According to the 2021 Gartner, Inc. Hype Cycle for Digital Commerce, visual configuration, digital wallets, customer identity and access management (CIAM), and virtual customer assistants (VCAs) will have a significant impact on digital commerce over the next two years as mainstream adoption of these technologies increases.
“Digital commerce is a fast-changing market where competitive pressures and the need to innovate means new technologies emerge frequently,” said Sandy Shen, research vice president at Gartner.
Further said, “Application leaders can use the hype cycle to differentiate between technologies that are fads that will disappear over time, and those that are expected to have a significant business impact. By understanding the capabilities and challenges of each technology, they can make informed decisions regarding resources at hand.”
In 2021, the Hype Cycle’s slope of enlightenment was reached by CIAM, digital wallets, visual configuration, and VCAs (see Figure 1). Examples of how technology might aid the organisation begin to crystallise and become more broadly understood during this phase.
Figure 1. Hype Cycle for Digital Commerce, 2021
Source: Gartner (October 2021)
In 2021, the Hype Cycle’s slope of enlightenment was reached by CIAM, digital wallets, visual configuration, and VCAs (see Figure 1). Examples of how technology might aid the organisation begin to crystallise and become more broadly understood during this phase.
“CIAM also leads to improved user experience (UX) within B2C and B2B commerce, gig economy and government to citizen (G2C) interactions,” said Shen. “By the end of 2021, 86% of organizations will compete based on UX. In industries with very little competitive differentiation between products and services, the online experience becomes the differentiation.”
Users can utilise digital wallets to create credentials that allow them to conduct remote or face-to-face transactions using linked devices. This technology has been successfully shown across areas such as parking, transit, retail, and digital commerce, and has demonstrated extensive benefits such as reduced consumer effort and greater revenues. Lack of support for digital wallets could hurt conversion rates and put you at a competitive disadvantage.
A virtual customer assistant (VCA) is a programme that interacts with, gives information to, and/or acts on behalf of a company’s customers. The pandemic of COVID-19 has hastened VCA acceptance, pushing some use cases into mainstream adoption, but new use cases in healthcare and brand marketing are also emerging.
VCAs can be utilised to provide proactive counsel and engagement to create loyalty and customer satisfaction because they are now the first point of contact for various consumer encounters via digital engagement channels.
Visual configuration allows salespeople and consumers to view a visual version of the products they wish to order, complete with the options and features they want. It is more applicable for B2B transactions, as it can allow clients to purchase sophisticated manufactured goods via digital commerce without having to undergo any training. Those who are among the first in their industry to adopt it get a significant competitive edge and cost savings.
Recent technological advancements, such as increased photorealism, have accelerated the rise and adoption of visual configuration among digital commerce companies.
The “Hype Cycle for Digital Commerce, 2021” is one of more than 90 Gartner Hype Cycles that cover a variety of innovations, technologies, business trends, and important vertical industries. The Gartner Special Report “2021 Hype Cycles: Innovating Delivery Through Trust, Growth, and Change” includes this study. The Gartner Hype Cycles for 2021 assist organisations in making innovation a core skill and in shaping and prioritising their innovation delivery methodology.
During Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2021, the world’s most important conferences for CIOs and other IT leaders, more analysis on current and future trends in digital commerce will be provided. Follow the conference’s news and updates.Follow news and updates from the conferences on Twitter using #GartnerSYM.
