We analyze the five major transforming forces (user experience, technology – internet, automation of the economy, globalization, protectionism, and social change) that are defining the evolution and changes of national and international markets, giving rise to new profitable and booming businesses. We highlight bitcoin fever and security systems such as blockchain. In addition, as every year the smartphone continues to be the King.

It is up to you to assess if you are faced with the opportunity to launch a new business or to what extent these trends affect you in your current activity and how you should react.

For years I have been saying it, the world is changing very fast, more than ever in history, so much so that it is necessary to update frequently this article about business for the future. This year I have incorporated the latest trends that already emerged in 2017 and continue to do so in 2018 as augmented reality, whose market will obtain in 2018 1.2 trillion dollars, bitcoins and derived security systems or Edge Computing. The reign of smartphones, big data, marketing automation, applications to generate engagement, digital transformation, the collaborative economy, the sector or the publication of content on Facebook and Google endure.

Some trends are not circumscribed to a specific year but require time for their development and implementation. This is the case of the robotization or mechanization of the economy that some experts consider the main trend of the forthcoming fourth industrial revolution that is beginning to take shape.

The great change we are witnessing is the product of the joint action of five major transforming forces, which are the ones I analyze in this article:

• Customer engagement

• New technologies, especially in the field of telecommunications and the internet.

• Work automation

• The deglobalization of the economy.

• The social and cultural changes that are taking place in the societies of the SXXI.

Business with a future, how to adapt

Before entering into the analysis of these three great transformative forces, you must be clear that your chances of success as an entrepreneur will be much greater if, when assembling and/or managing your business, you combine the following three elements:

• Adaptation to current and future sociocultural and demographic changes, so that your company responds in the best possible way to the new needs caused by these changes.

• Incorporation into your activity of the possible uses of the internet, smartphones or other technologies, trying to provide new ways to respond to the needs of consumers in what is already known as “digital transformation” of companies and organizations. Or at least not staying behind regarding your competition.

• Possible agreements with suppliers or customers from other countries or well connected with other countries, so that you have a more global and competitive business.

Optimize the user experience in a digital market

The past, present (in 2018) and future trends must be understood in a fully digitized market context in which efforts for innovation in the user experience intensify; Innovations based on trends such as artificial intelligence, live messaging with chatbots, cloud or data analysis … that a few years ago were presented as a whole revolution and are now in the process of settlement and improvement.

Internet, Technology and Digital Transformation

The technological development and the generalization of the internet and especially of smartphones have changed the way of practicing almost all professional activities or personal life, directly affecting the consumption and expenditure patterns of companies and people all over the planet and contributing a huge improvement in information management processes. And creating, of course, excellent business opportunities with future, profitable and booming.

Given the pace of change, it is worth stopping to analyze this section in more detail, which, due to its breadth, we have divided into four areas: internet, telecommunications, electronic games, and other technologies.

INTERNET

In the history of humanity, the internet has represented in a few years an unprecedented cultural leap in the generation and access to information of all kinds thanks to its digitalization in multiple formats: photography, music, television, video, and documents.

A leap of a caliber much greater than the one that contributed the invention of the printing press and that has generated new forms of personal and labor relations and is causing the greatest cultural and lifestyle change in the history of mankind.

And we have only seen the beginning, the internet has only existed for a little more than twenty years, in an extended form for about fifteen, social networks barely since ten years ago, the smartphones generalized since five years ago …

The trends that in 2018 and in the next few years will mark the evolution of the internet and the appearance of new businesses with a future will be the same as those that have been playing the last year, namely, robotics and artificial intelligence:

DISPOSITIVE:

• Multi-device integration: each citizen, each family, has at their disposal a wide range of devices from which they browse and access the internet and their favorite pages and applications. The mobile is the king since it is with us at all times, the computer remains as a leader access in work environments. In domestic environments, Smart TV and video game consoles remain, but tablets lose strength until their sale in 2016 drops by six million with respect to 2015, and it is believed that the decreasing trend will continue in 2017. People connect from these different media depending on your profile, your preferences and the time of day. Therefore, offering automatically adapted versions of your website is no longer an option in 2018 but an obligation. The so-called ” responsive web ” must prioritize the mobile-first approach, that is, design thinking in the appearance on the mobile before on the web.

