In “PART 2”, we’ll keep revealing two more strategies and sharing scientific data, so you can be sure to include all the necessary details when you create your next fintech strategy.

5 Fintech Strategies for 2021: Summary

1. Real-life adoption of Big Data and enhanced analytics
2. Changing and shifting legacy systems
3. Move to online banking
4. Developing blockchain and platforms
5. Automatic robotic processes

Blockchain Solutions

Blockchain is among the technologies that shape the world’s future. It’s already the core of numerous innovations and is about to define the digital landscape of 2021 in 4 ways:

• ICO Launch Support
• Cryptocurrency operations
• Smart Contracts
• Identity Management

2020 Global Blockchain Report by Deloitte shows that blockchain has turned into an integral part of organizational innovation as “a top-five strategic priority” for companies. Among key advantages already offered, these digital solutions contribute to cybersecurity empowerment and the DeFi (decentralized finance) development. In a broader social context, the know-how helps establish sustainable food safety, provide digital identities to impoverished people and refugees, and prevent uncontrolled weapons tracking.

For businesses, blockchain solutions promise significant facilitation and productivity boost. For example, it helps to trace the lost and previously unnecessary data for accurate decision-making. Also, blockchain is irreplaceable in ownership protection, providing easy-to-track distribution that protects the rights of creators. Finally, the technology shapes the future of transactions, with further development and greater popularity of smart contracts and cryptocurrency operations.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

According to McKinsey insights, the adoption of robotics automation technologies has accelerated during the pandemic, especially in processing workflows. In 2021, we expect to witness the growing popularities of these RPA technologies:

• Account reconciliation,
• Automated mailers,
• Monthly account reviews, and
• Regulatory reporting.

In essence, the installation of robots is already a new industrial trend. Even though Hollywood movies tended to dramatize the situation with apocalyptic movies, reality shows that humans and robots work well together. With the robots’ involvement, it’s possible to simultaneously do the job or delegate certain processes and tasks that are better completed if done automated.

The reality of social distancing makes robotic process automation a good solution not to stop manufacturing. Moreover, it can serve as the basis for remote collaborative coding and any other way of automating the routing processes remotely. As another core use case, the RPA industry helps to deal with staff shortages. In particular, it can cover the elementary tasks of entry-level personnel effectively.

The Future of Fintech: How to Make It as Bright as It Seems

Of course, nobody knows the future. We can only make predictions from the current dynamics and prepare for the possible changes based on these forecasts. By taking into account the statistical data from key analytical centers and our experience in the field, we see the future in financial software — with or without Coronavirus, this black swan factor of today.

To make the most of Fintech opportunities, we recommend picking the IT partner who knows how to help you grow. You can refer to us. At Intellectsoft, we offer a wide list of financial software development services — including online banking, blockchain & cryptocurrencies, digital wallet apps, AI and ML solutions, securities trading automation, and RPA enhancements.

Talk to our experts and get a personalized recommendation on the benefits Fintech can bring to your business!

The post 5 Most Promising Strategies For Financial Software Development in 2021 [Part 2] appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

FinTech companies and startups’ changing dynamic forces them to be more adaptive to stay afloat or pivot during these difficult times. Financial institutions from all over the world change the way people practice their finance. These are all credited to the growth of new digital trends such as Cryptocurrency, Contactless, Trading.

The upcoming webinar “The Future of FinTech: Insights, Trends, and Use Cases Defining the Industry in 2021” offers fintech visionaries access to the unique resources for accelerating the infusion of digital finance in their business.

Throughout the live 45-minute talk, our top minds will develop a robust digital fintech blueprint for the financial companies, tapping into Intellectsoft’s IT expertise and know-how of the fintech sector.

Register Now

In this webinar, you’ll hear from industry experts who will discuss five promising trends shaping the fintech industry in 2021, including:

• Online banking
• Mobile wallets
• Cryptocurrency and blockchain
• Artificial intelligence and machine learning
• Trading and securities

The webinar also reveals never-before-seen use cases of emerging technologies for digital finance and generates a common language for accelerated collaboration across the executive’s organizations. Participants explore a strategic overview of real-life solutions application, leaving with a strategic roadmap that ensures sustainability across all the stakeholders.

Emerging FinTech trends that are most likely to impact fintech businesses in 2021

Learning Outcomes Include: 

• Exploring global fintech trends every leader should look out for in 2021
• Revealing how to make your fintech business stand out in the post-digital world
• Discovering today’s featured examples of Intellectsoft clients’ technology solutions that can help you provide better and more efficient services
• Discussing how to evolve in 2021 using emerging technologies and more efficient solutions

Meet Your Hosts for the Webinar: 

After the webinar, all participants will have a chance to discuss the topic with our experts in a Q&A session.

Click here to sign up and learn more about the webinar.

The post Webinar: The Future of FinTech. Insights, Trends, and Use Cases Defining the Industry in 2021 appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

Arguably financial technology (fintech) evolved to be a crucial engine fueling the digital revolution’s advancement. Here is a list of emerging fintech trends:

1. Cloud Computing
2. Big Data and Analytics
3. Defi (Decentralized Finance)
4. Cybersecurity
5. Artificial Intelligence
6. The Internet of Things
7. Machine Learning
8. Robotic Process Automation
9. Software-defined Networking
10. 3d Printing
11. Biometric Security Systems
12. Voice Technologies

According to PwC research, 80% of telecommunication and 75% of financial services organizations are currently creating jobs related to fintech. Half of those also consider it as a part of their strategic operating models.

Global investment activity in fintech reached $150.4 billion in 2019, though it slowed down to $25.6 billion in the 1st half of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The US-based investments account for the biggest share, standing at 62% of total world fintech funding in Q3 2020.

12 Fintech Trends for 2021

1. Cloud Computing

In the world significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, even the most traditional organizations have to find ways to interact with their customers digitally.

More importantly, they need to build a system allowing them to access, manage, analyze, and control massive data storage in a reality where managers and analysts cannot physically reach their offices.

Caption 1. Technology trends that are most important for businesses today

As about 265 million Americans are forced to live under official social distancing guidelines, there is a vital need to move organizations to the cloud as quickly as possible. Leaders should undertake a few essential steps to achieve a smooth transition:

• Providing sufficient funding to ensure the employment of all the required technology
• Integrating the cloud to the business model to reflect its widespread and long-lasting impact
• Attracting well-qualified engineers and IT-specialists to support the technology’s everyday performance effectively and to avoid any disruptions

2. Big Data and Analytics

Per The Economist Intelligence Unit survey, 37.9% of businesses see big data and analytics as one of the top three trends. Most organizations are trying to capture all possible data streaming inside and apply all kinds of analytics to it.

There are numerous positive outcomes achievable, for example:

• Faster decision making: various analysis tools allow making instantaneous decisions based on immediate data streams
• Cost reduction: it helps to find better ways of doing business by scrutinizing individual aspects of everyday operations
• Customer satisfaction: having the opportunity to analyze the customers’ behavior over time, organizations get a chance to develop new products to meet their needs more effectively

3. DeFi

Even though cryptocurrencies have not been occupying headlines that often in 2020, their underlying technology keeps tremendous potential.

For instance, blockchain usage in Europe has shifted dramatically to payments (33% of organizations), data access and sharing (30%), identity protection (30%), and data reconciliation (29%).

Caption 2. Primary challenges when implementing blockchain technology

Earlier, we covered supply chain optimization and tracing, including the IBM Foodtrust platform. The new trend, however, is decentralized finance or DeFi. It is about creating autonomous protocols (set of rules) for money to operate; no trusted party is needed. The hottest topic is lending, namely yield farming.

4. Cybersecurity

With the COVID-19 world facing the rise of online activities, cybercrime constantly expands its endeavors.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 80% of firms have seen increased cyberattacks, cloud-based attacks rose 630%, and phishing attempts rose 600%. In 2021, the cybersecurity market is expected to grow significantly to over $200 billion worldwide.

5. Artificial Intelligence

Organizations are paying more and more attention to Artificial Intelligence power. AI has been named the most disruptive technology by managers and IT leaders worldwide, exceeding big data and analytics.

Artificial intelligence statistics by NewVantage displays that 91.5% of top businesses surveyed report having an ongoing investment in AI.

The latest statistics show that by 2021 about 15% of customer service interactions worldwide will be fully powered by AI, and by 2025 the industry is forecasted to reach $31 billion in revenue.

6. The Internet of Things

The giant ecosystem of the Internet of Things is multiplying. IoT devices are everywhere, from voice assistants to slow cookers.

The IoT market is expected to expand to $520 billion in 2021, having systems integration and data center and analytics as its biggest segments.

Caption 4. Reasons for technology usage

7. Machine Learning

Machine learning is often seen as synonymous with artificial intelligence. It is a subset of AI, making the former perform faster by reinforcing its learning abilities.

These make machine learning a key component of AI, a fact confirmed by the latest machine learning statistics.

