More 2023 Tech and Industry Predictions from Teradata Experts

From advances in AI/ML tied to digital twins & simulations to the expansion of satellite/cellular partnerships to expand coverage to remote or under-served areas, our tech & industry experts weigh in on what they think are the game-changing predictions for 2023.

Technology & Business
Dan Spurling, SVP, Product Engineering 

Trusted Social Connectedness: While Twitter is imploding, and social media is generally seen as a negative, I believe that humans still crave connectedness in this space – especially when it is intentionally curated to ensure dependance – but that we will require both 1) greater transparency into who is stating the information that we consume, while 2) ensuring some form of security and privacy only with those whom we select (obvious potential conflict)

Digital Twins: I believe there will be advances in the ML/AI evolution tied to digital twins or simulations; moving beyond just sensors that predict machine failure or buying propensities, and moving into predictions of economic markets, food production, population health, etc.

Data Reduction: There is an exponentially increasing amount of data, but I believe we will see rise of solutions that deduce the meaningful bits of data from the overall mass of data collected, or even reduce the footprint of data using new technologies beyond current classic data storage techniques

Personal Security: (Unfortunately) Driven by greater government destabilization and associated erosion of trust in government, I believe we will see increasing tech advances in the areas of personnel security and security monitoring

Risk Aversion: I predict that there will be reduced willingness to take large risks or make investments into risky ideas, thereby increasing the success of entrenched incumbents and decreasing the broad proliferation of new tech adoption across the large enterprises, resulting in reduced startup growth and flat to growing revenue for large software or service providers.

Michael Hay, VP, Product Management

Consolidation, Concurrency and Currency: With the looming recession, there is a natural tendency to figure out how to do more with less.  How to focus on profit over growth. As a result, customers will shrink their footprints and seek to do the same or more work. This speaks to deploying Data and Analytics systems that can incrementally scale, but return a benefit significantly larger than a nominal incremental investment.  Another way to look at this is platforms that have the virtues of being cheaper to perform queries, experiment, and avoid the data copy tax will win.

More, not less, Cloud providers: 
Two global patterns, increased protectionism and a strong shift towards profitability to weather the looming recession, point to the genesis of more, not less, cloud providers. These new providers can be one of:
•    General providers focused on meeting country or region-specific protectionist policies and avoiding laws and regulations with global reach, like the USA Cloud Act. 
•    Cloud provider plays that emphasize a special focus on unique industry requirements.  For example, Energy or Healthcare companies could shift their business towards providing cloud and analytics services with acute emphasis on their respective industries and regulatory regimes.
•    SaaS companies who have reached sufficient scale and must become profitable to survive.

These providers will be looking for software and services that enable them to be successful as cloud providers, and companies who are capable of supplying them, will win.

Retail
Mike Skypala, Industry Lead, EMEA

Hybrid is here to stay: People are now using both online and offline formats to shop, with in-store experiences seen as a chance to touch, feel and see the products. Many retailers are following IKEA’s lead by showing consumers what a full “at-home room” could look like in their retail spaces, making it a more visually led interaction. This blended approach to shopping is likely to stick around, which adds a certain element of complexity for retailers looking to track and interact with customers on their purchase journey and understanding the profitability of each, with analytics helping to comprehend these shifts and changes in behaviour. 

Cost conscious shopping will intensify in 2023: As the cost-of-living crisis continues, there will be a sustained focus on value and cost-effective shopping as we head into a New Year. With the launch of an “Essentials” range in almost every supermarket speaking to this ongoing focus, consumer spending on non-essential goods, including fashion, homeware and beauty is likely to also continue to fall.  As a result, retailers should ensure a steady flow of canned foods and cupboard essentials as these remain the priority items for many. 

Sustainability remains a priority: Though sustainability has been at the forefront of consumer minds for years now, we’ve yet to see it truly become a systemic part of a retailer’s business and baked into every decision made; instead, it is often a siloed group of ad-hoc initiatives. By collecting and examining data on a range of sustainability-related issues — from energy use and carbon emissions to mobile consumption habits — companies can generate insights that would drive their sustainability initiatives and inform their long-term strategy moving forward. It’s likely that some form of legislative policy will come in either within this coming year or the next, meaning retailers will have to reach a certain level of sustainable practice in order to keep trading.

Convenience shopping is set to get more convenient: It’s likely that automatic, “scan as you go” and self-check-out options will continue to increase around the country as consumers continue to demand more convenient, faster and streamlined shopping experiences. There’s an opportunity for retailers to expand on personalisation elements in real time, based on actions as consumers walk round the shop, moving away from static data and towards contextual data. Additionally, the U.S. is leading the way with computer vision and smart trollies in particular, which pick up both what is being put in a shopper’s trolley, as well as what needs replenishing on the shelves.

Dave Spear & David King, Senior Industry Consultants for the Retail, CPG & Hospitality Industries at Teradata

Revenge of the CEO: Unlimited free returns? 15-minute delivery? Metaverse? Expect intense scrutiny from Finance on the ROI and NPV of such investments, with a tougher hurdle due to rising interest rates. Expect “sure” cost reduction proposals to win over “wishful” growth projects as investors crave cashflow and profitability.

