The Future of IT: Predicting Gartner’s Strategic Technologies for 2013

Posted by cbonner on November 10, 2011 @ 12:23 pm

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Every year, Gartner publishes a top 10 strategic technologies for the forthcoming calendar year. Featured in both part I & part II of this series, the below graphic was this year’s top 10 for 2012.

We thought it would be a bit of fun to gaze into the future and offer a partial list that we believe will shape the strategic technology landscape for 2013. Here are 4 specific topics and technologies we believe will make the coveted top 10.

1. Starting small, the song will remain the same for Big Data. It will be in the top 10 easily and for the foreseeable future. Why? Simple numbers on this one. More data, scores more data is created with each passing day. Companies don’t know all the ways they can leverage this data quite yet and innovation and further monetization within this space is bound to occur.

2. Standing a bit further out on the branch, the Internet of Things (aka the 3.0) will become quite a bit more granular in terms of how it is being communicated and shared at an event such as the Gartner Symposium ITxpo. Instead of – “This is coming…” and “Imagine when you can…” – type discussions, the rooms will start to be filled with talks on Near Field Communication technology (NFC) including but not limited to the topic of Mobile Payment via NFC, Augmented Reality re-imagined in the 3.0 (this time with value!), Security, Health & Wellness and beyond. The 3.0 is a really big “thing” and time will bring us specific use cases, adoption trends and the innovations being built on top of this new connectivity platform. By next year, it wouldn’t surprise us to see granular examples emerge.

On Point Read: How will innovators use facial recognition technology?

3. The era of the specific Customer Experience (CX) will be evoked. It’s not a secret that incredibly tailored consumer experiences are coming to a device or screen near you. Consumerization of technology has of course already occurred, but the levels of sophistication with regards to how varying devices (within the greater 3.0) will improve your experiences by continually delivering valuable information and access to services in the very moment you require them most will begin to become mind blowing. Worth pointing out are the ways these new experiences will be driven by the data being born, harvested and utilized. Interesting to note – the top 5 strategic trends (above) all play a big role in the coming era of customer hyperconnectivity and the experiences designed for this new era.

4. Finally, and this one speaks directly to conversations our team has had while attending the last two Gartner events – the Outsourcing and Vendor Management Summit & the Symposium ITxpo – platforms that deliver access to hyperspecific talents will boom. In other words, open innovation platforms powered by communities of individuals will see a huge jump in the sheer volume of companies participating on them. Furthermore, the focus will shift away from mundane tasks being accomplished through “crowds” and trend towards global collaborative communities solving big challenges and creating innovative technologies and digital assets.

The Recap: