3 Industries that are at the cusp of Technology enabled Disruption (Part I)

Technology innovations are highly transformative – taking a look at the industrial revolution to the widespread usage of electricity to modern day cyber age, the impact is clear. However, over the last decade the transformation has been exponential with a speed and scale absent before. Here’s a sneak peek into 3 industries that in my opinion is near the tipping point.

• Financial Services – You may think that with powerhouse institutions like global banks and venture capital – the industry has significant disruption entry barriers. Well changes might be easier than expected. Bitcoin is already disrupting payment gateways and retailers are supporting it. Crowdfunding and Peer-to-Peer finance networks have started providing capital and cutting into venture capital space. With transactions becoming card less in near future – mobile financial services growing rapidly, the physical infrastructure intensiveness of the current financial institutions will lose relevance.

Additionally, as the intra-financial institutions network becomes more seamless and global, customer credit history would be available and cross-border information linkage will boom. Capital markets worldwide are already linked but with increasing emergence of High Volume Trade algorithms market mechanics will rapidly alter in the coming decade. Lastly, with increasing program driven financial derivatives we will experience highly complex trades which would increase the markets vulnerability to shocks and if not regulated properly may create potential crisis.

• Health Care – Since the advent of bio-technology health innovations have come into the forefront – not only in real life but in the fictitious world of movies and books alike. Apple has announced Healthkit – that stores information from wearable devices (like blood pressure, oxygenation, heart rhythms) and utilizes for treatment. Just think soon we will be monitored 24/7 willingly and not a single piece of our life history would be lost. Samsung also plans to invest heavily in the health space. Future is near where AI based physicians will become our primary point of contact for everyday health care (remember Baymax from Big Hero 6 – the idea doesn’t seem so badJ).

On more advanced med analytics for fields such as oncology – human genome sequencing is complex and time consuming. However over the coming 15 years with express increase in computational power and drop in prices – we will be able to have individual genome data decoded. This combined with all the available data from our everyday wearable sensors will mean that you can actually predict illness and take counteractive measures beforehand. And this is just the beginning just like diagnostics nowadays are done by sophisticated machines – in future say hello to your robotic surgeons (Sci Fi? – just wait for a couple of decades).

• Communication – This may seem like an odd choice – I mean communication industry is already one of the most technology enabled sectors that was actually a disruption to begin with. What more can change here? Well the recent debates of net neutrality and internet.org from Facebook is just the beginning. The trend – landlines got replaced by mobile which is getting substituted with data. To relate simply for long distance or conference calls we never do voice calls anymore but instead opt for Skype, Hangout, Viber and now WhatsApp. With Wi-Fi becoming widespread and smartphone prices coming down rapidly (already at $ 50) the telcos would face difficult choices about investing in future (data business) versus protecting their legacy (voice call business).

Well this were the 3 industries for now – the next edition will deal with Energy, Manufacturing and Virtual Societies (Dystopia alert). And disruptions will come out and wipe out trillion dollar industries and create new ones (remember Kodak?). The solace is the future is exciting.