The machine learning market has been rapidly growing. The most significant segment of this market is the deep learning software set to reach about $1 billion by 2025.

Current machine learning market research has shown that the market for AI-powered hardware and assistants is expected to grow at a high pace.

8. Robotic Process Automation

Between 2020 and 2022, almost 2 million new industrial robots are expected to be installed in factories around the world. The range of collaborative applications offered by robot manufacturers continues to expand.

Currently, shared workspace applications are most common: robots and people operate together, completing jobs simultaneously. They enable this by voice, gesture, and recognition of intent from human motion.

Caption 6. Service robots for personal/domestic use

9. Software-defined Networking

Software-defined networking (SDN) solves the issues of rapid network architecture to handle large data traffic. The world SDN market is expected to rise from $13.7 billion in 2020 to $32,7 billion by 2025.

Given the growing adoption of SDN, the demand increases among service providers and enterprises. Based on services, the SDN market has been fragmented into implementation, consulting, and support. These services help users in managing and comprehensive network infrastructure required for the effective imposing of SDN.

10. 3D Printing

From cost reduction to an increase in efficiency to fuelling innovation, 3D printing reinforces rise for many industries and has made a considerable impact in manufacturing.

The 3D printing market was valued at $13.7 billion in 2019 and is set to achieve $63.46 billion by 2025, at an annual growth rate of 29.48% over the period of 2020 to 2025.

11. Biometric Security Systems

It is vital for the fintech industry organizations to take all possible security measures. And biometrics is the best way to lift security to the next level, ensuring users’ confidence that their information is protected.

The world biometrics market is expected to reach $45.96 billion by 2024 as the partnerships between tech and biometric companies will be growing.

The range of solutions is set to grow bigger to utilize such biometric data as fingerprint, face, iris, vein, voice, DNA, palm prints, hand geometry, signature, and several behavioral features.

12. Voice Technologies

Chat-like platforms keep arriving for everything customers need to deal with on an everyday basis. Voice assistants are being developed to provide support for various issues. Voice technologies have evolved to tell the weather forecast or stream sports and improve customer service in the banking sector.

Voice technologies are divided into two main groups: the phonetic recognition of different words and the interpretation of the actual language as spoken, also known as natural language processing (NLP). The voice technology market reached about $11 billion in 2019 and will rise by close to 17 percent by 2025.

Conclusion

The financial software development services keep emerging in response to the customers’ and businesses’ needs, allowing the latter to deliver better services, store and analyze vast amounts of information, secure various communication streams, and many more.

We, at Intellectsoft, empower fintech companies and their workforces with innovative solutions and approaches. Are you and your organization looking for some? Talk to our experts and find out more about the topic and how your business can start benefiting from it today!

The post Disruptive FinTech: 12 Technology Trends to Watch in 2021 appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

How mature is blockchain in healthcare, and what are the barriers to adoption? Blockchain for healthcare ranks as the number four industry of interest. Moreover, the International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA) creation allowed engaging all stakeholders in a practical discussion on blockchain solutions for health.

Ways Blockchain Is Taking Over the Modern Healthcare Industry

How Will Blockchain Affect the Cost of Healthcare?

Master Patient Index and Cost per transaction. There is an overwhelming amount of duplicated data, which translates into additional storage cost. Furthermore, over 50 different electronic healthcare record (EHR) software systems operate in various hospitals, sometimes in the same city.

MedRec by the MIT team, for example, is offering a transparent and accessible view of medical history. Their project runs on the Ethereum blockchain and is currently under development in partnership with a newly-established Healthcare Information Technology Center in Israel. Simultaneously, it is running tests of a data set from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Taken from MedRec

What Healthcare Data Should Be Put on the Blockchain?

Notably, not all information should be stored within the blockchain, but a distributed ledger can help manage the data more transparently and securely. For instance, IBM is disrupting veterinary medicine by allowing to create and store USDA certificates on the blockchain.

Apart from certificates, there can be proofs of ownership and timestamps of environment conditions, so critical for logistics in the pharmaceutical field. IBM is also working on this in partnership with KPMG, Merck, and FDA.

Finally, mass-market gadgets like smartwatches and fitness trackers can track patients’ state of health. Connecting them with EHRs throughout a lifetime makes it more efficient for the insurance industry to evaluate risks and calculate premiums.

How Has COVID-19 Pushed for Blockchain Adoption?

McKinsey has reported that the COVID-19 pandemic had accelerated telemedicine usage, rising from 11% to 46% in the US consumer adoption. According to them, around $250 billion of current US spending on healthcare could be virtualized.

