Three surprising digital bets for 2015Look beyond the obvious investments and raise your company’s Digital IQ with enterprise wearables, NoSQL databases, and business sensors

January 2015

www.pwc.com/us/tech-trends

Smart badgeABC company

John Doe

Enterprise wearables

NoSQL databases

Business sensors

Which technologies are companies investing in this year? Business and IT leaders in our 2015 Digital IQ Survey preview say cybersecurity (69%), private cloud (61%), and data mining and analysis (54%). These top-three bets are important technologies that many businesses need—but they may not distinguish you from the competition.

Instead, look to a trio of picks we believe have extraordinary potential, despite being off the radar screen of many businesses. In fact, wearables (3%) and NoSQL databases (6%) placed at the very bottom of the priority list for survey respondents, ranking last in investment and perceived value among a field of 24 technologies. While more companies are investing in sensors for collecting business information (23%), they’re still underrated in our book and grossly underinvested in by several sectors. Here’s why these three digital technologies matter, who’s taking the lead in 2015, and how they just might help your own company become a disruptor.

The potentialWearables hold so much promise because they provide a hands-free way for employ-ees to engage in real-time with context-specific business information, customers, or one another. For example, companies across industries can provide tailored, in-the-moment onboarding and job training to workers equipped with smart badges or wearable displays. In industrial settings, goggles, lanyards, or sensor-embedded clothing could help workers who are performing repetitive or dangerous tasks increase productivity and reduce injuries.

Consumer-facing companies like those in Healthcare and Life Sciences can use wear-ables to improve the efficacy of their prod-ucts and services (from drugs to sunscreen to smoking cessation), but also increase effectiveness of their operations and supply chains. And for Retailers, wearables like watches or badges can turn each employee into a sales terminal and increase in-store collaboration.

The pitfallsTo succeed, wearables must first and foremost be human-centered—that is, designed to meet the needs of the user without getting in his or her way. They must also provide actionable insights and seamless integration with other enterprise data, applications, and the environment. Companies will also need to address the considerable security and privacy chal-lenges that come with the collection and use of such sensitive information. And they will need to overcome battery challenges that limit computation, display resolution, and connectivity.

Considerations for your businessAre wearables a good bet for your com-pany? Start with these questions:

• Which business opportunities hold the most potential for our organi-zation—training, safety, customer

Enterprise wearablesFrom fitness bands to smart watches, wearable computing is becoming an increasingly popular consumer technology for health and wellness applications. Yet in the enterprise, wearables like body-mounted displays, lanyards, haptic feedback devices, and wired clothing have yet to make such inroads, yet where they have been used they have demonstrated strong value. Compared to last year, investment among Digital IQ respondents is down: 3% in 2015, compared with 6% in 2014.

engagement, real-time access to expertise, or something else? To answer that question, CIOs should partner with functional leaders across the company, including those in human capital, operations, sales, and support. They will consider which user groups, locations, environments, and tasks can most benefit from real-time information and engagement.

• How can we learn and experiment with wearables for our business? Explore what other industries, universi-ties, entrepreneurs, and labs are doing with wearables to identify potential applications to pilot or formal or infor-mal collaborations. Explore situations in which hands-free computing could help increase productivity for tasks constantly interrupted or that suffer from errors and inconsistency.

• Do we have the right skills to take advantage of wearables? Look within the IT, product management, and mar-keting organizations to assess whether you have the talent and skills needed, such as design thinking, user experience design, and enterprise architecture. Most wearables are purpose-built but you can experiment with inexpensive micro-processor platforms, such as Arduino, RaspberryPi and BeagleBone, sensors, and displays designed for hobbyists.

of companies are currently investing. Top five industries are:3%

10% Healthcare

Automotive

Technology

Industrial Products

Business and Professional Services

7 %

6%

5%

4%

Smart badgeABC company

John DoeHands-free engagement

Decisions in the moment

Innovative customer and employee experiences

Benefits

Benefits

NoSQL databasesAs digital technology goes, NoSQL databases are not yet part of the conversation at most companies. But what they can do certainly is: flexibly manage and make sense of the seemingly unlimited customer, product, environment, and social data that powers new apps and analytics. With only 6% of respondents, investment in NoSQL databases is low, representing a decline from last year’s 11%. Understandably, IT leaders in our survey rated them a bit more highly (8%) than their business counterparts (5%).