• Internet of things and “wearables” : Internet and connectivity transcend the computer and other mobile devices designed specifically for this and are installed in other objects of daily life able to interconnect in them or even incorporated in some part of our body and interacting continuously with the user and with other devices in order to perform a specific function. Examples of this are the health and sports functionalities that incorporate smartwatches or smartwatches, sports shoes with built-in GPS or wristbands that monitor our state of health. The products are transformed into services including new features. The advent of Google Glass will radically change the way we relate to the physical world.

• Integration of media and supports: the commercialization of televisions that integrate the Internet and TV are maintained, so “TV on demand” and “online video store” are already consolidated realities. But the potential is much greater: reading ebooks on the television, online training with several attendees. This integration comes with the connection of a smartphone to television.

CLOUD AND SOCIAL:

• The cloud, the cloud, and the Saas: for years we have become familiar on a personal level with the use of external applications, especially email. The definitive migration of most of our computer programs to the “cloud” is already a reality, to which the integration between devices also contributes. And this trend is also affecting freelancers and SMEs thanks to the advantages of “software as a service” (Saas) and, for example, the new billing and management software in the cloud or the numerous existing productivity applications.

• Social Internet: this is the current state of the evolution of the Internet, the “Social Media” or Internet of Social Networks, in which thanks to the spirit of collaboration and the new communication habits that are being created, the value is obtained through the generation of Community. And then those projects capable of stimulating millions of Internet users to make their contributions succeed. However, in recent months there has been a decline in the use of social networks.

• Social Commerce: the natural evolution of electronic commerce incorporating the social element, in which recommendations, especially from friends and family, are a great boost to achieve sales.

• Collaborative economy: online communities and the concept of the social internet have given rise to new businesses based on shared knowledge, where the tourism sector stood out above all. But the great leap has been the emergence of communities of individuals that come together to offer transport services (car sharing, taxis), tourist accommodation in private homes, training courses and even financing (crowdlending and crowdfunding ). In how many sectors will the collaborative economy develop?

• Geolocation: Internet brings together the global with the local, by facilitating communication and networking with those who are far away (global dimension) but also and especially with those who are very close (local dimension). And the functionalities and capabilities to act in these two dimensions will continue to grow. Small local communities integrated into global communities.

• (Chatbots) and Voice Queries: The conversational interfaces are in full swing because of their usefulness to connect the interaction in the digital world. The launch is marked by Facebook with the addition of its chatbot in 2016. Chatbots are artificial intelligence software that is developed in messaging applications to meet its objective: customer service. 2017 was the year of incorporation into conversational technology and it is expected that 2018 will be a turning point for this interaction between users in the digital world.

• Social TV: There is already a great journey in this area but a rebound is expected in 2018 of the analysis in networks that are made of the programs of the television grid through comments, hagstag, Trending Topic.

WEB 3.0. AND BIG DATA (and small data):

• Edge computing: In the context of the Internet of Things technology, edge computing allows to analyze in real time the data produced by the devices that apply this technology. Therefore, the derived data is processed further back from where it was created.

• The transition from web 3.0 to web 4.0: The key to web 3.0 is access to much more natural and personalized information through search engines, integrated applications, and marketing automation processes. In 2018 and the future in the short-medium term, the technological leap will be towards web 4.0, which will offer technological solutions to enable more intelligent behavior and greater interaction with the Internet user.

• Big Data and Deep Profile: more information from consumers: This field opens up enormous possibilities so that you can analyze and know the preferences of your consumers before interacting with your online marketing campaigns and social networks. The brands are storing the data of millions of consumers allowing the extension of the moments and approaches to relate to the consumer thanks to the marketing automation tools. The big companies are already doing it and also some entrepreneurs and small businesses.

• Advanced, generalized and invisible analytics. With the growth of the Internet of things and integrated technological devices is greatly increasing the creation of large volumes of structured and unstructured data. As a result, analytical technologies will be integrated, invisibly, in all applications.

• Content filtering: we are already witnessing a situation of over information and saturation on the part of the Internet user. This will lead to content filtering, which will be automated based on the 3.0 solutions. The content will lose value to the detriment of the context, which through new applications will filter the content. Google is already doing it. Although the generation of true quality content will remain fundamental, this will not be enough on its own.

