The 2018 saw another realm of technology overtaking the industry in all spheres, and for us at Zebra Technologies. Among the many new and exciting developments we have experienced at Zebra, we also came out with the fact that IoT investment is going up substantially, globally as well as in APAC region.
The year bygone has seen various significant developments and Zebra has now come out with its vision for the upcoming year and what it expects to bring out.
Below are the 3 key trends that Zebra is looking forward to:
- Enterprises committed to embracing IoT will be the first movers in becoming fast growing, intelligent businesses
In today’s digital world where humans and technology-powered systems interact in more connected and intelligent ways, enterprises that strive to achieve future growth realize that it is critical to lead with digital innovation to keep up with the expectations of an increasingly discerning end user. Those who don’t move fast enough will be forced out of the market. Businesses have derived great value from emerging Internet of Things (IoT) strategies – serving as vehicles to fuel critical operations and drive efficiency. By 2020, there will be more than 20 billion devices connected to the IoT, according to research consultancy Gartner. Additionally, within that projection, they estimate more than 8 billion of those connected devices will be within the enterprise space – up from about 3 billion in 2017.
Zebra proof points:
Emerging technologies that are developing rapidly:
- Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality: Augmented Reality (AR) is an interactive experience where the real, physical world is augmented by computer-generated information. Virtual Reality (VR) is a computer-generated scenario that simulates real-world experiences. While most people think about AR or VR as consumer-centric technologies, both technologies will see increased usage in the enterprise space.
- 5th generation wireless systems (5G): 5G is a new wireless network technology that has immense potential to be maximized in the near future. 5G will be mission critical as more devices are connected and more data is being created and will help with mitigating latency challenges as the requirement for more compute power to process data in real-time at the edge continues to grow.
- Blockchain: Think of blockchain as a secure digital ledger. Digital information is loaded onto the ledger by trusted sources, to only then be used by trusted sources. Some early areas enterprises are focusing on to leverage blockchain is to solve problems around food safety, the fight against counterfeit goods and fraud, and smart contracts across the supply chain continuum.
- Advanced automation driven by AI connects the physical and digital worlds in a more collaborative manner
Artificial intelligence (AI) is permeating into virtually everything in a data-rich environment, to deliver more adaptable, flexible, and autonomous systems. Enterprises are seeking to enhance their AI-powered capabilities to deliver a performance edge in a data-rich environment. This will bring more actionable intelligence to workers within their respective workflows and drive higher engagement and better experiences with customers.
Zebra proof points:
Automation and AI capabilities are integrated into new or existing applications to transform human workflows, interactions and provide them with real-time decision support. They will provide natural extensions of solutions already deployed in the customers’ work environments to create a more dynamic ecosystem focused on improving worker productivity, driving more efficiencies and developing safer environments.
- Small Actionable Data – Integrated data solutions leverage enhanced analytics to offer real-time guidance
As the world becomes more complex and data-driven, businesses want better ways to navigate and automate these complexities without the expense of human capital. Successful enterprises of the future will rely on real-time data and insights into that data to run their businesses efficiently with a competitive edge. Enterprises have sought for years to obtain insights from “Big Data” – large amounts and volumes of data that businesses collect and store on a daily, sometimes instantaneous basis. But in 2019, priority will shift towards “small actionable data” accessible naturally within a workflow, where it is specific to a use case to solve a problem and achieve desired outcomes.
Zebra proof points:
To address the customer need for advanced data capabilities, Zebra introduced Savanna – a data services platform that collects and analyzes data to develop and create intelligent insights at the edge for businesses. We are currently working with select partners on an early adopter program using Savanna to solve many of the challenges that customers are facing today by jointly developing applications powered by Savanna Data Services and leveraging technologies such as AI, ML, third-party data services and blockchain. We plan to make this new data services platform more widely available in the very near future.
