While potentially disruptive digital technologies such as cloud computing, virtual reality, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) have been around for a number of years, today they are finally capable of addressing real-world concerns for both consumers and business owners alike. It is little wonder why organizations worldwide are expected to spend more than $4.6 trillion on new digital technology in 2023, according to a report from Nash Squared. That is up from $4.2 trillion in 2021. Whether utilizing machine learning to improve operational efficiency in supply chains or data analytics to better understand what buyers value during the customer experience, leveraging the latest technology now makes previously unimaginable innovation and digital transformation possible. These technologies are particularly important in the high-tech industry where embracing digital technologies is paramount. Which high-tech trends will stand out and how will businesses be investing in the future throughout 2023? Here are a few possibilities:

High-Tech Trend No. 1: Workplace Automation

In the high-tech industry, organizations can gain speed and efficiency in 2023 and beyond by automating many of their routine and semi-routine processes. Workplace automation frees up time and energy for creativity and innovation by eliminating mundane business processes. While workplace automation can involve computers doing the work of a user, that is not the extent of their use. These automation tools can also be harnessed to create business value from contextual information. They help businesses respond with speed and urgency to changing markets and demands and also delegate tasks more effectively. This technology is crucial to the creation of more efficient and effective organizations.

Another example of the way high-tech organizations are automating the workplace is through ambient computing. Otherwise known as ubiquitous computing, ambient computing is a somewhat complex concept to grasp — quite literally. That is because the technology itself is invisible. Instead, it is embedded in the users’ surroundings. Imagine, for example, a thermostat that raises and lowers the temperature within a room by “remembering” or “learning” the habits of the homeowner. Or ponder the possibility of a smartphone that tells a driver how long it takes to get to a frequently visited destination just as he or she enters the vehicle. Ambient computing is what makes these capabilities possible; it is baked into daily life.

Jason Low, principal analyst for the research firm Canalys, told ZDNET that ambient computing is very similar conceptually to internet of things (IoT) technology, which relies on machine learning to perform predictive capabilities. But there is a key difference between the two. “IoT forms a base for ambient computing, with ambient computing more focused on how devices and intelligent services interact with users,” Low explained.

In essence, ambient computing is a more nuanced form of the Internet of Things that is centered on how IoT devices go about gathering data on users. Amazon, Google, Apple, and Microsoft are just a few of the major high-tech corporations that are either utilizing this latest technology trend in one of their consumer products (e.g., Alexa, Amazon’s Echo Device voice assistant) or seeking to expand its use through more IoT devices.

One way high-tech businesses are increasingly relying on ambient technology is by making it easier for staff to collaborate across different geographies. The pandemic was a game changer for the workplace. Due to state-mandated lockdowns, many organizations were forced to close their offices and conduct day-to-day business affairs entirely remotely. Given that work productivity often did not suffer — and in some cases actually improved — several workplaces now permit their employees to work 100% remotely. In fact, according to a recent Gallup poll, just 20% of “remote-capable” employees (those whose jobs can be done from home) work entirely on-site. Among those who have the ability to do their job from home and the workplace, 50% divide their time between the two.

But having staff in different environments can present communication challenges when work requires collaboration via video conferencing tools, such as having trouble hearing who is speaking. As ZDNET reported, more organizations are relying on ambient computing in their conference rooms to address these issues. When deployed, the technology can seamlessly amplify voices so those speaking can be more easily heard by colleagues who are working from home. Essentially, the technology allows individuals to sit anywhere they want and speak normally rather than need to sit near the computer or raise their voices. Ambient computing allows companies to work more efficiently and increases flexibility.

High-Tech Trend No. 2: Continuous Penetration Testing

Cybercrime has become so commonplace that it is only a matter of time before a business is impacted by an attack — if it has not already encountered one. Nearly all businesses, regardless of their size, are in hackers’ crosshairs. In fact, according to Check Point Research, there was a 28% increase in cyberattacks globally in the third quarter of 2022 compared with one year earlier. Ransomware, which involves hijacking or locking down an organization’s system or network until a ransom is paid, is one of the most common types of cyberattacks. The pervasiveness of these attacks — and their difficulty to deter — is why Cybersecurity Ventures anticipates victims will experience $265 billion in losses by 2031, with attacks occurring once every two seconds.

High-tech companies are often targeted by cybercriminals because of the vast array of information and data an attack can provide. Beyond traditional cybersecurity measures, such as investing in software and reminding workers to follow strict safety protocols, high-tech businesses are investing in continuous penetration testing to fight back. Unlike traditional penetration testing, which assesses the resilience of a network at a specific point in time, continuous penetration is ongoing. This is done by simulating regularly occurring attacks. According to Forbes, an increasing number of organizations are turning to continuous penetration testing as a way to blunt cyberattacks, in general, and ransomware attacks, in particular. Penetration testing can be a reliable strategy because it helps to identify vulnerabilities, improve cyber risk management, and automates security monitoring in real time rather than during one specific instance.