The potentialNoSQL databases are an important technol-ogy that’s part of the larger enterprise Big Data and analytics movement. As busi-nesses look to take advantage of current and future data—especially unstructured data from social networks, video, audio, and sensors—they need solutions that are more agile, scalable, and flexible—to complement what relational databases can offer. NoSQL databases won’t replace rela-tional databases and data warehouses for mission-critical jobs like transaction pro-cessing and reporting, but they will offer a way forward for new applications that will take advantage of unstructured data.

NoSQL databases like Cassandra, HBase, or MongoDB are also attractive to enter-prise developers because they require little overhead and can be up and running quickly for prototyping new kinds of apps or data analysis. For example, an industrial parts supplier might use a NoSQL data-base to create a mobile ecommerce app that houses thousands of products with detailed descriptions, photos, and videos. As the company adds more products and users, or even overhauls its app design, the database can keep up with all the changes. Or a retailer might embark on a large-scale social media listening project, which would use a NoSQL database to quickly analyze real-time streams of social media data in order to identify important conversations and customer trends.

The pitfallsBecause NoSQL databases can be deployed quickly via the cloud they have the poten-tial to be disruptive to organizations that lack adequate IT governance. There’s also a crowded field of NoSQL databases and emerging vendors that are designed for dif-ferent tasks, like mobile app development or data analysis, which may make it diffi-cult to choose a single enterprise standard. Companies will also need to figure out how to integrate NoSQL databases with their existing data architecture.

Considerations for your businessShould your company begin experiment-ing with NoSQL databases? Start with these questions:

• Are our business units or func-tions already experimenting with NoSQL databases? Finding out where pockets of NoSQL innovation may exist in the organization is an important first step. Business and IT leaders will want to frame this discovery process in a positive light and not as an effort to eradicate rogue use. Find out how your enterprise database vendors are plan-ning to integrate NoSQL engines into their platforms (or may already have).

• How are we currently managing the unstructured data? Look at the data storage and analytics techniques in place or that you are considering for managing unstructured data and con-sider whether NoSQL databases offer an alternative. Also consider how NoSQL databases might be integrated with your existing data architecture.

• Which emerging NoSQL prod-ucts make the most sense for the applications we are considering? Identify the most promising pilots for NoSQL databases, such as analysis of sensor data or a relationship network analysis of your customers and sales-force, then learn about and test differ-ent products. Consider designating one or more NoSQL databases as enterprise standards for your in-house developers.

of companies are currently investing. Top five industries are:6%

17 % Technology

Entertainment, Media and Communications

Energy, Utilities and Mining

Business and Professional Services

Financial Services

13%

9%

8%

6%

Powers mobile, web and Internet of Things apps

Flexible, scalable and fast

Handles vast quantities of unstructured data

Benefits

Business sensorsWith so much attention surrounding the Internet of Things, we expected sensors to be higher on the list when it comes to investment in 2015 and beyond. We asked companies about their plans for sensors that go in to products (8%) and those that are used to collect business information (23%)—what we call the Internet of Business Things. While not every company makes products and could benefit from the former category, just about any type of business can take advantage of the latter, with a low-cost way to gain more visibility into the organization and improve decision-making. IT leaders recognized more potential for business sensors (28%) than those respondents in business roles (20%).

The potentialSensors provide a relatively low-cost way for companies to learn about their cus-tomers, employees, and operations—and then use that data to improve engage-ment, sales, productivity, safety, and much more. Some companies are already using sensor-equipped warehouses to enable them to better manage inventory of all kinds, whether for internal consump-tion or for parts and materials shipped to customers. In retail stores, sensors monitor product stock levels on shelves and signal stock outs. Retailers can then combine this real-time information with video feeds, customer preferences and purchas-ing history to create a new kind of shop-ping experience that spans the online and offline world.

