Connections: Consumer data for online services – “pure gold” for the 4.0 revolution

Connections, a leading company in the digital transformation market in Romania, informs about the main development lines in technology for 2020.

• Conversational AI

The disciplines brought together in cognitive computing will continue the upward trend, large companies will increasingly invest in “intelligent” capabilities that will enhance the added value of enterprise platforms.

• Privacy

The concern, at European level (first and foremost) and at global level, for the protection of virtual privacy will gain new strength with the increased exposure of cloud services that will generate an enhanced focus on the confidentiality of personal data, and will multiply cyber attacks.

• Security

Critical infrastructure protection remains in the forefront, and the creation of national strategies in the EU for the implementation of the NIS Directive and of cyber security incident response centers will be the main catalyst for the IT security market in Europe. Private companies that are not included in the NIS spectrum will seek to align with the critical infrastructure protection standards that will be regulated at government level.

• Xaa

More and more on-premise platforms will migrate to the cloud and the stake of partner companies will be to create add-ons and bundles of functionality above the basic level hosted by the cloud of primary providers such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc.

• RPA

The market for automation based on software robots will grow with a CAGR of at least 20%, and the types of services known – from subscriptions to consulting (analysis and re-design) and implementation of software robots will continue to be the ones that will generate most of the revenue for technology companies and partners. The migration of robots in the cloud, the sophistication of subscription services through pay-per-use or pay-per-feature versions are highly expected by the market, especially by the SME market, which is becoming increasingly attractive to producers. RPA technology developers will increasingly push their platforms towards the ecosystem pattern, providing integrations between the core RPA version and more and more target applications. It is expected that more and more customers will understand the utility and philosophy of robot-based automation, accepting the bottom-up approach that is supported by the analysis and re-design of business processes, and at the top of the pyramid by the implementation of the specific technology. Great players will continue to invest in cognitive intelligence tools, but concrete, useful, and applicable results in the industry will not be achieved yet.

• Analytics – Consumer experience

Online service consumer data, regardless of the industry, has already become the “pure gold” of industry 4.0, the fourth revolution. Companies that collect customer data will invest in their analysis, creating synergies between algorithms for analysis and information extraction, statistics and correlation, using machine learning and AI (which is in its early stage, currently being developed), to generate behavioral predictions and preferences. Competition for the collection and structuring of data will continue to be fierce.

Connections is a leader on the digital transformation market in Romania, having 300 employees, offices in Bulgaria, Serbia and planning global expansion. The company specializes in Intelligent Automation, IT Infrastructure Support, Digital Business Process Management and Software Development On Demand.

Connections clients are global companies and medium-sized Romanian companies from industries such as Banking, FMCG, Oil & Gas, Telecom and Retail. Starting with July 2018, Connections signed a partnership with UiPath, the Enterprise Robotic Process Automation (RPA) platform with the fastest usage rate worldwide, with which it has already successfully implemented robotic automation processes in key industries. At the same time, Connections has invested over 200,000 euros in the development of a fintech open banking platform meant to integrate the APIs made available by banks in Romania, with the enforcement of the Revised Payment Service Directive (PSD2), which obliges banks to give access to information regarding bank accounts for payments accessible online to third parties who can develop their information services, payments and offer other financial services to the banks’ clients. Connections ended 2018 with a turnover of 6.15 million US dollars.