Leveraging automated security monitoring can also help lower high-tech businesses’ costs by eliminating the need to rely on internal staff or outside help. However, cybersecurity expertise is hard to come by. According to (ISC)², the cybersecurity industry is in the midst of a severe shortfall in experienced professionals who can meet the demand for services. It is a global problem, too, with job openings worldwide increasing by 350% between 2013 and 2021, according to Secureworks.

High-Tech Trend No. 3: Augmented Reality

Augmented reality involves superimposing the digital world onto the real world by leveraging high-tech devices. Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and other video game developers all offer augmented reality products to boost the customer experience for avid gamers. But augmented reality is not found exclusively among the gaming community; it is also used by schools to enhance learning, by retailers to personalize online shopping, and by businesses to train employees. The emerging technology is expected to become even more omnipresent in 2023. In fact, Research and Markets estimates that the augmented reality market’s valuation will top $61 billion worldwide in 2023 and continue to rise from there. The high-tech industry will be one of the main beneficiaries of this emerging technology.

In high-tech manufacturing, for example, augmented reality allows companies to overcome the challenges posed by their contract manufacturers’ high turnover rates. Turnover often results in less efficient processes, more human errors, and lower productivity. One way it accomplishes this is by enabling real-time training that allows workers to visualize – rather than simply hear about – vital work instructions and processes as they perform their jobs.

Augmented reality also has the potential to significantly improve quality assurance initiatives during every stage of high-tech product development. Guided AR solutions, such as the use of 3D imagery and machine learning to simulate the workings of mechanical components, now allow manufacturers to identify and rectify potentially costly design errors before products roll off the factory floor. In addition, augmented reality can improve the data management and analytics outcomes unique to manual processes. Through process simulation and workflow tracking, high-tech manufacturers can gather and document important information about inefficient cycle times, designs, and operational metrics that might otherwise go unrecorded and unnoticed until a problem arises.

High-Tech Trend No. 4: Artificial Intelligence

As far back as 2018, 85% of Americans were using at least one product that had AI capabilities, according to a Gallup survey. Artificial intelligence, while still a relatively new technology, is in full bloom. Industry experts believe AI will continue to saturate the marketplace in 2023. One type of AI that is poised to become more prominent is no-code AI. As its name implies, no-code AI is a code-free technology that makes it easier for users to implement and test their ideas through drag-and-drop interfaces. The turn-key nature of drag and drop enables any business owner — regardless of their familiarity with AI — to take advantage of it without expert assistance.

An increasing number of high-tech companies are also using artificial intelligence as well as machine learning to strengthen their supply chains before disruptions occur. These technologies speed up time to remediation by automating product analysis. Edge computing, for example, puts the processing power of AI and ML closer to the devices they monitor. That embeds crucial insights deeper into every aspect of operations, making supply chains function more efficiently and cost-effective over the long term. AI also provides benefits after a successful product launch, such as the ability to leverage user data to enhance product-related software, customer service, and security. Many of the online campaigns and tools high-tech companies now use — think search engine strategies and chatbots — rely on AI to engage potential consumers searching for specific content online and then guide them to desired outcomes.

New technologies have long been the key agents of growth in a wide variety of industries — and will continue playing that role in the decades ahead. Yet it is safe to say that the speed and intensity of innovation, disruption, and competition in the high-tech industry are unrivaled by those in any other realm. By their very nature, research and development initiatives drive the success and profitability of high-tech enterprises, so the reliance on cutting-edge technology by manufacturers and R&D firms will only grow in the future.

Almost any high-tech organization will have opportunities to benefit from these technology trends in 2023 and beyond. At Inspirage, we offer transformational services that can help keep your business on track by bringing the right teams and technologies together to optimize agility and drive operational excellence. Contact us today to learn more or download our new high-tech eBook.

Governments, business owners, and entire industries are reevaluating everything they thought they knew about the supply chain. With the effects of the pandemic revealing gaping holes in the global supply chain and presumed best practices, stakeholders are thinking outside the box toward solutions that can enable them to master supply chain management, and in so doing, improve customer satisfaction.

The metaverse may be that solution. The metaverse has become quite the buzzword in society’s lexicon these days, even though the term itself was coined in the early 1990s by a fiction writer. Yet many people are still not well versed on what it means. According to an Ipsos survey done earlier this year, fewer than one in five Americans are able to correctly explain it, and only around 40% are familiar with the terminology.

While the technology may still be in its infancy relative to technologies that preceded it, the incredible potential that the metaverse holds when it comes to improving logistics, manufacturing, and other business needs suggests the metaverse could be a major game changer for the physical world in general and business owners in particular.

What is the metaverse all about?

