technology was quickly spun off into its own realm and heavily adopted by the financial industry. For more than five years, banks and financial institutions have been using it for everything from smart contracts to streamlining loan applications. A Canadian banking consortium is even using the technology to give people greater control over the data collected by financial institutions.

Over the past two or three years, dozens of industries have begun studying the effectiveness of blockchain, with its greatest impact on supply chains.

Large retailers like Walmart and fast food companies like McDonald’s are now using blockchain to source materials and food.

Brazil recently hired IBM to create a blockchain to manage the country’s birth and death records system, which has been rife with abuse for decades.

Original author: Jonathan Greig

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