Strategic advice to leverage new technologies

In this Executive Update, we focus on why SOA is better suited to tackle digital disruption and examine the three major value dials of the SOA paradigm. We explore what constitutes a pragmatic SOA foundation and break down a framework and sample scenario on how to exploit this foundation in the digital economy. This Update also includes relevant insights based on our experiences working with global clients, including lessons learned and best practices while building an SOA foundation.

Even without the new wave of wearable technologies, the wearable market is sizeable today -- US $24.2 billion in 2015, according to research done by our company, IDTechEx.1 The vast majority of this -- 74% -- is for already mature wearables: the humble electronic wristwatch, earphones, blood glucose test strips, and the like. Now let's assess each of the key applications for wearable technology.

This article details the challenges and opportunities for the corporate sector created by these developmentswith wearables, and discusses the most likely scenarios and their implications for business and society.

Man's quest for an enhanced human experience using wearables, be it for productivity or for leisure, is age-old. Attempts such as arm-worn wings to enable flight or even an abacus on a ring date back several hundred years.1 However, the proliferation of contemporary wearables ranging from smartwatches to smart glasses, cameras, headsets, and clothing is a 21st-century phenomenon, and it has the potential to significantly alter the way people live, work, and play. But as with other technology development endeavors, the question of how wearables should be built so that they provide the optimal user experience remains. Further, how do we evaluate the performance of such wearables? We address these key questions in this article.

The Internet of Things (IoT) evolution in combination with progress in analytics and cognitive capabilities has resulted in new technologies, such as wearables, sensors, and intelligent automation solutions. The world around us is smarter, more interconnected, and more automated. Three major aspects of digitization are observed as a result of new economy models driven by data: digitization of humans, digitization of organizations, and digitization of the ecosystem (see Figure 1). This article focuses on the first aspect -- the digitization of humans -- and relates to the other two categories as needed.

Wearables promise a host of opportunities, from giving companies a new customer touchpoint they can use to engage directly with consumers to changing the way healthcare is provided and medical research is conducted. Already wearable devices are being used to assist employees with their jobs, and such usage is expected to advance in the near future. Wearables will make their way into business and industrial scenarios ranging from CRM and HR to the shop floor. But along with opportunities, wearables raise concerns.

This is the final installment of a three-part Executive Update series concerning key issues involving the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) model of cloud computing.

Are you fully leveraging your organization’s data – both structured and unstructured – and putting Big Data Analytics to work to improve decision making, performance, and success? With the right knowledge and skills, you can combine and analyze data from myriad sources to identify patterns previously obscured, and apply predictive analytics to enable better decision making and new, superior strategies and approaches.