A strong rebound of renewable installations, a continued surge in green hydrogen growth and a focus on recycling will be among the key themes in the Clean Technology space this year, according to a new report on the Top Cleantech Trends to watch in 2021 by IHS Markit (NYSE: INFO), a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions

CFOs will fail to realize the full value of new technology investments unless their staff are equipped with five key digital competencies which are most crucial for delivering high business impact, according to Gartner, Inc.

5G is a composition of several network layers that leverage technology with varied maturity levels, such as Open RAN, network slicing, cloud infrastructure (private, public, and hybrid), and cloud-edges. With respect to cloud-edges, the broader Artificial Intelligence (AI) industry is witnessing a migration of AI to the edge.

The overall artificial intelligence software market will grow to $37 billion by 2025, but will fall below current investor projections of $150 to $200 billion for the same time period. Within the AI software market, AI application growth will be constrained by technology vendors embedding AI functionality into existing software products more frequently.

Mapping the new customer experience to understand how buyers are using digital and human channels, often simultaneously, will unlock growth for B2B sales organizations in the next three years. According to Gartner, the key to accelerating that growth is a low-effort, digital buying experience that boosts customer confidence.

Market growth rates show the response to major adjustments in business, educational, and societal activities caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the role IT infrastructure plays in these adjustments. Across the world, there were massive shifts to online tools in all aspects of human life.

From 2019 to 2020, worldwide e-commerce revenues remarkably rose more than 20% year over year, forcing vehicle, robotic, and software automation to profoundly alter the supply chain landscape in a matter of months according to ABI Research, a global tech market advisory firm.

In the near future, manufacturing companies will work together in hyper-connected value networks in which data-and-analytics applications drive productivity, new customer experiences, and societal and environmental impact.

According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, the average smartphone replacement cycle in Western Europe will shorten from 40 months in 2020 to 33 months by 2025. Improving economic conditions after the Covid pandemic and cheaper 5G models will encourage European consumers to upgrade their old smartphones more often.

While the COVID-19 pandemic crippled some markets, it also presented notable opportunities to others. Similar to the uptick products like Zoom and Microsoft Teams have seen, Augmented Reality (AR) has been forced into opportunity around remote worker enablement, compounding the already strong growth seen in the enterprise thanks to high-value use cases like remote assistance, training, and workflow instruction.

Initially service organizations focused on websites for desktop users, shifting to mobile app experiences with the proliferation of smartphones and tablets. Despite significant investment and promotion, most have failed to gain strong customer adoption of their service apps and will increasingly retire mobile app experiences in favor of messaging.

The 5G ecosystem is reaching a level of technology maturity much more rapidly than earlier generations, enabling operators to develop network deployment and go to market strategies with mass-market appeal and scalable across evolving B2C, B2B and B2B2X business models.

In a new report on the leading companies in emerging markets, BCG identifies 100 tech challengers that have grown into powerful forces in technology and other industries. Their impact is being felt in their home markets, regionally, and internationally - with many showing increases in both number of customers and frequency of usage.

“Car drivers can currently make in-vehicle payments by using applications such as Alexa, Xevo Market or the Banma platform to purchase fuel, food, or pay for parking,” said Mike Ramsey, research vice president at Gartner. “The types of services available will continue to increase as automakers, merchant brands and services, and software suppliers’ partnerships proliferate.”

More than seven months into the novel coronavirus pandemic, a disturbingly large number of US companies are at risk, according to new research from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) confirming that economic distress is deeply entrenched and shows no sign of letting up.

While it seems that employees are successfully working outside their traditional offices, employers have new questions about how to measure productivity in a virtual world. Companies are working on new measures to avoid exposing employees to undue health risks through widespread return-to-office initiatives ahead of available vaccines.

2021 will kickstart a decade of growing Electric Vehicle (EV) adoption, which will see EV sales move from a rounding error of total new vehicle shipments to over a quarter of new vehicles shipping in 2030, states global tech market advisory firm ABI Research.

Increased use of data protection as a service and economic constraints caused by the pandemic have affected the EMEA purpose-built backup appliance (PBBA) market, which declined 4.5% in value year on year to $310.9 million in the third quarter of 2020.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to shift the landscape for how global CIOs manage, collaborate and respond to their stakeholders, so too does the demand for strong leadership and core emotional dexterity competencies.

The holistic web protection market addresses organizations’ demand for consolidated, single-pane-of-glass solutions, which reduce the security gap of legacy products and provide simplified management capabilities.