The metaverse, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is a digital environment where users can interact with one another in a variety of ways, all within a computer-generated world. Although the metaverse is often thought of as a specific technology, it is more accurate to think of the metaverse as a combination of existing technologies that are creating a new capability or application. The primary technologies it is composed of are virtual reality and mixed reality. While these are often thought of as synonymous with one another, there is a subtle difference between the two. Virtual reality is a medium that requires headsets or special electronic equipment for people to interact with a computer-generated environment. Mixed reality, on the other hand, is the blending of the physical world with the virtual world, thereby making the latter a tool for the former — an augmented reality, as it is also known.

How is the metaverse different from virtual reality?

Virtual reality, much like the term “metaverse,” is not new. Since its inception, it has largely been associated with entertainment uses, wherein gamers can temporarily “escape” from the physical world into a digital world, saving cities from villains as comic book superheroes or leading a professional football team to a come-from-behind overtime victory.

While the metaverse can be used for gaming purposes, it also serves as a persistent digital world where more long-term engagements can take place, for both business and personal use. In addition to major tech companies — such as Meta (formerly known as Facebook), Google, and Nvidia — numerous household-name corporations have invested in the metaverse. They recognize it for what it is: a business opportunity that can fuel growth and improve upon what currently exists. Here are a few of the companies that have metaverse projects in the works or already in place, according to Tech.co and The Metaverse Insider:

• Nike
• Adidas
• Walmart
• Shopify
• Qualcomm

Investments from industry titans like these help explain why the metaverse universe is poised to be worth as much as $824 billion by 2030, up from $21 billion in 2020, according to forecasts done by Verified Market Research.

Why are so many businesses ‘all in’ on the metaverse?

The metaverse is the quintessential emerging technology; its practical use has a lot of potential, but much of it has yet to be realized. It is this potential, however, that has generated so much business interest. From improving the way the consumer shops online to enhancing employee training in professions where retention is critical, the metaverse has the potential to make existing processes more efficient and effective.

Many business executives and supply chain management professionals hold this same view about the metaverse supply chain: It has promise in ensuring that all of the sequences and processes that are involved in the production of a commodity are done more seamlessly and with greater predictability. This is made possible by simulating the processes within a virtual world first, then applying them to the real world. All these activities transpire within the digital supply chain, which is much like a physical supply chain, but in a computer-generated environment.

How is the metaverse poised to improve existing supply chain challenges?

The worst of pandemic-era supply chain disruptions may be behind us, but supply chains are far from being fully functional or back to normal. In a November 2022 poll conducted by the National Federation for Independent Business, nearly 90% of business owner respondents acknowledged that they had been at least somewhat adversely impacted by an underperforming supply chain, with nearly a third of respondents saying the effects were significant.

Here are a few ways metaverse-informed supply chain strategies may be able to help businesses revolutionize supply chain management:

Increases collaboration

By its very nature, the supply chain involves many stakeholders, each united toward a common product-based goal. Since the metaverse is a shared space where all stakeholders can connect and share ideas, it promotes collaboration and communication, both of which are key to a thriving and durable supply chain. Streamlining collaboration can help shorten the product lifecycle, so goods can be developed and delivered to end users more quickly. A shorter supply chain also reduces the risk of disruption since there is a shorter window of time between product development and delivery.

Simulate warehouse processes

In the world of retail — be it brick and mortar or e-commerce — the warehouse represents a significant component of the supply chain. Virtual warehousing facilities are possible inside the metaverse. Customized to resemble the physical world version, virtual warehousing facilities make it possible to try out certain processes and workflows, test their results, and then apply those same flows to the physical world. Instead of trying to visualize scenarios in one’s mind or via computer software, the metaverse makes it possible in a more natural, visual way, leaving less to chance.

Map out an entire supply chain network

Depending on the product or item, there are numerous processes that have to take place before it reaches the consumer, business, or some other end-user. The metaverse makes end-to-end supply chain network mapping a reality, albeit virtually. From farmer to shopper or from miner to jeweler, the metaverse can map out all of the “players” within a supply chain network. And instead of simulating only warehouse processes, the metaverse can simulate those that occur before and after the warehouse. For example, how might extreme drought affect farmers’ staple crops, such as wheat or corn? How would those impacts (e.g. reduced quality, lower quantity) influence the other members of the supply chain network?

Improve the quality of data

Decisions are influenced by data, but those decisions can be compromised if data is faulty, inaccurate, or incomplete. Because the metaverse supply chain leverages artificial intelligence to synthesize data — without the assistance of human input, which would make it prone to error — it has the potential to improve the quality of that data, thereby making it easier to predict events before they occur. This can help with business functions like demand forecasting or lead times, which are important to logistics, manufacturing, and other supply chain activities.

Inspirage provides transformational services that can fuel your business and achieve your long-term goals. One of our specialties is supply chain management. For more information on how we can help your company thrive through digital transformation and our Oracle-based software solutions, contact us today.

