The technological trends of 2021 that the industrial sector should keep an eye on

Even before Covid-19 came into our lives, the need to customize products and services was a part of factories’ everyday business. With the help of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence systems (in its most comprehensive version, Machine Learning), in the industrial sector, Data Analytics was able to cross data to detect consumption patterns, either of a specific client or consumers in general, by geographic areas or by continents. 

Now, intelligence technology has taken a step further to place value on this binomial of digitization and customization in what is called the Internet of Behavior, involving people even more in decision-making. For the consultancy firm Gartner, this year, the IoB tops the list of nine strategic trends that will enable the flexibility and agility needed by resilient companies.

It’s all about understanding the data collected on people’s behavior, preferences, habits, interests and analyzing them from a behavioral psychology point of view. The aim is not only to create and market services and products adapted to each person, but to take it further and modify behavior and create user experiences. The IoB combines other technologies directly related to people such as facial recognition, location and Big Data. Using the parameters detected, people’s behavior can be influenced to encourage a certain outcome.

The second trend for Gartner revolves around the overall experience. Up until now, companies and organizations have focused on the customer, but again, we now have to take it one step further and also consider the experience of the supplier and the employee, even more so with remote work, to support and reinforce the commercial result. "Closely linking all of these experiences, rather than individually improving each one in a silo, makes a company stand out from the competition in a way that is difficult to replicate, creating a sustainable competitive advantage", highlights the report.

Computing to improve privacy

Computing aimed at protecting data privacy is based on three technological areas. On the one hand, it provides a trusted environment when processing confidential data; on the other, it processes and analyzes in a decentralized way; and third, it encrypts the data and algorithms before analysis. In a collaborative environment, this, according to Gartner, allows organizations to "collaborate in research safely without sacrificing confidentiality".

Distributed cloud

This concept is becoming increasingly popular and is understood as the process through which Cloud services are distributed to different physical locations, but operation, governance and evolution remain the responsibility of the provider. It relies on edge computing to ensure that the closest location point to the cloud infrastructure is the closest one to clients.

According to Gartner, companies prefer using the public cloud now and there are moves to make it a more ubiquitous, distributed model that will allow many more things to be done, such as the adaptation and agility of digital business in real time. It forecasts that, by 2024, most Cloud services platforms will provide at least some distributed cloud services that will be run at the point where they are needed.

Up until now, the model was centralized and involved distributing services to different physical locations. The consultancy firm highlights that operations that are physically closer to those that need the capabilities make low-latency computing possible. This also ensures consistent control to manage the cloud infrastructure from the public and private cloud and consistently span both environments. When considered together, these elements can deliver significant performance improvements by eliminating latency issues, as well as reducing the risk of general network-related outages or inefficiencies.

Operations anywhere

Another positive thing that the pandemic has left us with is that location is no longer an issue. It doesn’t matter where our employees, suppliers or customers are. Technology has made location irrelevant. This means that we must have digitized plant environments so that operations and processes can be programmed from a computer and while working remotely.

Cybersecurity mesh

This is a scalable, flexible and reliable architecture which allows the security perimeter to be built beyond the organization and extend outside the normal area.

Smart modular business

This is simply a matter, according to Gartner, of the ability to adapt and reorganize as companies and organizations accelerate in their digital transformation/transition to become more agile and make faster data-based decisions. This is directly related to the next technological trend.

Artificial Intelligence

Hand in hand with Big Data, this means that all data can be analyzed to optimize organizations. Gartner believes that this new year will mark the beginning of an era in which Artificial Intelligence will rule. "Responsible artificial intelligence is emerging to address issues surrounding trust, transparency, ethics, fairness, interpretation and compliance. A solid strategy for this technology will facilitate the performance, scalability and reliability of artificial intelligence models”, it adds.

Hyper-automation

Thanks to the previous technology, process automation advances to optimize organizations and reduce costs. The concept of hyper-automation is that everything that can be automated should be automated.

Ultimately, it’s all about disruption, creating long and medium-term opportunities with technologies that have the transformative potential to make organizations efficient and fast. Otherwise, they’ll get left behind.