Many trends reflect the growing dominance of the Internet as an enabling technology, as well as a model and metaphor for commercial and social interactions. Twenty years into the Internet revolution, businesses and consumers have come to expect that information is a Google search away, friends and associates are always available on social networking sites, and goods and services (including public goods such as education and government services) can be had instantly from an online vendor anywhere in the world at any time of the day.
Similarly, the physical and digital worlds are converging as things in the physical world become Web-enabled and physical spaces (e.g., stores and public spaces) become interactive environments in which things—a rack of shirts, for example—can convey information about themselves to a mobile Internet device: pricing, availability, matching items, and so on. The Internet of Things is rapidly gaining momentum, bringing millions of devices and objects into the connected world and enabling whole new ways of managing assets and operations.
The Web continues to enable and inspire new business models that could have disruptive impact. The peer-to-peer distribution model that began with music files and which we described in 2010 in our discussion of “anything as a service” has morphed into the “sharing economy,” in which almost every possible commodity (e.g., rental cars, unused office space, or accounting help) can be ordered on the Web. This provides opportunities for companies to monetize idle assets, but it also has the potential to disintermediate and disrupt markets and industries.
If companies can embrace Web-based business and operating models, they stand to gain far more than they lose. Social technologies, for example, are emerging as more than a powerful means of connecting with markets; they also are a means of communication and collaboration within and between businesses that has the potential to vastly improve productivity and organizational effectiveness.
Nobody can predict how these trends will translate into economic value. The McKinsey Global Institute has estimated the potential economic impact that might arise from likely major applications of cloud computing, the Internet of Things and automation of knowledge work by 2025. MGI also estimates that half of the impact of the mobile Internet through 2025 will arise in developing economies, where it will most likely be the means by which 3 billion new users connect to the Internet. Altogether, these applications could have economic impact of $10 trillion to $20 trillion annually in 2025, including consumer surplus.
In the coming decade, we see a brave new world where instant access to knowledge and the efficiency of the Web are applied more broadly and where the physical and digital worlds blend (wearable computers that monitor human health are no longer science fiction). One of the most exciting trends is the prospect of as many as three billion new consumers (and producers) joining the global economy via the mobile Internet. This was a trend we saw building in 2010, and it may exceed earlier expectations. Overnight, people in some of the poorest places in the world are leapfrogging into the Internet age, using the Web to join the formal economy, to manage their finances and health care, and even to set up virtual shop. The mobile Internet is also a two-way street, helping global companies tap into a vast new market.