Ten Disruptive Tech Trends for 2014

Technology is increasingly changing the way business is conducted.

Technology is not only disruptive in financial services, but in the business world as a whole. Technology has vastly changed the way people work and do business, and will only continue to do so.

During a session at last week's SAP Sapphire conference, Bill Briggs, director and CTO for Deloitte presented what the firm considers the ten most disruptive technology trends over the next 18-24 months. The list was based on research Deloitte has conducted, said Briggs, and centers on technology "that has an actual business purpose" as opposed to more esoteric speculation.

Briggs reminded the audience that no matter what business you are in, it will be disrupted in some capacity by emerging technology. "There's no morality when it comes to disruption," he added

These are the ten trends Briggs highlighted:

The CIO as Venture Capitalist: Briggs said CIOs will need to adopt "more of a portfolio way of thinking" and take risks as a venture capitalist would. Also as with the VC world, CIOs must "fiercely source talent."

Cognitive Analytics: Briggs said predictive and advanced capabilities like machine learning actually can be applied to a business purpose today and "reshape how works gets done." As an example, employees' work patterns can be better analyzed to help them perform more efficiently.

Industrialized Crowdsourcing: Briggs noted that crowdosurcing offers businesses an "amazing variety of capabilities that can be tapped into." Crowdsourcing isn't just for things like Kickstarter, he added, it can be used to help make business decisions.

Digital Engagement: "It's about creating a consistent and contextual way of personalizing, delivering and monetizing digital experiences," Briggs said about this trend. "The core business model in many industries is becoming digital."

Wearables: Briggs said the emerging trend of wearable technology won't be just for the consumer world. It can be used to analyze the way employees work to help them be safer, such as with factory workers. Or, he said, with professions where there is inherent danger, such as firefighting, wearable technology can hep avoid dangerous situations. While he admitted there is a "creepiness factor" to this use, it does allow for technology "to be introduced where we haven't been able to put it before."

Technical Debt Reversal: The fiscal impact of updating and replacing legacy technology can be staggering. Businesses now face the reality of they can keep the costs of many decades of technology investment down, or even reverse them. "Most of it is because of systems that were perfectly justified at time that simply haven’t aged well," he added

Social Activation: This involves tapping into people who have opinion and influence in your market. It goes beyond simple "sentiment measuring" to actually changing a customer's perception of your brand, he added.

Cloud Orchestration: "The integration between cloud and core systems allows complex business problems to be solved much more easily," Briggs noted.

In-memory Revolution: The rise of in-memory computing is will have a huge effect on how business is conducted, noted Briggs.

Real-Time DevOps: Technology can increasingly be used to automate more pieces of IT delivery, said Briggs. It can also bring new tools and disciplines to the software development process.

Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio