Penki Kontinentai chairman of board Idrakas Dadasovas

Nowadays, forecasting that is not based on data is worthless. It is only when you collect information in real-time, structure and analyze it, can you make important decisions, form opinions, and make forecasts.   

The year 2013 will see several important trends in the IT market: active growth in the mobile application sector, an increase in the demand for information analysis and storage systems, and a need for people capable of deploying innovations audaciously and decisively.

The "clash of titans" will benefit clients

The year 2013 will be a critical year for many mobile device manufacturers. Lately, people have been talking increasingly often about the "explosive penetration of mobile applications."

According to a recent study conducted by IDC, a market analysis firm, by 2017 the world's mobile payment market will exceed USD 1 trillion. The largest share of the market will be taken by the so-called "mobile commerce", which includes both accessing digital media via cellphones and online shopping. Contactless transactions based on the NFC (Near Field Communication) technology will become the second largest category.

Let me explain: NFC is a wireless data transmission method that allows sending data over a distance of up to 10 cm. It works in a way similar to Bluetooth, but eliminates the need to spend a lot of time for identification when connecting to another device: the connection is established almost immediately (within tenths of a second). Experts believe that for NFC the key application domain will be contactless payments using cellphones. These devices can be easily turned into electronic wallets by adding a special chip and some software.

The global vendors of mobile devices and applications have already started a fierce struggle for leadership in this market. Defending their positions, they are always developing new solutions and regularly offer increasingly advanced and easy-to-use services.

For example, speaking about the field of telecommunications, Hybridcast is worth mentioning. This is an infrastructure system that is to become a commercial service in the future. It combines TV broadcasting with the Internet, enabling many new TV-based services.

Skynet, a smart IPTV service, is another example. Skynet offers its viewers an extensive set of interactive functions. Now, after connecting to Facebook, the social network, not only can you use your TV screen to view your own or other people's profiles and photos, but also to write on the "wall", to add comments, and to mark the photos and posts that you find interesting.

Eventually, consumers will only benefit from the war waged by the big players. I am sure that the mobile application market will continue to grow, becoming more popular both with the social and corporate sectors.

Information storage systems: a universal solution

Mobile devices are already being used at the world's leading corporations for managing information streams. With such streams continuously growing in size and number, it has become impossible for an organization to perform its main functions and to make decisions without storing, systematizing, and analyzing information. Where to store such a huge amount of data is an increasingly frequent issue.

Such models as Big Data are becoming increasingly popular. Big Data is a new frontier for innovation, competition, and performance.

I believe that now (and even more so in the future) it is data warehouses that will help cope with the problem of huge amounts of data (including mobile applications and such tools as Dashboard). By using data warehouses, you can make any kind of unstructured information (both conventional and that in the "cloud") transparent and available to your clients. Data warehouses can be successfully applied not only in the banking sector, but also in such areas as medicine, the energy sector, education, etc.

Next year many people will start using technologies that allow you to process large amounts of data. The "big data" market will become larger, continuing to grow every year.

Structured information streams

Data lies at the heart of decision and policy making. The new data processing technologies (which, as the year 2012 has shown, are here to stay) will spread even further in 2013.

Today it is strategically important not only to accumulate information, but also to be able to systematize and process it. It is only this way that the obtained information turns into an effective tool for loss prevention and reduction, and, as a result, helps make forecasts and be ready for any future developments in the market.

Data transfer rates are growing, the amounts of data created and received are increasing fast. As a result, while having access to huge amounts of their own data, companies may lack the tools needed to discover links between data elements and to make meaningful conclusions based on them. Add to this the fact that today data is updated more and more frequently, and you get a situation where traditional information analysis methods "loose the race" against the huge amounts of data that is constantly being updated. In an ever-changing environment, full of different rates and formats, the incoming information streams must be analyzed in real time. It is in this field that we expect a great breakthrough. And this concerns any business area.

You can successfully and effectively forecast everything: your own capabilities and the capabilities of your team in the market or the competitiveness of your goods and services. The forecasting tools from the .iQ family that we use are yet another step towards the optimization and effective management of resources. In this case, we are guided by not just social forecasts, but science- and technology-based models. Based on them, we create modeling tools that help monitor, analyze, and plan business processes.

Information security is a key factor for development

Working with large amount of data in various areas requires advanced information security.

Of course, first and foremost, we are talking about protection against malicious activity, access control, and data encryption. The database of any company may contain information that is not intended for dissemination. This includes personal employee information, information about the company's profits, account numbers, etc. Moreover, the database may contain confidential data that constitutes the company's commercial secrets. And let's not forget about such a widespread phenomenon as computer piracy, whereby intellectual property rights are violated, for example, for a software product or Internet content (movies, music, etc.).

In modern circumstances, each company seeks, as a rule, to protect both the personal data of its employees and its internal corporate data.

I would like to mention ATMeye.iQ as an example. This is an intellectual solution developed by our company and intended for video surveillance and customer conflict resolution. This solution marks an absolutely new approach to device security, and it allows you to reduce security costs and helps reduce the risk of fraud and vandalism for your devices.

Display Card from MasterCard, an interactive payment card, is another example. The card will be available as early as the beginning of next year. It is equipped with a built-in sensor keyboard and a miniature LCD display. This will allow cardholders to enter one-time passwords themselves when paying for goods or services. Since Display Card has the dimensions of a conventional payment card, it can be used in ATMs and when paying for goods at cash desks.

According to the developers, Display Card may well cause a revolution in banking, because you do not have to deploy complex security systems when using this card.

Real life requires decisiveness

People who make decisions are characterized by their decisiveness in action. They must possess risk management skills and be able to predict short- and long-term changes, both in their own lives, in their business areas, in the service sector, and in the goods sector.

For this kind of people, forecasting is an integral part of life. They know that, to minimize the error, they must collect new data on a daily basis. I am pretty sure that, in a highly competitive environment, it is only audacious and decisive people who achieve results.

In general, I would make a positive forecast for the year 2013: the demand for data management technologies will grow even higher, as will the use of mobile applications, in all business areas, and the use of electronic signatures will spread further. Which personal quality will dominate in 2013? Decisiveness, in my opinion.