More executives see mobile technology as the communications technology megatrend likely to deliver significant positive impact to their businesses in the next 5 years than business intelligence, cloud computing or even social media, as per the Digital Megatrends 2015 report by Oxford Economics. It isn’t surprising that mobile technology should thus capture the businesses’ imagination, given no other consumer technology has spread as fast or offers as diverse an array of services.
Mobile technology, especially smartphone and data services, will bridge the gaps in physical infrastructure. For example, with online marketplaces and digital payments,a smartphone will help businesses reach consumers in far-flung places, banks reach account-holders in places untouched by branch networks, and so on. In this backdrop, another finding of the report also helps explain why businesses are banking on mobile technology.
As per the report, the balance of the global GDP will shift towards the emerging economies by 2020, and these geographies are still quite far from full mobile penetration. Given physical infrastructure is expected to move at a slower pace than digital and mobile technology, mobiles will be the ideal vehicles to conduct business—which is why more than 60% of the respondents believe that mobile consumers will transform their business models in the next five years. The World Bank, too, acknowledges this transformative potential. According to the Bank, every 10 additional mobile phones per 100 people in a typical developing nation results in GDP growth of roughly 0.8% and 0.6% in a developed nation.
