The A-Z of tech predictions 2020: S to Z

This is part three of a three-part series on the technology outlook for 2020.

S is for sustainability

Source: Dell Technologies.
Clarke.

“Greater investments in reuse and recycling for closed-loop innovation will accelerate – hardware becomes smaller and more efficient and built with recycled and reclaimed goods – minimising e-waste and maximising already-existing materials,” said Jeff Clarke, COO and Vice Chairman, Dell Technologies in a blog post. Dell Technologies met its Legacy of Good 2020 goals ahead of schedule, and has created new goals for 2030.

Mark Micallef, VP of Asia Pacific and Japan, Cloudera identifies carbonomics, made possible by big data analytics, as playing a huge role in 2020 as Asia Pacific continues building smart cities.

“Carbonomics is when cities leverage their carbon footprint as a type of currency in order to encourage human life and reduce our carbon footprint,” Micallef said.

“One way of implementing carbonomics is by providing individuals visibility into how the choices they make will impact the future of the planet. For example, showing how much carbon the different types of car (e.g. a diesel-run vehicle versus an electric car) emits for a trip in layman’s terms can encourage consumers to select the eco-friendlier choice.

Source: Cloudera. Micallef.

“In short, cities need to encourage businesses to leverage data and analytics to bring visibility to consumers about the choices they make and how that affects their overall carbon footprint. Only by doing so will cities be able to provide a sustainable, healthy and vibrant environment for citizens to operate in.”

The idea of smart receipts will become more common as businesses realise how many paper receipts are printed and discarded, said Hendrik Vordenbaeumen, SAP Concur VP, Product Strategy. “There is a productivity cost to go along with the environmental toll, and these are among the reasons the trend of digital payments is growing. In 2020, we will see a significant increase in the number of digital receipts provided by suppliers.

“China is moving toward a more cashless society. Japan is moving to change laws requiring paper receipts for reimbursable transactions, allowing transaction data to count instead...Employees will benefit, as receipt data floats more easily into expense reports, eliminating frustrations about lost receipts and helping employees get reimbursed faster.”

T is for travel expenses

Source: SAP Concur.
Watson.

Fears of a slowing economy in Asia-Pacific will bring more pressure on businesses to do more with less, says Andy Watson, SVP and GM, Asia Pacific Japan and Greater China, SAP Concur, right down to emphasising more on implementing corporate travel systems to get the best deals.

“As a result, more CFOs will steer their companies to calmer waters by improving visibility into corporate spend to better control budgets. By harnessing technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and deep data analytics, automation will deliver greater productivity and intelligence to operations, without growth in headcount. In addition, more travel managers will leverage technology to help their teams achieve the same business outputs with fewer trips,” he said.

“And as a region with so many countries and borders, solutions that help firms manage the complexities of business T&E – such as country-specific tax regulations, traveler tax and immigration, VAT reclaim, and cashless payments – will grow in popularity.”

Source: SAP Concur.
Lucier.

Jim Lucier, President, SAP Concur, went into the specifics. “We anticipate that organisations will increasingly bridge the gap between how their enterprise travel-booking tools are configured, relative to consumer-travel apps, without forgoing the discounts, control, and real-time visibility into the choices that employees are making,” he said.

T&E stands for travel and expenses, while VAT refers to value-added taxes.

V is for voice

- Voice goes mobile

2020 to be the year when voice interaction on-the-go starts to happen, said Tero Tolonen, VP Global Product Management, Jabra. “Whilst adoption of voice services has been increasing at home, it has not been as widely adopted elsewhere but we are now bridging that as we cross the next tech hurdles to enable widespread adoption,” he said.

“We’re seeing an increased focus on voice technologies across the industry, but specifically in the consumer domain. It’s manifesting in things like microphone pickup, which is getting really advanced across different kind of devices and form factors, ranging from hearables to smart speakers at home. Currently, there is also a lot of effort in the industry going to intelligent microphone and voice solutions for collaboration in the enterprise domain.”

- Digital assistants that care

Holger Reisinger, SVP Large Enterprise at Jabra, also elaborated on the implications for empathy in machine dialogue. “Voice assistant adoption will be massively improved if you get a level of empathy in that machine dialogue. So, Alexa and other players will likely become more emotional and detect things like frustration in user responses,” he said.

“This won’t just be in a consumer space; voice empathy could be business case-related with higher customer satisfaction if brands develop voice user interfaces (UIs) with deeper emotion. Also, neural text-to-speech engines will make it impossible to detect whether a chat is by a humanized machine or an actual person.”

- Privacy fears

“There are a lot of people worried about companies using voice-activated virtual assistants to spy on conversations, but we will likely see a continued development and reliance on this technology. While it would be less than ideal for companies to actually misuse this technology to collect data through their devices, it will likely be written into the end-user licence agreement (EULA) for some services, which may deter users from using the service at the start, until it is proven to be secure,” said Adam Kujawa, Director of Malwarebytes Labs.

W is for wallets, the digital type

“Globally, and especially in Asia Pacific where mobile penetration rates are high, we see the growth of contactless payments via cards and mobile wallets. This means that more than ever, it’s essential that retailers offer a variety of localised payment methods. For e.g. in Vietnam, wallet payments are used for digital services, while in Singapore, wallets are great options for loyalty programmes.

