IT managers need to take heed of six new trends in information technology that could boost business revenue, according to the Accenture Technology Vision 2012 report.
The purpose of the study is to identify the top technology trends that are expected to impact businesses and enterprises in the near future.
The report also aims to respond to the idea that one major challenge for IT leaders is deciding which emerging trends deserve their attention and investment most.
One growing trend in particular that the Accenture research points to is the emergence of context-based services, which can be summed up as the convergence of real world and digital data to draw conclusions about consumer experiences.
Accenture’s chief technology innovation officer Gavin Michael explained in the report that context-based services have evolved from the rise of other trends such as cloud computing, social media, and increased usage of mobile devices.
CIOs and other IT leaders who have started to leverage contextual data to build a deeper understanding of consumer preferences and habits are establishing themselves as strategic players within their companies. They are teaming more effectively with functions such as sales and marketing and leveraging contextual services to drive new revenue and deliver more value for their businesses.
Another takeaway from the report could be applied to many professionals outside of IT. That would be that social media is not just an add-on marketing feature but that customers are really using this as the default medium for interacting with just about everything and everyone.
Unsurprisingly, Accenture researchers have found that most enterprises have yet to catch up to that reality and almost none have realized the opportunity. Nevertheless, many reports, including one from Deloitte, predicted that social media in the enterprise world will get even bigger in 2012.
Additional trends that Accenture points to that IT departments might want to keep in mind include taking a data-centric view towards security on connected devices as well as fresher approaches to data management.
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