For the past decade or so, everyone in the IT industry has been talking excitedly about cloud computing and its application in many industries. By now, most top executives working in big IT companies in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, and other regions in Australia already know what this new data management solution is all about. Even the ordinary end-user on the street may already know something about cloud storage services because of advanced mobile technologies. In fact, according to the research firm Gartner, as cited by the Information Office of the State of Oregon, about twenty percent (20%) of all the non-IT Global 500 Companies by 2015 will consist of cloud service providers for different industries.
This trend towards using cloud technology to manage a corporation’s IT needs is already happening within the telecommunications industry. Mobile carriers and those companies that develop mobile applications often store their users’ non-sensitive data in the cloud while they kept their users’ more personal information in a stable and secure environment. With just a few in-house servers, these companies successfully managed high volumes of data to and from thousands of users each day. Now, imagine how much savings other major industries in Australia can reap from integrating “the cloud” into their business operations.
In a most recent press release, Gartner’s Vice President, Kimberly Harris-Ferrante, pointed out that cloud computing and social media, pushed by emerging technologies in mobile and broadband, will endure into the near future because they “provide industries with new avenues for effective customer communication and engagement, facilitating increased revenue and sustainable interaction with key customers.” Among the top industries in the world, the firm singled out a few non-IT products and services with the following predictions:
- Car buyers in 2016 will very much prefer to have web access from inside their brand-new vehicles. This also opens up a new avenue for location-based information being shared with the driver’s social network. Aside from social media connectivity, drivers and passenger also enjoy extended mobility and flexibility in their jobs. Certainly, those satellites floating above the Earth’s atmosphere in 2016 can beam down stronger signals, which deliver a more powerful Internet connection for each user than the current service providers do.
- Most of all, the healthcare industry will largely depend on cloud-based services as different technologies and industries converge. In particular, Gartner’s 2012 industry report implied that, by 2014, nearly 30% of Americans would have an increased preference towards using mobile apps and online payment services. This merges the convenience of mobile banking with increased accessibility to an individual’s medical history and other pertinent information.
- Moreover, nearly 20% of the healthcare industry’s service providers, such as the outpatient clinics and the medical testing centres, in 2015 would integrate customer relationship management (CRM) systems into their service delivery. These systems were designed specifically to address the needs of healthcare clients. Examples of these systems include real-time updates of a person’s lab tests via online and the opt-in feature that automatically sends SMS reminders to an individual’s mobile phone for payments due or for a doctor’s appointment.
- Unlike Gartner’s prediction of increased used of iPads among pharmaceutical sales representatives, the report mentioned the opposite will occur in 2016 within the K-12 sector. Chief Information Officers (CIOs) of public and private schools mostly prefer those devices that are more readily available to their end-users.
In their January 2012 press release, IBISWorld listed five of Australia’s top industries that are set to expand commercially this year. Naturally, diamond and gemstone mining remains the supreme industry of the Land Down Under. Incidentally, the second-ranked down to the fifth-ranked industries mirror those that Gartner singled out. These are Motor Vehicle Manufacturing; Online Education (including K-12); Biotechnology (a precursor to Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare); and Online Shopping, wherein mobile banking is a prerequisite. Generally, the results of Gartner’s research are very much applicable to a smaller scale, like with Australia’s major industries, as they would be in a global arena. The percentages of predicted growth may differ between IT companies in Brisbane, such as RG Tech, that keep themselves updated with the latest technology and those big corporations in Melbourne or Sydney that aren’t in the business of developing or marketing IT products and services.
Sources of Market Research Data:
Trade Publication: Security Trends (January 2011), published by the Enterprise Security Office of the Department of Administrative Services, State of Oregon; accessed on July 31, 2012 at http://cms.oregon.gov/DAS/CIO/ESO/pub/trends/trends_2011_01.pdf
Press Release: “Gartner Identifies Top Vertical Industry Predictions for IT Organizations for 2012 and Beyond” (January 4, 2012), accessed on August 1, 2012 at http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1887014
Press Release: IBISWorld Australia, “Industries to Fly and Fall in 2012,” published on January 4, 2012; accessed on August 1, 2012 at http://www.ibisworld.com.au/about/media/pressrelease/release.aspx?id=278
Hi, my name is Richard, but you can call me Ric. I've been a web writer since 2006 when I began working for clients in different industries, ranging from beauty and skincare, internal health problems, animal nutrition, and dieting. I've also written articles and eBooks on insurance, real estate, business and management, and personal finance.