Source: Adyen. Hayashi.

“Instead of speculating on what the next big wallet would be, retailers should hedge by utilising payment platforms that offer key local payment methods, which include these wallets,” said Warren Hayashi, President, Asia Pacific, Adyen.

“We expect digital payment adoption, particularly QR-code technology, across Asia will continue to accelerate in 2020 driven by rising demand for convenience as well as cheaper and faster implementation as compared to traditional forms of cashless payments.

“Technology adoption will not be an overnight phenomenon but one that requires continuous education and marketing. For instance, government-led Initiatives that provide incentives to businesses and consumers when using cashless payment solutions can be an effective strategy to catalyse a swift and successful transition,” said Patrick Ngan, co-founder and CEO of QFPay International, a payment specialist.

Source: QFPay. Ngan.

Ngan agreed with Hayashi that the number of wallets available can make it confusing for merchants and consumers alike.

“Nonetheless, the digital wallet space in Asia remains crowded and fragmented. The region has more than 150 digital wallets which makes it cumbersome for both businesses and consumers to transact with the various available digital wallets. It is imperative for businesses to partner with experienced and established payment companies that have tested-and-proven systems which are already integrated with the region’s top digital wallets to ensure both cashiers and customers enjoy a simple and seamless payment experience,” Ngan said.

“We foresee that in the coming year cross-border payment capabilities will become a trend as digital wallets strive to stay ahead in a competitive landscape.”

One way to differentiate digital wallets will be to “identify market gaps and offer other services than just payment to stand out and be in consumers’ favour,” Ngan added.

X is for eXperience

- Automated self-service

Samir Sayed, MD, ASEAN & Korea, Poly, said that the C-suite is recognising that customer experience (CX) transformation is needed to hold on to and grow market share. “And as enterprises race to tap on technologies like AI and chatbots as part of their CX transformation strategies, we’ve seen that contrary to popular belief that self-service would ultimately eliminate the need for voice, the opposite is occurring,” he said.

“What’s really happening is that the rise of digital channels such as web chat, apps, FAQs, and more have in fact changed the way customer service personnel and contact centres handle interactions. The routine and 'easy' interactions are now handled by self-service channels; this is where chatbots and virtual assistants have primarily been deployed.”

Sayed said that automating self-service channels enables businesses to work on improving CX. "To get the most from their employees, organisations need to trust and empower them. Without the right conditions, they’re prone to moving to new roles faster, and leaders will struggle to meet organisational KPIs on CX," he said.

"Employers should give employees freedom – freedom to choose where they work (at home, or in the office), freedom to manage the customer interaction, and freedom to move. The last point is important for agents and supervisors – agents will be dealing with longer calls and so may need to consult with colleagues (without putting the customer on hold), or they may need to find information or to test a product. And supervisors need the mobility to roam the contact centre to help coach agents whilst remaining in touch for any escalating phone calls.

"Technology improvements for the contact centre have been forthcoming, with features such as close-talk limiting (so a customer only hears the right conversation), active noise cancelling (to help an agent concentrate in a noisy office) and high-level hearing protection (to ensure your employees’ welfare is guaranteed). By equipping employees with the tools and trust, they’ll be empowered to handle any situation and provide an experience that’s memorable for the customer."

- Super apps

“In 2020, the 'super app' trend that dominates mobile commerce and communications in China will reach critical mass among consumers in Southeast Asia,” said Deepak Seth, SAP Concur VP of Product Strategy, Asia Pacific.

“True to its name, a super app is a number of apps within a single seamless experience. They tend to start as messaging or payment apps that merge and grow to include ride-hailing, dining, social media, health tracking, games, common business applications, and more. Where they proliferate, super apps become the primary way people interface with the Internet on mobile.

“The trend is growing far beyond China, as payment and messaging apps converge and add a wide range of other features in Southeast Asia. Singapore’s Grab offers transportation, food, payment, movie tickets and more, in eight countries. Gojek, started as a ride-hailing call centre in Indonesia, offers more than 20 services in four countries. Line, a messaging app from Japan, offers coupons, news, videos, and payments through Line Pay. South Korea’s Kakaotalk super app grew by about 10 million monthly active users, to about 44 million, over the last year alone. In Asia, it’s becoming easier to use super apps than apply for and use credit cards.

“That means any vendor that wants to create seamless experiences for mobile customers – and especially providers of transportation, dining, and travel – needs to keep a close eye on this trend.”

- Gestural input

“We will also see breakthroughs in how humans interact with data – going beyond search, dashboards and visualisation. Increasingly, we’ll be able to interact sensorally through movements and expressions, and even with the mind. Facebook’s recent buy of CTRL Labs – a mindreading wristband, and Elon Musk’s Neuralink project, are early signals of what’s to come. This new data experience holds great human benefits for all, but can also be used for ill, hence must be used responsibly,” added Dan Sommer, Qlik Senior Director, Global Market Intelligence Lead.

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The A-Z of tech predictions 2020: A to I

The A-Z of tech predictions 2020: J to R