Gartner reports that healthcare blockchain use cases include a digital asset market amid record-keeping and increasing efficiency. Learn how the Ocean Protocol has aided governments to collect and interpret critical data for improving healthcare.

X-Ray vision by the Ocean Protocol

Will Patients Own their Data?

To say that data access will improve is an underestimation. Having full ownership over your medical data will be more user-friendly and less time-consuming. A recent case is an EU-funded project MyHealthMyData, which is exploring how sensitive medical data is shared.

How will the interaction with doctors be affected? Taken the rise of telehealth, there will often be no need to interact with a doctor to access personal data. Moreover, blockchain will improve healthcare with its key features.

An excerpt from the McKinsey report

Adopting Blockchain in Healthcare

Privacy and Security

With regulations like GDPR and HIPAA, patient privacy is not optional but a default. Organizations that operate with identifier and health information – hence, protected health information (PHI) – can leverage blockchain for such properties as

• Confidentiality
• Integrity
• Availability

Performance and Interoperability

Current healthcare interoperability standards – HIE (Health Information Exchange) and HL7 FHIR (Fast Health Interoperability Resources) – can be used at full potential when paired with customizable blockchain frameworks like Hyperledger. They show impressive throughput and scalability when dealing with lightweight metadata, audit, and transaction information.

Deloitte argues that smart contracts can assist with mitigating inconsistent rules and permissions. These contracts are self-executable on blockchain and can automate and standardize the PHI exchange while providing distributed secure access.

How to Deploy Blockchain?

Healthcare legacy systems urge for an extensive infrastructure transition. There are numerous opportunities, as well as challenges. We, at Intellectsoft, empower companies that are looking for innovative solutions.

One way to start with blockchain for healthcare is to choose the BaaS model. Another option is to deploy its network to collaborate with multiple partners and improve medical information sharing between data owners and service providers.

Talk to our experts and find out more about the differences and how your organization can start benefiting from day one.

The post Blockchain in Modern Healthcare. Adopting Real Cases by 2021 appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

Source: the IMF report

According to the IMF terminology, money has two types: claim- and object-based. While bitcoin is considered an object with the “other” value, most stablecoins fall into the claim category with fixed value redemptions. Moreover, they are private decentralized “e-money.” Fundamentally, e-money shares characteristics of constant net asset value (CNAV) funds, which also means that customers will at least get their money back in exchange for a stablecoin. The question is, why did they emerge in the first place?

Market Overview

Stablecoins comprise 4% of the total market value of cryptoassets, which amounts to approximately $11 billion as of late May 2020. Since the Black Thursday on March 12th when cryptocurrencies collapsed in tandem with the markets, the market supply of these assets has risen by 40%. At least 50 prominent exchanges have listed stablecoins, including Tether (USDT), SteemDollar (SBD), Paxos (PAX), Gemini (GUSD), USD Coin (USDC) and Stasis (EURS). The importance of their current role to the digital assets ecosystem is hard to underestimate: they stimulate the broader distribution of cryptoassets by early adopters within the IT sector and the rank-and-file users worldwide.

The Current Stablecoin Market

Note: USDT is represented by 3 graphs ($9.2 billion in total)

Source: coinmetrics.io

Despite its imperfect history, Tether (USDT) is the most actively traded cryptocurrency with the daily volume equivalent to 120% of the BTC trading value. As of June 2020, it has the third-largest market capitalization ($9.2 billion). Tether also dominates the listed trading pairs for stablecoins, reaching 150+ different cryptocurrencies trading against it.

The design of stablecoins commonly implies anchoring their value to the US dollar. At the same time, such anchoring does not completely remove the volatility of the stablecoin. For instance, the exchange rate of USDT has been fluctuating between $1.00 and $1.30, following the achievement of the $1.00 mark.

USDT Market Value and Exchange Rate

Source: Blockchain.com, the State of Stablecoins

In addition to USD anchoring, stablecoins also use baskets of the other fiat currencies, economic measures, as well as the commodities for ensuring the stability of the coin. Therefore, the users of stablecoins can benefit from advantages offered with the blockchain-based cryptoassets, including low costs and high speed of transactions, while also minimizing the risks related to volatility.

