What are the Consequences of Emerging Technologies in IT Industry

Digital disruption is leaving no industry untouched. It is radically transforming business models. We see technology evolving like never before. Today digital transformation is the key to success for enterprises, SMBs and start-ups. At the center of this transformation is data making-data management, the prime focus for a company’s IT strategy.

According to Anil Valluri, President, NetApp India & SAARC, as data becomes self-aware and diverse than it is today, the metadata will make it possible for the data to proactively transport, categorize, analyze and protect itself in coming years. With data becoming incredibly dynamic and the ability to transport it is getting more and more challenging, the applications and resources needed to process it need to be equally efficient. This will have implications on new architectures like edge, core, and cloud.

 The year 2017 has been all about automation and its impact on the industry. Fintech innovation has had the most notable impact in retail financial services to-date. Areas such as online payments, credit scoring, and customer profiling and identity management are all being transformed.

“Some technologies have the potential for widespread disruption but this will not happen overnight given the heavy government regulation in capital markets and the power of incumbent players. For example, the distributed ledger technology behind blockchain could reduce market friction in specific areas such as settlement/clearing of trades, electronic contracts, and creating a more seamless and secure way for capital markets institutions to interact with one another in general.

Several investment and commercial banks are looking actively at blockchain technology and running pilots to test its potential. Investment managers have been jolted into taking pro-active steps by Fintech companies looking to disintermediate them either by replacing wealth managers with ‘robo-advisors” or building AI-based trading models to sweep the internet for investment opportunities. Similarly, the use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is becoming more prevalent amongst fund managers as they look to reduce operating costs as well as gain an investment edge. Across the capital markets space a sizable opportunity awaits the right players” said Anuj Gandhi, Director, Indus Valley Partners.

According to Anjani Kumar, India Country Manager, Raritan, there has been a surge in demand of IoT and this has created more bandwidth for customers to use more applications and connected devices. The rise in IoT networks has caused disruption in not only the way data is generated but also the way it is transferred, stored and secured in a data center. Big Data, Internet of Things (IoT) etc. are prompting data center managers to shift their thinking in terms of how they plan and build their data centers. Earlier, data centers focused on storage of information and disaster recovery.  Now, it has shifted to analyzing and processing data for on-demand access. New technologies like mobility and wearables are demanding increasing latency. Due to the changing nature of data center architectures, it is prudent to have enough resources that can monitor the changing nature of data center environments. This has been made possible by deploying artificial intelligence and machine learning at the entry level to avoid human error and reduce the cost of human labour. Also the amount of time to train a pre-programmed robot as compared to a human labour is much less and cost effective. Hence with IT automation, data centers have been able to reduce people dependencies which have also minimized the chances of error.

With the Internet of Things already taking over, there are a vast number of connected devices bridging the gap between user and tech. From health-tracking Fitbits to smart TVs, the potential impact of IoT devices on e-commerce is huge.

• Inventory can be better managed - IoT devices will help e-commerce businesses streamline their operations. For example, the tracking and handling of inventory will become easier with the movements of connected products now traceable in real time. Such data can be used to notify business owners of low and slow-moving stock.
• Increased marketing opportunities - The prevalence of IoT devices in society enables businesses to gain a greater insight into their customers' behavior than ever before. The daily routines of target demographics, their shopping histories, product preferences and buying habits can all be tracked and used to tailor more relevant marketing campaigns. This is why, as consumers, we're starting to see an increased amount of 'personalized' advertising sent our way.
• Enhances overall efficiency - The Internet of Things enables e-commerce businesses to connect with customers like never before. For example, warranty and malfunction data can be automatically sent back to retailers to ensure a swift response - sometimes before the user is even aware a problem exists!

The marriage between the IoT and e-commerce has only just begun, but as it develops, the way in which goods and services are ordered, delivered and consumed looks set to change forever, added Mani Kant Jain, CEO of Yerha.