WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

Emerging Technology Roadmap benchmark adoption plan, risk factors, and value drivers. Use this roadmap to help you make technology investment decisions for the coming 12- to 24-month time period.

Covid brought shock and a lot of broken habits to tech, but mostly, it accelerates everything that was already changing. 20 trillion dollars of retail, brands, TV and advertising is being overturned, and software is remaking everything from cars to pharma. Meanwhile, China has more smartphone users than Europe and the USA combined, and India is close behind - technology and innovation will be much more widely spread. For that and lots of other reason, tech is becoming a regulated industry, but if we step over the slogans, what does that actually mean? Tech is entering its second 50 years.

Large enterprises needing to pivot quickly and push innovation to the edges may be encumbered by heavy management and control structures. However, internal talent marketplaces have the potential to change that. They establish trust through feedback mechanisms. They allow for worker-led innovation and help workers take full control of their careers. They enable much better and more granular tracking of the skills, competencies, knowledge and interest of individual workers. This, in turn, will give enterprises a much better view of their workforce and improve workforce planning. Internal talent marketplaces will help bring about leaner, more agile and more adaptable organizations.

The mind-bending bigness of Neuralink’s mission, combined with the labyrinth of impossible complexity that is the human brain, made this the hardest set of concepts yet to fully wrap my head around—but it also made it the most exhilarating when, with enough time spent zoomed on both ends, it all finally clicked. I feel like I took a time machine to the future, and I’m here to tell you that it’s even weirder than we expect.

Which technology trends are most likely to impact your business in the coming years? Trends are waypoints to help anticipate future states in a world where uncertainty looms. The Future Today Institute's annual Tech Trends Report asks you to examine your assumptions, cherished beliefs and expectations for the future using a bolder, more holistic perspective. In the 13th edition of our Tech Trends Report, we forecast the key technology trends that will redefine businesses in the coming years. More importantly, we offer strategic analysis and guidance on those trends and further explore them in future scenarios to help you understand their implications on your organization and industry.

Presentations by Benedict Evans: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, The End of the Beginning and Mobile is Eating the world.

‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’ looks at what it means that 4bn people have a smartphone; we connected everyone, and now we wonder what the Next Big Thing is, but meanwhile, connecting everyone means we connected all the problems. Tech is becoming a regulated industry, but we don’t really know what that will

The MarTech marketplaces that RSG covers continue to evolve rapidly and have become more complex (with more overlaps!) this year. The Customer Data Platform (CDP) market is no different - with new vendors, more investment, emerging niches, and evolving use cases.

The growing cyber skills shortage drives security organizations to look for ways to mitigate the pain and danger that short-staffed security teams can experience. In its report, Security Organization Dynamics, Gartner outlines this ongoing challenge and notes how, “Persistent security skills shortages have forced security leaders to explore new ways of obtaining and managing security capabilities.”

Gartner points out that hiring may not be the only option for filling the gap, cautioning that, “Few, if any, enterprises can afford to perform all security functions in-house. Consider selective outsourcing of functions, especially those that are operationalized or ad hoc.”

Companies transforming to become customer-obsessed are using customer journey analytics to help them become customer-led, insights-driven, fast, and connected, and to ultimately be more effective in acquiring, serving and retaining customers.  

This report from leading global research and advisory firm, Forrester, identifies the 12 most significant customer journey analytics platform providers today, and reveals how each measures up based on 26 different evaluation criteria, to help you make the right choice for your organization. You'll get a complete overview of the current customer journey analytics market, including;

• The two primary journey analytics provider categories, visioning and orchestration, and four core capabilities: (1) data fusion, (2) journey design & planning, (3) journey testing & optimization, and (4) journey automation & orchestration
• The 2018 Forrester Wave Journey Visioning Platform rankings and scorecard
• A breakdown of each journey analytics provider’s offering, strengths, specialties, and customer base
• Key criteria that helps leaders stand out from the pack

As the retail industry continues to be disrupted by emerging technologies and shifting consumer behavior, how do you keep up? One of the first steps is to keep up to date with the latest innovations and trends that will transform how you start, market, manage, and grow your business in 2019 and beyond.

We’ve put together a list of our favorite retail blogs on the internet and outlined the subjects each of them covers. We’ve selected blogs based on their industry expertise, the volume of content they publish, and how actionable their content is.

The 15 best retail blogs that every retailer needs to add to their reading list. Convince and convert. Retail Dive. Insider Trends. Retail Wire. Harvard Business Review. TechCrunch. Lightspeed Blog. The Retail Doctor. The National Retail Federation. Medallion Retail. Forrester Retail. Hubspot Blog. Retail Design Blog. Neil Patel Blog.