Types of Stablecoins

There are three general types of stablecoins:

• Asset-based stablecoins commonly use fiat currencies or precious metals as a peg to ensure stability. For example, Digix Gold Token (DGX) uses gold for its backing while Libra and Reserve were designed to rely on a basket of currencies.
• Crypto-collateralized: Maker Dai (DAI) remains the largest cryptocurrency-collateralized stablecoin. The two cryptocurrencies backing DAI are ETH and MKR. Dai also uses smart contracts to ensure timely response to the main market tendencies in terms of changes in the demand and supply levels.
• Algorithmic stablecoins rely on the rules written in the software code of the coin with the sole goal of matching the demand for the currency and its market supply. Kowala and Ampleforth are examples of non-collateralized or algorithmic stablecoins. Their mechanisms automatically adjust the levels of the supply, effectively ensuring stability.

Taxonomy of the Main Stablecoin Types

Source: Blockchain.com, the State of Stablecoins

The Promise of Stablecoins: Use Cases

Stablecoins serve various purposes and functions, depending on their specific areas of applications and the parties utilizing them.

1. Medium of Exchange. Stablecoins enable further adoption of cryptocurrencies by the traditional businesses while minimizing the risks related to their volatility. The operations of the firm’s treasuries become more convenient with the added level of predictability, and it’s just easier to move such currency across borders.
2. Unit of Account. Pricing in stablecoins will become possible with the pegging mechanism. Such an approach may become an independent unit of account over time across the globe. Examples include a basket of currencies to have a representative global currency, or a fixed amount of a desirable subject: time, minerals, water.
3. Store of Value. Stablecoins are becoming the store of value over the longer period because of the lower associated volatility levels. In this light, stablecoins are also providing easier and more secure access to the commonly used store-of-value items, such as commodities, currencies, and assets. Additionally, stablecoins can win the loyalty of depositors, where banks start adding a negative interest.
4. Remittance. The processing of payments in cryptocurrencies implies a certain degree of volatility risks, which are currently mitigated through the utilization of stablecoins. Such an approach will also lower the costs whereas increasing the speed of the international transactions.
5. Lending and derivatives. Stablecoins enhance the process of hedging volatility risks by removing the need for centralized entities, still existing on CME and CBOE.
6. Decentralized Applications (dApps). Stablecoins lower the role of cryptocurrencies in speculative transactions, effectively minimizing the risks related to holding funds in cryptoassets. Therefore, if a business runs smart contracts, the operation costs will become predictable and the infrastructure management easier.
7. Performance measurement. Stablecoins increase the accuracy related to financial performance valuation by removing volatility. Therefore, it is possible for the internal and external analysts to evaluate the performance of the projects, while also comparing them over time.

Stablecoin Business: How These Projects Make Money

The largest stablecoin is Tether, followed by TrueUSD at $137 million. Stablecoins are a part of 50+ exchanges with Tether representing the largest number of listings. The question of making money in these projects remains open. The key approaches of generating returns include their issuance and purchase. Often than not, stablecoins practice fractional reserve banking, meaning they do not represent 100% of the value as they claim. Other  lucrative methods include:

• the issuance and redemption fees
• market-making activities, namely bid/ask spread and trading volume
• a short-term lending
• an annual reserve interest

However, other reasons can be branding and fund protection. Companies developing a stablecoin may want to create a safe virtual currency to pay their developers seamlessly. Furthermore, they aim to avoid losing money over time or attract users to other products in their portfolio, which is a vivid case of exchanges like Huobi, Binance and Coinbase.

The investors purchasing stablecoins may use them to diversify their portfolio and preserve the capital during the bear market. The entities purchasing stablecoins may also generate return during the periods of small fluctuations.

The Most Successful SC Projects

Stablecoins have already become an essential part of various successful projects. DAI came to mobile ATMs as a result of the partnership project involving Tether and MakerDAO. ERC20 stablecoins are available for holding and transferring between the Etherum wallet holders. Below are details on these and other successful projects.

Tether (USDT)

Teather is the oldest stablecoin that continues rising within the top-5 cryptocurrency ratings. The market capitalization of the coin has increased from $7 million in 2017 to $9 billion in spring 2020. The core issue of the stablecoin is a comparatively low level of transparency and centralized nature, which resulted in a series of scandals.

TrueUSD (TUSD)

The TUSD is similar to USDT by using USD as an anchoring mechanism. The collateral of the project remains in the escrow accounts managed by third parties. The status of the second-largest stable token has contributed to its current success.

