What fantastic times we live in. Especially for someone like me, who surely has a more than average interest in technology. Things have moved at lightning speed over the past few decades. Not so long ago we were still using cassette tapes and floppy disks, looking up phone numbers in a phone book and having a road map in the car. Only in 2010 did the tablet come on the market; a survey showed that in 2015, over 60% of families already have a tablet. Even 1 in 5 families has two or more tablets. Things are moving fast, very fast.
Robotics
Many people think that the most important progress is behind us. I disagree. I think future developments will far surpass past evolution. Just think about self-driving cars, three-dimensional printing technologies and especially robotics. Not robotics tucked away somewhere in factories for relatively simple and monotonous production processes, as at Nedcar in Born, but rather very present in our daily lives. For example, the Zora robot is already deployed in various residential care centers and hospitals. There it provides only relatively simple services, such as help with rehabilitation. Honda, with its robot "Asimo," has reached the point where it is employed at several offices in Japan. There, Asimo receives guests, escorts them to the waiting room and fetches a cup of coffee or tea as required. Even more interesting is Boston Dynamics' technology. This robot does not look like a robot like a child draws, it looks much more like an animal. What makes this robot special are its physical capabilities. It can propel itself over almost any terrain, can overcome obstacles and can even take a big hit from the side. Take a look at YouTube and search for "Zora robot," "Honda Asimo," "Boston Dynamics robot" and "Skynet drones work together. You will be amazed. Especially when you consider that this technology will soon come together and become suitable for everyday use.
An important basis for these developments is the strong increase in computing power (processing power). This allows large amounts of data to be processed significantly faster. Consider that a Playstation 4 has more processing power than a military supercomputer of 15 years ago. Processing power combined with smart software will bring us a lot of progress in the coming years. Think about predictive analytics and the possibilities of "learning algorithms. The latter is demonstrated, for example, with George Hotz's self-driving car. This American developed a self-driving car for a few thousand dollars. Not by typing millions of lines of code but by using clever "learning algorithms. The ability to properly process data is crucial in all these examples.
Fully digital
We also see this development in mainstream business processes. Computing power, good data and smart software provide new opportunities for innovation. Carrying out processes completely digitally, i.e. without paper, is often a first step. Especially in the Business-to-Consumer market, you see that more and more are handled completely digitally. Think of your bank, insurance company and other traditionally strongly document-driven organizations. Many of these are currently making the move to fully digital.
In the world of purchase-to-pay, too, the move to fully digital will take place in the near future, more than before. Companies that opt for automated processes will opt for digital invoices. I do not mean PDF invoices here, but e-invoices consisting of structured data. It is, of course, idiotic that the sender prints an invoice and the receiver tries to turn it back into data. In fact, an invoice is nothing but a transaction between two organizations/systems. After a long time, the e-invoice will now really start to take off. Basware already showed 48% growth in the e-transactions network last year. Its forecast for 2018 is growth to 250 million transactions. Providing services in this network, such as Financing Services and Dynamic Discounting will certainly contribute to the success of e-invoicing.
Innovation will not pass our profession by either. Fortunately, it won't!
Want to talk further about innovation in our profession? Then contact us.
Vincent Wouters
Director ICreative