We can only be cautiously optimistic about global economic growth in 2012, as the U.S. continues its slow recovery, the EU countries battle to solve their burgeoning debt crisis, and growth cools off in the BRIC countries. The coming year will be challenging but it also could be a year of innovation for shippers and logistics service providers as mobile devices and social networks provide organizations with real-time visibility to operations and market trends and cloud computing radically changes the lead time and cost for computing resources.
It is clear that we have entered an era of unprecedented levels of real time visibility to new data. Mobility will take center stage in corporations as executives access daily reports on smartphones as RFID tags and sensors track the movement of products and assets, drivers work with electronic onboard recorders and a mobile work force accesses more enterprise applications, through smartphones, tablets, and laptops.
They are all sending, receiving and processing huge amounts of new data that have never been part of our business world, and they’re now using it wherever they need it, whenever they want it.
This enormous amount of new data leads directly to our next major trend.
We have all been hearing about it, but 2012 will see the true emergence of what I call “Big Data.” The challenges to taking advantage of Big Data are around volume, velocity and variety.
Volume is data coming from the massive set of new sensors and devices (including the mobile devices). Velocity is the real-time nature of the data coming in, and the critical need to analyze it in near real time. Variety is the structured and unstructured nature of the data coming in. The real benefit is in the insights corporations can glean and the decision making it enables across all levels of the enterprise as employees and executives, run and manage daily operations.
Corporations that invest in the information technology platform and tools to process and analyze Big Data will have a strategic advantage in 2012.