Dai (DAI)

Dai is a stablecoin that adjusts to the value of the US dollar. Issued via the Maker (MKR), Dai Stablecoin System leverages margin trading to respond to volatile market conditions and preserve its value. ETH is the backing instrument of DAI with a high level of complexity. DAI is a part of 20+ exchanges and 17 cryptocurrency pairs. The four stability parameters related to DAI price include:

• target price
• target rate feedback mechanism
• global settlement
• the sensitivity parameter

Reserve (RSV)

Reserve is a stablecoin aimed to become a universal store of value and backed by numerous investors, including Coinbase Ventures. Like Dai, it has a triple structure:

1. The Reserve token (RSV), a major asset for daily transactions.
2. The Reserve Rights token (RSR) — a cryptocurrency meant to ensure the stability of the Reserve token.
3. Collateral tokens; they will be other assets to be held by the Reserve smart contract for protecting the Reserve token value.

Notably, the Reserve project is divided into three development stages. The centralized stage implies a period for which Reserve is backed by a small number of collateral tokens pegged to the US dollar. The second, decentralized stage, will change the Reserve’s basket of assets but still be stabilized in regard to USD. The final stage, a so-called “independent phase,” is when RSV is no longer pegged to the US dollar and intends to stabilize its “real purchasing power regardless of fluctuations in the value of the dollar.”

Stablecoin Launch Timeline

Source: Blockchain.com research

Future Outlook

Stablecoins have been gaining popularity with the number of cryptocurrencies growing at an exponential rate. Given the success rate and the depth of their infrastructure, the stablecoins will continue their inevitable integration. Automation and transparency will be the main desired characteristics of stablecoins in the future, given their current centralized state.

Notably, we started gathering information for this report one year ago. In spite of their promising developments, here are updates on the most ambitious projects.

Gram

Telegram had announced the launch of its own token Gram, which by design is particularly similar to stablecoin. Telegram Open Network or TON was intended to run on Gram and has raised the company over $1.7 billion for the development. The TON Reserve (controlled by the TON Foundation) would have issued each new GRAM token to ensure its stability and liquidity. Nevertheless, the project came under pressure from SEC and, as a result, its founder Pavel Durov announced that Telegram abandoned TON.

Libra

Facebook continues working on Libra as its “cryptocurrency” project. It is a name for both a protocol and association of partners who govern the project. Its token, Libra, was intended to be a stablecoin pegged to a basket of currencies and precious metals, referred to as Libra Reserve. According to Facebook, 50% of the Libra’s reserve had to be backed by USD, the euro (EUR) would make up to 18%, the Japanese yen (JPY) 14%, the British sterling pound (GBP) 11%, and the Singapore dollar (SGD) 7%.

However, everything changed after the US Congress saw a potential threat to the global financial system. They feared that a private company would compete with central banks worldwide and forced Facebook into rebranding the project and making several versions of Libra token: a simple stablecoin for dollar, euro and other fiat currency transactions.

Initially, there was Calibra, a subsidiary company of the social network that developed the blockchain project. Together with other 27 organizations plus Facebook, it formed the Libra association. Unfortunately, several members of this governing body (PayPal, eBay, Visa, MasterCard, Mercado Pago) rapidly cut the links with Libra when the government warned Zuckerberg of developing an “alternative currency.” Last month, Calibra became Novi, and the project transitioned from permissionless to permissioned network. Ironically, there is no Facebook logo among the current members of the Libra Association.

JPM Coin

In fact, tech corporations are not the only ones to enter the game. One of the biggest banks, JPMorgan, has announced its own stablecoin, the JPM Coin. It is said to have revolutionized the “antiquated and wholly inadequate Swift payment system” and is a permissioned blockchain for international bank-to-bank payments.

However, critics argue it is a simple upgrade of the Wall Street’s back-office run on Quorum protocol. Even so, the bank has just signed Gemini and Coinbase as institutional customers and started to expand its own “Coin and Clearing Networks (CCN)” division.

State-supported Stablecoin

The governments are considering launching their stablecoins too. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has announced its plan to release a stablecoin. Furthermore, the two largest parties of Germany, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) were supporting the launch of stablecoin.

Not least, central banks in some countries partner with e-money providers to effectively provide “central bank digital currency (CBDC),” a digital version of cash authorized by governments. The topic became especially popular amid rising discussions on distribution of Covid-19 relief funds and the potential of universal basic income (UBI).

Although institutions are insisting on regulation by the central banks, there is an intriguing shift in the political and financial paradigms. Possibly, we are going to witness real-time economy driven algorithmic stablecoin based on the GDP and other indices. Startups and enterprises that can foresee this opportunity early will benefit the most.

