Emerging Technologies
in Quote to CashHow seven emerging technologies are impacting Quote to Cash
The ATG Monetization Ecosystem™ has been updated with analysis on how customers will manage their customers and revenue as monetization processes and the 18 core domains are impacted by seven emerging technologies in Q2C. It is a humbly submitted, directionally correct framework to debate and discuss the future interaction of technologies and monetization processes with our key vendors, partners and customers.
We posit that these technologies will highly impact Quote to Cash processes by freeing critical business resources like human hours and human thought, enabling not just optimization, but innovation across the Monetization Ecosystem.
Artificial intelligence technologies, including machine learning, benefit monetization processes through improved speed and accuracy. Augmented and virtual reality offer varying benefits to companies’ requiring immersive experiences in a “fake” world versus amplified experiences in the “real” world and their usefulness should be evaluated accordingly.
5G is foundational to each emerging technology’s success in a global marketplace as many of the enterprise and consumer benefits we hope to reap are only possible on a 5G network. The Internet of Things will create an unmanageable quantity of data points enterprises will want to use – but how? Blockchain will provide a powerful and secure mechanism for recording transactions – but only for the companies that really need it.
This is a recurring theme to our humble guidance – learn to balance being an evangelist and a curmudgeon. Get too excited, and you risk implementing the cool new toy you didn’t need. Remain too bearish, and you’ll miss an opportunity to innovate. The key is staying in tune with the problem technology is intended to solve, and thinking critically about your business' short-, medium-, and long-term strategic goals.
Artificial Intelligence Technologies
The impact of Artificial Intelligence technologies, including Machine Learning, on the Monetization Ecosystem is significant by providing speed and accuracy for quote to cash processes, and time back for our clients’ employees to address higher-value tasks.
By optimizing processes like dynamic pricing, sales reps are left to focus on the customers’ needs first, and making margins second (if at all!). These leaves the time and mindshare necessary for companies’ employees to do what they do best. Sales strategies thrive when reps are unburdened from administrative tasks and enabled by sales tools.
Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality
A blank canvas for customer experience and monetization, virtual reality and augmented reality technologies are staged to revolutionize how customers generate revenue.
AR and VR provide opportunities to innovate in physical product / space design, user engagement design, and visual design to improve monetization processes.
Augmented Reality (AR) is an enhanced version of reality created by the use of technology to overlay digital information on an image of something being viewed through a device (such as a smartphone camera).
Virtual Reality (VR) is an artificial environment which is experienced through sensory stimuli (such as sights and sounds) provided by a computer and in which one's actions partially determine what happens in the environment.
5G
5G is the 5th generation mobile network. It will take a much larger role than previous generations. 5G will elevate the mobile network to not only interconnect people, but also interconnect and control machines, objects, and devices. It will deliver new levels of performance and efficiency that will empower new user experiences and connect new industries. 5G will deliver multi-Gbps peak rates, ultra-low latency, massive capacity, and more uniform user experience.
5G, which is shorthand for fifth-generation cellular wireless network, is a cloud-based network that connects people on mobile devices to the internet faster than previous networks. While 4G requires cables and infrastructure to run smoothly in a neighborhood, 5G's cellular towers amplify cloud-based signals which eliminate many cable-related needs.
5G will be fast enough to replace home internet, threatening traditional providers with lines in the ground. It will ultimately facilitate increased connectivity cross the world, the monetization of physical space through AR / VR and IoT, etc.
5G enables, but also constrains, Over-The-Top (OTT) services and use cases, while providing low latency, lower device cost, and TONS of devices which makes it the “volume play.”
Internet of Things
Put simply, the Internet of Things (IoT) is the networking capability that allows information to be sent to and received from objects and devices (such as fixtures and kitchen appliances) using the Internet. Or, you may prefer Salesforce's perspective on IoT: “it makes dumb things smart.”
In 2019 Gartner evaluated IoT as being on the whole between 5 and 10 years away from the Plateau of Productivity, where mainstream adoption occurs as real-world benefits are demonstrated and accepted, and risk is lowered. This is where the “Hockey stick” occurs that we talk about, but we aren’t quite there yet. A few notable data points on this map are IoT business solutions and platforms.
Blockchain
Blockchain is a digital database containing information (such as records of financial transactions) that can be simultaneously used and shared within a large decentralized, publicly accessible network.
This definition, while accurate, is still tough to conceptualize. Another way to think about this is as a distributed public ledger that tracks transactions.
Think about how money is transferred today. Other than simple cash transactions, most other transactions are just updates to ledgers that are stored in databases. When you swipe a debit card at a market, for example, your bank doesn’t get cash out of a vault and send it to the market owner. Instead, there is an update to the database at the bank, and another update to a database at the market’s bank. This is a simplistic description of course, but it illustrates the point that most of these transactions are data transactions, and not physical transactions.