• Small Data: Big Data has been successfully established in the business world. However, in the point of view of the companies for the next 2017 is the Small Data that, far from finding correlations in large volumes of data, focus more on the causes and the factors that originate them. In short, the new companies will focus on small data to contextualize and establish reasons.

SECURITY:

The consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) argues that in 2019 payments through mobile will reach 136,000 million euros.

• The cost of online privacy: In a world where everything is connected and every action is being monitored, privacy acquires a new value. The new feeling of over-exposure of users thanks to a greater knowledge of the environment and some advertising practices turns the compass towards the obsession with privacy.

• Cybersecurity technologies. In a technological world where both our data and company data, as well as the governments themselves have the information stored in devices, cybersecurity will not be an option, but a necessity for everyone. In order to strengthen the security of payments, the blockchain and the smart contract are of special importance, which is nothing more than a shared public accounting on which the Bitcoin payment network is based, which is booming. Through this chain of blocks, you can calculate the customer’s balance and secure the payment. In addition, there is a timid hint of the model known as LETTER (Continuous Adaptative Risk and Trust Assessment) that focuses on the work of programmers to facilitate decision making in real time to adapt to changes in security. This model uses deception techniques such as Honeypots, to neutralize the attackers.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

The great evolution experienced in recent years by mobile telephony and geolocation technology places us today at the start of the second great stage in the expansion of the internet, opening a new field of innovative business opportunities. The main trends related to the evolution of smartphones, tablets and other devices are:

MOBILE TECHNOLOGY:

• 5G: The arrival of the fifth generation of this mobile technology has been the most recurrent theme of the last Mobile World Congress 2018, although it seems that 2018 will not be the year of its launch.

SMARTPHONES AT POWER:

• The smartphone continues to be the King: it is undoubtedly the star of this change, has the unbeatable advantage that we always carry it and allows us to be in permanent contact via satellite (and let’s face it, it creates addiction). With what little by little has been displacing tablets, laptops, and PCs as support for the realization of multiple online functions, which are enriched thanks to the geolocation and the personalization that the user does. Many web pages already receive more mobile traffic than computers. And not only is it navigated, but it is also bought. And let’s not forget that what we’ve seen so far is only the beginning, we’ll have to see how far we get with bigger, faster, more powerful, safer and more functional mobile devices. The Present is Mobile!

• Mobile payments: traditional banking, and technology (eg apple pay and NFC technology) have been fighting hard in recent years to win the race for the disappearance of cash and credit cards. And they have achieved it. The POS terminals incorporate paid readers and other integrated systems that facilitate the transaction.

• Social Commerce mobile: smartphones are a very powerful tool for “Social Commerce” by allowing the integration of third-party recommendations with offers and coupons, all based on the exact location of the user thanks to GPS systems. This can be an important help for small businesses and freelancers.

• Social interaction through simple to use (or automatic) applications through which people will be able to offer information about where they are or what they are doing, and thus help improve products and services.

• Smartphones with fast loading and storage in the cloud.

MOBILE VS. WEB:

• M-commerce: All the efforts in this 2017 in the m-commerce sector will be directed to trends such as multi-channel purchase, product delivery with drones, geolocation advertising, and data analysis to ensure greater segmentation in the offer.

• Apps vs. web: applications will continue to be developed for smartphones and tablets that allow us to access the internet in a more comfortable and simple way and easily consume all types of information (text, audio, video).Wearable technology applications will continue to make inroads in the digital market.

• Publication of content in Facebook Instant Articles and AMP: Facebook and Google continue competing for the domain of mobile and the consumption of articles; Facebook with Instant Articles and Google through Accelerated Mobile pages (AMP).

NEW DEVICES AND INCREASED REALITY:

• Augmented reality and virtual reality : It is the term used to define a direct or indirect view of a physical environment of the real world, whose elements are combined with virtual elements for the creation of a mixed reality in real time, that is, a set of devices that add virtual information to existing physical information. Although its use has been rather experimental, Google Glass and similar devices predict a great future in fields such as tourism or medicine.

• Mixed reality: The so-called mixed reality is made hollow, a combination of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) that offers digitization technologies to experience interactions and physical and virtual environments.

• Generalization of Interactive Screens: tablets and smartphones have set the standard, in the future, all devices will be integrating screens that will be increasingly manageable, intuitive, interactive, customizable and cheap. And its versatility will surprise us and prevent us from getting tired of them.