In addition, it will be essential for stablecoins to lower the degree of complexity relative to their design features. Further development of stablecoins will depend on the pacing of the monetary innovation, as well as adoption of the cryptoassets.

Summary

Stablecoins are the cryptocurrencies offering protection against price volatility. Such stability is possible through pegging against fiat currencies, assets, cryptocurrencies, as well as utilization of algorithms. The main drawback of stablecoins is their centralized nature, involving risks associated with the changes in the value of the hedging instruments. Tether (USDT) is the largest stablecoin based on market value. Stablecoin will remain essential for the general cryptoasset ecosystem and the financial landscape in the future.

The post Making Sense of Stablecoins: Core Functions and Characteristics appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

Worldwide pandemic has shown us that countries and their authorities around the globe have to pay more attention and invest more in healthcare IT solutions, the development and enhancement of the medical field.

Top 10 Technology Trends in Healthcare

Nowadays, we experience digital transformation in numerous industries, and healthcare is not an exception to this process. The implementation of available tools and solutions has given rise for several healthcare technology trends among which the following ones:

1. Telemedicine
2. Internet of Medical Things
3. Cloud computing
4. AI/ML
5. AR
6. VR
7. Chatbots
8. Blockchain
9. Data science
10. EHR

Although the process of transformation has only started, the number of benefits they have will change the future of the healthcare field by reducing the costs, giving better diagnosis results, making it easier to get treatment in remote areas, saving time, etc.

Emerging Healthcare Technology Trends and Their Deployment

 Worldwide pandemic has shown us that countries all around the world should pay more attention and invest more in the development and enhancement of the healthcare environment. Making it better means the prevention of severe problems and situations like this one.

Deployment of all the latest technology trends in the healthcare industry can significantly change the image of the field we know today. The enhancement will lead to thousands of saved lives in emergencies.

Intellectsoft helps organizations and companies across various industries, including healthcare, to implement and use technologies for the sake of human life. If you have a revolutionary idea in mind that can help people fight diseases, talk to our experts, and learn more about the topic. Our team of professionals can turn your idea into reality, and together we can make this world a better place.

Telemedicine Trends: Remote Treatment

Telemedicine is a remote diagnosis and treatment of patients using telecommunication technologies as given by the World Health Organization (the WHO) in the 2010 report on eHealth. The use of cutting edge telemedicine trends is especially useful in areas that have limited or no developed infrastructure.

For instance, locals in Alaska recognized two decades ago that some villages do not have proper access to healthcare services, and there are no doctors or practicing nurses. Thus, they tried to bring telemedicine trends into practice and bridged patients with doctors or practicing nurses with specialists who can help locals get high-quality treatment.

Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium has successfully used this technology since 2001, and now there is no need to go on a long journey when it is unnecessary. Trends in telemedicine that have already been applied have given a chance for ship crews to get on-board treatment. Maritime doctors in Alaska are already treating sailors using telehealth platforms and show excellent results.

Trends in telemedicine also show high potential for education and sharing knowledge between developed and developing countries, as they bring together specialists from different countries.

Internet of Medical Things Trends: Connected Wearables

The Internet of Medical Things is another trend in healthcare. It is the collection of medical and wearable devices that connect to healthcare IT systems through online computer networks.

The Internet of things in medical devices gives a chance to take a number of common medical measurements like temperature, blood pressure, glucose level, heart rate, etc. Internet of Medical Things includes such wearables and devices as

• ECG,
• EKG monitors,
• smart beds,
• glucose monitors,
• connected inhalers, etc.

Companies like Philips offer systems like Patient Monitoring to help specialists stay connected with their patients and provide on-time treatment or assign the right practitioner to take care of a particular case. Another example is Dexcom G5 that provides real-time glucose readings for patients with 1 and 2 types of diabetes every five minutes.

This technology helps doctors be aware of the current state of the patients, analyze collected data better, keep all the records, and stay connected 24/7.

How Is Cloud Computing Used in Healthcare?

Cloud computing in healthcare offers different public, private and hybrid platforms that allow easy file-sharing of any size. It also gives an opportunity for hospitals or healthcare organizations to build a secure infrastructure for keeping records. The technology also helps to make consultations easier and more convenient as they can be video- or text-based.

Five Benefits of Cloud Computing in Healthcare

Cloud computing in the healthcare industry brings several benefits that enhance the medical sphere. We have distinguished the top five ones:

• easy and quick accessibility as the data is stored in the cloud and can be reached anytime from any device;
• cost-effective (requires fewer investments than the development of hardware);
• makes data analyzes more efficient;
• facilitates tracking of patient’s state and recovery process;
• scalable — makes it easier for healthcare providers to increase or decrease the space for data storage, depending on the patient’s flow.