When music CDs were first released in the 1980s, “digital audio” was one of the key points in the marketing of their advantages over then-dominant cassette tapes and vinyl LPs. The upshot was that CDs could deliver more information at a much higher quality than those analog formats. Digital supply chains have a similar edge over their predecessors – they can more efficiently capture and distribute data to their stakeholders.

More specifically, they can fully harness the power of technologies such as artificial intelligence programs, machine learning algorithms and cloud computing. This helps them achieve far greater scale and efficiency than traditional supply chains, which are both highly siloed and heavily dependent on legacy IT infrastructure.

Tapping into the advantages of the digital approach requires understanding its accompanying terminology, which can at first seem overwhelming and even confusing. We’ve put together a glossary to make things easier (you can also check our our digital transformation page to learn more). Let’s get right into it:

Artificial Intelligence

Better known as just AI, artificial intelligence is the work performed by intelligent agents such as computer programs, which are aware of their operating environments and function autonomously within them to achieve desired goals. AI might involve the collection and interpretation of data for applications including computer vision and digital assistants in a supply chain. It can be “strong,” with the ability to adapt to unfamiliar situations or “weak,” with its uses limited to narrowly defined cases.

Augmented Reality

AR is the overlaying of digital information onto the real world. Many smartphones are already equipped for AR, while even traditional TVs often display AR enhancements like yellow first down markers in American football games. For supply chains, AR offers many potential uses, including special glasses that display overlaid and optimized paths through a warehouse, thereby streamlining the pick-and-pack process.

 

Blockchain Technology

Although it’s closely associated with cryptocurrencies, blockchain has many non-monetary uses, especially in digital supply chain management. It is essentially a different take on the database, one in which data is housed in blocks that are time-stamped and cryptographically linked so as to prevent subsequent modification. The immutability of blockchains can make them useful for settling payments and other transactions throughout a supply chain, since stakeholders can trust that blockchain data hasn’t been tampered with.

Cloud ERP

An ERP system helps keep supply chains efficient and organized, serving as an interconnected hub for key applications such as procurement, planning and accounting. Cloud ERP solutions from vendors like Oracle go a step further by making ERP functionality much more scalable and flexible, as well as easier to manage. With a cloud ERP, customers have access to a straightforward upgrade process, better integration between applications and tons of pre-built features such as dashboards and embedded AI.

Intelligent Automation

This blanket term covers multiple technologies and processes for automating manual tasks. It can include back-office automation that makes it easier to store and access documents, advanced optical character recognition for quickly recognizing typed and handwritten text, robotic process automation (see below) and more.

Internet of Things

The IoT is the network of billions of non-traditional computing devices, most notably embedded sensors. These devices are typically connected via IP networks like the public internet, allowing them to send and receive data from servers. Through the IoT, organizations have access to improved asset tracking via GPS and RFID, which provide more granular information than barcodes and tracking numbers. They can also take advantage of IoT robots that can scan QR codes and receive information wirelessly for purposes including tracking and predictive maintenance scheduling.

Machine Learning

Similar to AI, machine learning involves intelligent agents like software applications acting autonomously, often in ways that resemble human intelligence. The main difference between the two is that machine learning doesn’t require the agent to be explicitly programmed to perform a specific task – it can learn on its own. In supply chains, machine learning is well-suited to discovering insights within large sets of data and applying them to the improvement of demand modeling, forecasting and shipper networks.

Managed Services

In the context of a supply chain, managed services are a natural complement to solutions like cloud ERP apps. Both managed services and cloud computing support continuous improvement, meaning that the benefits of digital supply chain transformation aren’t limited to the stability and security of the initial setup. A managed services provider can help oversee the selection of the right solutions and also assist with the technical implementation and maintenance.

Platform-as-a-Service

One of the three most basic forms of cloud computing along with Software-as-a-Service and Infrastructure-as-a-Service, PaaS encompasses a full cloud-based environment for developing, deploying, maintaining and updating apps. PaaS simplifies these processes by including tools such as business intelligence capabilities and various types of middleware, which sit on top of cloud infrastructure such as servers and secure network connections. Maintaining a digital supply chain along with critical systems of record like cloud ERP is more straightforward with PaaS in place, compared with the traditional approach of working with older on-premises technologies.

Robotic Process Automation

RPA is the use of machine learning and AI to automate what is often called “swivel chair work,” i.e. the manual entry of the same or similar data across multiple systems. Think copying and pasting entries between spreadsheets or portals. The robots in questions are software agents that can work like a human within a graphical user interface to complete those tasks, plus many others like running jobs in an ERP or sending automatic replies to emails.

As integrated supply chain experts, the Inspirage team can help you turn the concepts in this glossary into reality. Learn more by visiting our resource center or contacting our team directly.