• Natural user interfaces as an evolution of Interactive Screens. It is the technology that allows interacting with a system, without using control systems, only with gestural movements. Natural user interfaces include touch, voice, hand gesture and thought

• Flexible screens Products with curved screen or flexible high definition televisions begin to arrive although in many cases they are seen as a chimera. In 2018, in the market of small-scale screens, the large mobile manufacturing companies are leading a race for the promotion of mobile with a flexible screen.

• Integration with household devices (home automation) : the simplest can be the integration of opening codes that will replace the keys in the case of automated doors. And here undoubtedly opens an interesting field for home automation, the key is to be fast and very easy to use.

VIDEO GAME

Supporting the growth of the internet and video game consoles on the one hand and smartphones and tablets on the other, the video game industry has experienced unstoppable growth in recent years, an evolution that will continue and be accentuated, which will continue to open the door to new businesses with a future in the field of development or distribution of video games.

The launch of the great games for video game console rivals and surpasses that of the highest grossing films and mobile fashion games reach download figures and dizzying sales. Its penetration among those under 30 is simply impressive.

The complexity of some of these video games has even called attention to the world of art and education, which are beginning to assume the potential of video games in these fields.

And in the elaboration of web pages, interesting possibilities open up regarding gamification.

OTHER TECHNOLOGIES

In addition to the internet, there are many other technological developments that are experiencing considerable progress and are going to prop up business in the next years:

• Drones: Although they have existed for a long time and have been used before, in 2014 there was a “boom” in the use of drones for filming and taking images, which can be controlled directly (although they are more expensive) or through an application from mobile devices. They have applications in security, surveillance, shipping, audiovisual productions …

• Beacons: Proximity-based marketing and mechanisms based on presence detection will encourage physical stores. This monitoring of the consumer at the point of sale allows to know the frequency, time of permanence or preferences of the client among other information and integrate them with the social login and CRM of the seller.

• Improvements in Artificial Intelligence thanks to Big Data and quantum mechanics with applications in medicine, education, transport … Artificial intelligence is associated with a diversification of the concept itself: General artificial intelligence understood as a process in which a machine acquires the ability to perform tasks, or close artificial intelligence that is only able to perform very specific tasks through machine learning algorithms. In addition, companies will intensify in 2018 their progress on virtual assistants that combine artificial intelligence and user knowledge.

• 4K and 8K technology: Go to a department store and get a TV with 4K technology and HDR10 is increasingly common but 8K technology is the most advanced and emerging of those that are marketed.

• Nanotechnology, which continues to advance unstoppable with fundamental contributions in multiple fields: medicine and health, information technology, agri-food industry, energy, defense, construction.2018 will be the year of the implementation of this technology in the health sector.

• Biotechnology with its contribution in fields such as food, the pharmaceutical industry or health prevention, such as synthetic biology that tries to reproduce natural processes, for example, photosynthesis, in certain products. And the emergence of applications such as smart fuels, synthetic algae or synthetic food that can feed billions of people

• Cognitive and quantum robotics will contribute to the creation of much more efficient machines and robots, which will be living with us sooner than we imagined.

• New more efficient and intelligent materials applied to industry and construction.

• New systems for the production and distribution of clean and efficient energies.

• The progressive implementation of the electric vehicle, much less polluting: Tesla has broken the market with its cars but a great future for electric bicycles and other vehicles is also expected.

• Autonomous cars Driverless vehicles will mark a new era in the transport sector, both in the private sector and in corporate transport. The TESLA car is making its way into the market and its complete inclusion is expected not in 2018 but in the coming years. Some people even talk about business lines such as the autonomous taxi.

• 3D printing at a low cost. Analysts expect a decrease in the cost of 3D printing in the next three years, which will lead to a rapid growth of the market for low-cost devices. At the same time, industrial use will continue to expand, especially in biomedical, industrial and consumer applications. But above all, 3D printing allows customers to act as producers, which can alter the rules of the game in many markets.

• Personalized Medicine and Gene Sequencing. After the completion of the Human Genome Project and the complete sequencing of human DNA, some companies have advanced in the field of personal genetic sequencing and allow us to obtain our DNA partially sequenced and to better understand our ancestry and the risk of diseases. It is already being applied in advanced detection processes of certain diseases.