Healthy Dose of Retail: Health retailing continues to blur the line between traditional healthcare providers and general retailers. We’ll see more small and large acquisitions by companies like Amazon, Walmart, Target, CVS and Walgreens, all trying to deliver new health services at affordable prices.

QR Beyond James Bond: QR-codes make a giant leap forward in retail. These square codes will unlock huge amounts of data for consumers to engage with and fuel new innovation in supply chain analytics.

Techies More Approachable: Silicon Valley layoffs and tougher work policies provide a window for traditionally less sexy retail tech teams to attract strong talent on the rebound.

Telco
Nadine Manjaro, Director, Industry Consultant in Telecommunications and IoT

Fixed Wireless Access: In 2023 US operators will deploy more Fixed Wireless Access solutions. They will focus on streamlining offers to areas where they have excess network capacity to prevent negative impacts to mobile voice and data services.  T-Mobile will continue the lead in the US with over 1.5 million FWA customers through September 2022, followed by Verizon with 1 million FWA customers. Both companies have publicly shared FWA subscribers’ projections.  Verizon’s plans to reach 4 to 5 million subscribers by 2025 and T-Mobile’s plans to reach 7 or 8 million within a similar period.

Private 5G: There will also be an expansion of Private 5G services in manufacturing and retail enterprises to optimize manufacturing processes and retail experiences.  Large enterprises are seeking end-to-end visibility throughout the manufacturing process as well as the supply chain process. Private 5G will enable more consistent coverage and support more advanced capabilities such as machine vision analytics which enables manufacturers to spot defects earlier and take corrective actions before the produce reached finished goods status.

Cellular/Satellite Partnerships: Expansion of cellular/satellite partnerships to extend coverage to remote and underserved areas. SpaceX and T-Mobile are teaming up to deploy cellular systems on low orbit satellites, this will fill in some coverage gaps in remote areas along some less traveled roads, national parks, and deserts.

Telcos in the cloud: Many Telcos will continue migrating their data to the cloud as a means of reducing costs and enabling wider use of data insights for decision making throughout the different departments. They will encounter cost overruns since some of the providers selected demonstrated value with small, limited workloads. As they move to scale the workloads, they will encounter migration issues, cost over-runs and performance limitations.

Security: Security management will continue to be a major concern in terms of who has access to their environment. This will delay the movement of some workloads to the cloud. The next generation data architecture will be multi-cloud, hybrid with on-prem, multi-vendor ecosystem which enables internal enterprise data marketplaces.

ARPU erosion: In the US, mobile data, and voice ARPU will decrease as operators compete to win subscribers in an oversubscribed market. Customers are more cost conscious because of inflationary pressures and will be more likely to switch providers based on free device offers and lower service charges. This will drive operators to lower the cost of mobile services which will erode ARPU. 

C-band deployments: Verizon and AT&T will continue to expand C-band deployments to cover a larger segment of the US population and to gain ground on T-Mobile who has the best spectrum assets in the low and mid bands. They will also need C-band to expand Fixed Wireless Access services with higher data rates than lower band spectrum.

Consumers win: Consumers will benefit with lower prices and better service. Those who are in remote areas with limited access to broadband will have more options with FWA and satellite to cellular partnerships such as the announced partnership with T-Mobile and SpaceX Starlink satellites. As more devices with both satellite and cellular capabilities proliferate, users can access service from anywhere on earth or even at sea. In addition, businesses will be able to track shipments across the entire route without coverage gaps. Initial coverage with start with test and multi-media but will later expand to voice and data coverage.

Healthcare
John Matthews, Managing Director Healthcare & Life Sciences

Shifts to digital: We will continue to see more shifts to digital settings across industries, but in particular for healthcare as virtual visits and digital consults have made a huge difference in a supply constrained regulated environment.  Who wants to actually drive to the doctor when one can video chat just as effectively for many needs?

The politics of healthcare: The politics of healthcare remains so we’ll continue to see big fights over government spending in Medicare and Medicaid, as well as increasing debate over drug pricing.  This fight, the lobbying dollars, the election season megaphones will simply not go away as entrenched interests, change agents, and economic realities contend in the public square.

FinTech
Simon Axon, Industry Consulting Director, EMEA

ESG will continue to define banking in 2023: Governments and world leaders are under increasing pressure to implement stronger regulation and legislation that will demonstrate real change and commitment. Ultimately, governments see financial services as a vehicle to implement net zero policies, as well as to accelerate the path to net zero. We will see the cost of money becoming much higher for carbon damaging activity in the coming year, with more favourable rates provided to those implementing sustainable activities. To do so, banks will need granular information on a host of factors that determine the level of environmental impacts over time and risk across all sectors and all kinds of assets and investments.

Disruption as the "New Normal": The repeated disruptions felt as a result of COVID-19, Brexit, war and political turmoil have, unsurprisingly, had a detrimental impact on the financial industry – as we’re seeing now with the ongoing rise of inflation and the increased cost of living. While ad-hoc crises are nothing new, these back-to-back and sometimes simultaneous crises is not something the industry has ever had to contend with. In 2023, the banking industry will need to further adapt as the definition of who is categorised as a ‘vulnerable’ customer changes. Banks will need smarter analytics in order to identify these vulnerable customers, with new factors calculating these scores, centered around reliability of income, as opposed to income vs. expenditure. The data needed to understand your customer base, therefore, will need to be more nuanced than it previously was.