By 2020, personal robots ranging between $1,500 and $4,500 could enter our lives, technologies such as 3D printing could likely generate revenue of $7.1 billion by 2020 and we will witness the emergence of new business models. Frost & Sullivan explores few radical future concepts in an exclusive analysis titled 'World's Top Global Mega Trends To 2025 and Implications to Business, Society and Cultures". The new report - that also includes the rise of wearable devices and virtual currencies - will be officially launched during Frost & Sullivan's Growth, Innovation and Leadership congress GIL 2014: Europe that will take place on Wednesday 14 May, in London.
In this latest analysis, Frost & Sullivan details 12 New Mega Trends that will drive growth and innovation in the world. "We at the Visionary Innovation team scout and track new Mega Trends that will transform the world as we know it", said Archana Amarnath, Programme Manager, Visionary Innovation Research Group. "We are not only seeing new trends such as wearable devices, 3D printing, and virtual currencies. Mature trends such as urbanization are rapidly evolving and changing patterns with the new world thereby creating new business models and value chain networks in the future."
One of the most interesting and important Mega Trends will be that of Connectivity and Convergence and especially the market opportunity it represents in creating a connected life. This "Internet of things" in our home, work, and city environments will bring huge opportunities for growth. Frost & Sullivan values this whole eco-system - comprising of connected home, work, and city solutions - to be worth $731.70 billion by 2020, with the connected city segment accounting for over 50 per cent of the revenue. This opportunity will usher new competition into the market offering immense opportunity to telecom, M2M and software vendors who will be experimenting with different types of New Business Models.
New Business Models, in fact, will emerge as an important Mega Trend defining ways for businesses to monetize new opportunities. Different types of business models can be witnessed among different stakeholder relationships - right from Business to Consumers (B2C) to Business to Business (B2B) to Government to Business (G2B). Some of these business models can be disruptive or transformative and can result in a potential collapse of firms in the industry. For example, 'Sharing' business models such as peer-to-peer money lending and car sharing have already lead to a transformation in the financial services and mobility industries. New digital media models like on-demand or streaming services such as Netflix or Roku are already being seen as a serious threat that could lead to the potential collapse of the traditional broadcasting industry.