Hotel chains or office buildings can use infrared sensors to scan the premises to detect body heat, so the room or floor can be cleaned as soon as people leave. Sensors also provide a way to monitor or track workers in remote or dangerous locations such as mines. Or they can also be used by public safety agencies and the private sector to detect changes in the earth’s movement or other conditions to predict earthquakes, forest fires, and other natural disasters. Hospitals also use sensors for many safety applications—from enforcing hand washing and tracking medications to monitoring the temperature in blood banks and operating rooms. These are just a sampling of the many potential sensor applications possible.

The pitfallsSensor technology is relatively immature: there are a large number of vendors and few standards exist. Early adopters should be prepared to experiment and be flex-ible as the technology and market evolve.

Sensors will generate a great deal of data, which businesses will need to collect, store, protect, and analyze. They’ll also need to ensure they have appropriate tools, infra-structure, and talent in place to process and then integrate sensor data with other enterprise data. As always, data security and privacy challenges are critical.

Considerations for your businessHow can your company begin taking advantage of sensors that collect business information? Start with these questions:

• Which areas of our operations could benefit from more trans-parency? Your CIO, COO, and other functional leaders can begin identifying processes, product flows, people, and places where more timely or accurate data is needed. Consider how a small-scale sensor pilot could surface data that would inform new ways of working.

• In customer settings, how can sensors help us better meet their needs? Companies can look at sales and service environments to identify where interactions with customers (all or individual ones) could be improved with better information about their behaviors and expectations.

• What new insights can be gained or questions be more effectively answered with better data? Consider the type of data needed to answer those questions, such as quantity, quality, loca-tion, movement, and so on. Also think about the people, places, processes, and products in your organization that are associated with these questions.

of companies are currently investing. Top five industries are:23%

52% Retail and Consumer

Hospitality and Leisure

Industrial Products

Energy, Utilities and Mining

Automotive

33%

30%

27 %

25%

Ubiquitous, low-cost data collection

Improved context-specific decisions and interactions

Better visibility into operations

©2015 PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, a Delaware limited liability partnership. All rights reserved. PwC refers to the US member firm, and may sometimes refer to the PwC network. Each member firm is a separate legal entity. Please see www.pwc.com/structure for further details. This content is for general information purposes only, and should not be used as a substitute for consultation with professional advisors. MW-15-1136.LL

Chris Curran Advisory principal and Chief Technologist (214) 754 5055 christopher.b.curran@us.pwc.com

Gerard Verweij Advisory principal and US Technology Consulting Leader (617) 530 7015 gerard.verweij@us.pwc.com

Contacts

About the SurveyThe Digital IQ Survey preview was conducted in December 2014 by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). They surveyed 503 business and IT leaders in 14 countries across Europe, Asia, and North America. 36% of respondents were IT executives. 64% were business executives.

For more information, please visit: www.pwc.com/us/tech-trends

Next steps for your business Our surprising bets raise important questions for every enterprise, and as with any technology ranking your organization will consider both shorter- and longer-term bets. Beyond the top-ranking fundamentals of cybersecurity, private cloud, and data mining and analysis, it’s also worth calling out the few mainstream technologies notably absent from the top of our rankings. Customer mobile applications (24%), public cloud applications (18%), and public cloud infrastructure (16%) ranked much lower than expected. Do companies no longer see value here? Not necessarily.

We see the intense focus on cyber threats and data security as possibly explaining why companies are prioritizing private cloud over public. And on the mobile front, many businesses that have already made significant investments in prior years—for example mobile customer engagement ranked in the top-three in last year’s Digital IQ Survey—are our now continuing to leverage those investments.

Our list, taken alongside the many other top-10 tech lists that come out each year, may feel like a lot to navigate. But what is important as a leader in your organization, is not the lists themselves, but that you have a sound approach for evaluating, experimenting, and adopting the technologies with the most potential value for your unique business. PwC can help guide you through this journey as you set priorities—and the course of your business.