• “Brain Connectome” or the study of the relationship between brain connectivity and human behavior. We are now beginning to understand how neurons in the brain connect and work together to allow learning and memory.

Robotization of the economy in the fourth industrial revolution

It is still too early to talk about the fourth industrial revolution but many of the technological solutions that are being implemented are aimed at the automation of the economy, an automation that will not be real in 2017 but is on the horizon of the coming years and for which There is what is prepared. Many studies estimate that in the medium term, three out of four jobs will be related to computer systems and security or data analysis.

Globalization or deglobalization of the economy?

A few years ago the answer was clear but the latest political events are endangering the elimination of the tariff, language or distance barriers that characterized the globalized economy and made possible the agreements and commercial businesses between the different countries.

The protectionism derived from deglobalization threatens this economic tune and becomes gradually and parallel to the presence of the effects of globalization that still survives. Therefore, when creating a business, even if it is local, it is still worth considering the following effects of globalization (some of them weakened):

• Global markets: Protectionism is in a crescendo but there are still facilities in border tariffs. That is why there are two key questions that I must ask myself: can I buy cheaper or better in another country or suppliers from another country installed here? Can I sell my products and services to other countries? Think that if you can and you do not, another will end up doing it.

• Electronic commerce: an indispensable ally for the self-employed and the SME, who have at their disposal a great tool to be able to sell in the global market and easily reach any corner of the world.

• Outsourcing: can or should my business outsource certain tasks in countries with significantly cheaper labor costs? More and more freelancers and SMEs that manufacture in China or India or work online with programmers and computer designers from Latin America or India. This externalization of the task will be more or less difficult depending on the country where you want to settle. The United States and the United Kingdom are some of the countries that seek to exert greater protectionism.

• Offshoring: is to take the entire business to another country to lower costs and to remain competitive. Undoubtedly is a very controversial issue, which generates rejection and increasingly difficult to carry out, but the truth is that there are still SMEs and self-employed who relocate their business in those geographical areas where it is allowed, such as for example Spanish agricultural companies who invest in farms in Morocco or Latin America.

• Competitive countries: Do not lose sight of the direction of the so-called emerging countries, BRIC (Brazil, China, India, Russia). If I am going to create a business, I must ask myself how these economies can affect my actions. We can not forget that there is a great Chinese community, hardworking, with low salaries and an ambition to lead the world. And there are more and more in Spain. Where will they arrive in 20 years? How will it affect us?

• English: Continues to be the language of the global world so if you really want to be “global” you have no alternative but to master it.

Sociocultural changes

Finally, we will mention the sociocultural and demographic trends, some of them opposed to each other, that are transforming the way of life of the society of the 21st century and that are giving rise to new needs and therefore to new business opportunities with a very diverse future. , to which the crisis has provided new dyes in recent years.

Health and appearance

• Interest in a long and healthy life, which leads to greater concern for health and body care.

• Young culture and beauty, where aesthetics is increasingly valued.

Sustainability

• Social and ecological awareness.

• The increasing importance of corporate social responsibility and a greater appreciation of nearby businesses and proximity.

• The greater culture of recycling and barter.

Values and culture

• Changes in spirituality. New beliefs

• Increase in individualism.

• Search for personal fulfillment

• Free time culture.

• Greater role of the game.

• Increase in the average cultural level.

Habits of life and family

• A new position of women in society and in the world of work.

• Lack of time, stress.

• Sedentary life: more time at home. With the crisis has been accentuated.

• Changes in the traditional family structure.

• The greater weight of the opinion of children.

• A greater presence of multi-device screens in family life.

Consumption habits

• Consumers demanding in a market with an excess supply of almost everything, which enhances the demand for quality, from food to tourism or large consumer goods.

• Greater average purchasing power and culture of consumerism until the arrival of the crisis. Since then, more moderate consumption, the boom of offers (coupons) and low-cost services and products, in which the essential product is offered and complements are dispensed with.

• Consumption à la carte: the greater capacity to adapt the product or service to the specific needs of each consumer.

• Strengthening consumer groups such as millennials, mini-consumers (children’s influence), digital natives and very active users of their smartphones.

Demographic Changes

• Aging of the population and fall of the birth rate, factors that with immigration seemed to have been reduced but with the crisis remain,

• Increase in migratory movements, immigration (extra and intra-community) and from the arrival of the crisis, also emigration, especially of young people.