It’s so easy to get lost in an increasingly digital world we live in nowadays. The average person is bombarded with too much data by too many influencers around us, especially with regard to information communications technology (ICT).
To sort through the confusion, my go-to resource is the International Data Corp. (IDC), which releases its annual predictions for the ICT sector at this time of the year. Through a program called IDC FutureScapes, these key trends are used to shape enterprises engaged in ICT planning by providing a framework for evaluating initiatives in terms of their value to business strategy.
FutureScapes is composed of a set of decision imperatives designed to identify a range of pending issues that chief information officers (CIOs) and senior technology professionals will confront within the typical three-year business planning cycle.
A US-based company founded in 1964, IDC has since expanded to 110 countries across six continents. It is a subsidiary of the International Data Group, the world’s leading media, data, and marketing services firm.
For 2019 and beyond, here are IDC’s top 10 predictions for the Philippine ICT industry:
1. At least 30% of organizations will be “digitally determined” by 2020, transforming markets and reimagining the future through new business models and digitally enabled products and services.
2. By 2020, 40% of CIOs will initiate a digital trust framework that goes beyond preventing cyber-attacks and enables organizations to rebound resiliently from adverse situations.
3. 55% of entities will have incorporated new sets of digital key performance indicators by 2023 to navigate the digital economy, focusing on innovation rates, data capitalization, and employee experience.
4. 40% of large enterprises will create data management or monetization capabilities by 2021, thus enhancing enterprise functions, strengthening competitiveness, and creating new sources of revenue.
5. 45% of CIOs will expand agile practices into the wider business by 2021 to achieve the velocity necessary for innovation, execution, and change.
6. 30% of the Philippines’ top 1000 companies would have implemented advanced digital twins of their operational processes by 2023, which will enable flatter organizations and one-third fewer knowledge workers.
7. Over 30% of organizations’ cloud deployments will include edge computing by 2023, and 15% of endpoint devices and systems would be able to execute artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms.
8. Prominent industry value chains, enabled by blockchains, will have extended their digital platforms to their entire omni-experience ecosystems by 2023, thus reducing transaction costs by at least 30%.
9. AI-enabled user interfaces and process automation will replace one-third of today’s screen-based applications by 2024, while 30% of enterprises will use conventional speech technology for customer engagement by 2022.
10. 30% of enterprises will task CIOs to transform and modernize governance policies by 2022 to seize the opportunities and confront new risks posed by AI, machine learning, data privacy, and ethics.
Digital determination is the ability to visualize how the markets and customers will change and reinvent themselves to better respond to the needs of these future stakeholders through emerging technologies, capabilities, and business models.
IDC ASEAN Managing Director Sudev Bangah said: “To be digitally determined, Philippine organizations require more than just resilience. They need a blueprint that consists of a unified enterprise strategy; a long-term investment plan based on the principle that digital is inherently valuable to the business; and a single digital platform to scale technology innovations.”
According to Sean Paul Agapito, one of IDC Philippines’ market analysts, the race to the future has begun — and with digital disruption becoming the new normal, no person and entity will be spared the need to at least reboot or reset themselves, if not reinvent altogether.
J. Albert Gamboa is CFO of the Asian Center for Legal Excellence and Chairman of the FINEX Media Affairs Committee’s Golden Jubilee Book Project.
