The future of connectivity
According to a global report, the fastest growing market is the “Digital market” where over a third of the world population are connected to the internet and contributed to the “Digital economy”. Today young people (Under the age of 30s) are driving the growth of online business everywhere. A young woman told the newspapers: “We do not go shopping anymore as everything we want is online. Better than that, we can buy anything from anywhere at lower prices than local stores.” It is predicted that in the next 10 years, most physical stores will close and online stores will thrive as online business is the way of the future.
Today telecommunication companies are focusing on reducing the cost of access to get more customers. As the cost of smartphone is falling rapidly, more people are using it to access the internet to watch videos, buying on line, work online, and send text messages. Few people are using smartphone to talk as text messages are faster, better and shorter. That is why countries like India, China, and Brazil that have large population also have the fastest growing digital economies. This situation is possible because the exploding of online businesses, the lower cost of mobile devices, and the faster access to the internet. A young man explains: “With online businesses, we can compare prices and buy almost anything. Sometime it is difficult to get things in my country but I can buy them online as they will ship them to my address. Few years ago, it is difficult to get an iPhone in China but I can buy it from Amazon and they send it to me. Being the first person to have the latest model of iPhone and iPad is “cool.” And online business is the way we buy thing today.”
The online trends and the easy access to internet via mobile devices have created a significant increase in online businesses and opening new opportunities for many people. Veronica Chen explains: “I design and create women’s purses using silk which is different from other purses made by leather or plastic. I have a small shop in Hong Kong but since I start an online business, my sale increased ten times. Last year I made more than two million dollars. Online business is the best thing for a small company like mine.” A customer agreed: “We do not have to travel or go to another country to buy some specialties. Whatever we want, we can buy from online stores.” The global e-commerce currently estimated at $1.5 trillion in revenues but will grow to $4 trillion dollars next year as more companies are opening online business. With over 1 billion online buyers, Internet is enabling faster adoption of e-commerce market all over the world. Today customers can buy almost anything from anywhere over the internet and mobile payments is making online purchase activities much easier. Understand this fast growing trend; banking, retailing and traveling industry have switched to mobile quickly. Even education institutions are also quickly switched to create online classes where students can access via their tablets and smartphones.
A Wall Street investment analyst predicted: “In the next ten years, online education will replace many education institutions; online business will destroy most physical stores; and everything to do with government will be done via the internet because e-government is faster, more efficient, more convenience and less bureaucracy. More jobs will be created in technology areas but people who work in government offices, teachers, and small retailers will have difficult time to keep their jobs. Technology will disrupt many existing jobs. Unless people recognize this trend and adapt to changes to survive, many will be left behind. The same also happen to many financial investments as no one will invest in companies that do physical retail stores anymore. More investment money will be reallocated to telecommunication companies who control the internet access and online businesses. The trend is clear that technology will dominate everything.”
With the emerging of The Internet of Things where millions of devices will be connected to deliver and share information, more businesses will switch to mobility and new business opportunities in this area will exploded. Today people already have multiple connecting devices such as laptops, smartphones, iPads and tablets but soon they will have more connected devices in smart-home, smart-cars, smart appliances, and many more. All of these will open a huge demand for more information technology graduates in Computer Science, Software Engineering, and Information System Management and make the current shortage of skilled workers more severe.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