Cloud Computing in Healthcare: Examples

Due to its benefits and advantages, cloud computing in healthcare started to be widely used and implemented into IT systems of hospitals and health organizations. For example, IBM has created a cloud-based application, “Collaborative Care Solution,” that helps to accelerate healthcare management.

Companies like Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, Dell offer cloud computing platforms that have a high level of security and keep critical data protected. GE Healthcare that runs on Amazon EC2, provides medical imaging tools and diagnostic imaging agents. It transforms collected information from medical devices into valuable patient data and makes it easy to view, process, and share images and patient cases.

What are Cloud Computing Risks in Healthcare?

 Among the top concerns of cloud computing in the healthcare industry are security, privacy, and system downtimes.

Personal patient’s data is tentative and requires a high level of security of a cloud-based platform that will help to protect it from external threats. For example, blockchain technology can be used to ensure security measures and keep stored data protected.

System downtimes can be prevented at the initial stage of app development, knowing possible failures, and having back-up plans on resolving the issues will help organizations to overcome downtimes of the system.

As for privacy matters, healthcare businesses should choose a reliable cloud provider who acts according to the rules and regulations stated by HIPAA of 1996.

How Is AR Being Used in Healthcare?

AR in healthcare becomes more and more applied across the industry. The technology can be used for educational purposes as it allows to have a visual presentation of human body organs.

AR in healthcare makes it possible for doctors to diagnose symptoms more precisely when patients cannot provide detailed information. It also allows doctors to be more illustrative when explaining new treatment or to show patients how drugs will influence their body in an interactive way.

For instance, AccuVein is a vein visualization device that helps professionals find the patient’s veins for blood draws easier. Another example of AR in healthcare is EchoPixel is a medical visualization software platform that depicts human organs in open space. It can be used as a pre-surgery software to simulate and evaluate surgical treatment options.

Innovative Ways to Use VR in Healthcare

Simulated environments have proven to be very helpful both for patients and healthcare professionals. For this reason, VR in healthcare is becoming widely used as it gives access to visual experiences and activities that are impossible in reality, thus helping doctors to provide better treatment to their patients.

VR in healthcare helps with the planning of complicated surgeries, improves doctor skills during professional training, motivates users to exercise, and helps with emotional health treatment.

For example, Neuro Rehab VR develops VR training exercises that suit the individual needs of the patient and make the recovery process more enjoyable and engaging. Another case of VR usage in healthcare is a project by the students of the University of New England. The project aims to show young medical students what it is like to be an older person and help them develop empathy.

AI in Healthcare: Its Benefits

AI in healthcare has great potential in reshaping and enhancing the industry and bringing to the next level. Empowered with human-like processing and analytical abilities, AI  in healthcare can improve the speed of decision-making and make the diagnosis process more accurate, as well as limit the number of mistakes. Benefits of AI in healthcare include task automation, big data analysis, delivery of better healthcare faster.

The future of AI in healthcare means better medical outcomes, advanced treatment, and more patient engagement in the process. For example, PathAI technology helps doctors to reduce errors in cancer diagnoses and develops methods for individualized medical treatment. Enlitic develops tools based on AI to advance medical diagnostics by analyzing unstructured medical records and giving doctors better insights on the patient’s current state and needs.

Chatbots in Healthcare: Alternative to Human Workforce

Chatbots in healthcare are alternatives to hospital administrators, as they can easily collect appointment requests and schedule them. This technology can also be used as a medical consultant and answer questions regarding health conditions.

This is very useful as nowadays, we can find numerous unreliable resources on the Internet and come up with the wrong conclusions, so it’s better to have trustful support that can help patients instantly.

OneRemission is one of the examples of chatbots in the healthcare industry. Its chatbot helps those who fight against cancer by providing the list of diets, exercises, and post-cancer practices. Florence is another great example of chatbots in the healthcare industry or better to say “a personal nurse” who reminds its patients to take pills, helps to find the nearest doctor’s office, and tracks the user’s health state (like body weight, mood, period, etc.).

Data Science in Healthcare: Taking Analysis to the Next Level

Healthcare data science can revolutionize the industry together with the other available tools and solutions. Data science and healthcare are inseparable as medical records contain useful information that can be analyzed and used to prevent diseases, create a better treatment, and help discover new drugs.

Healthcare data science solutions gather information through wearables, monitor, and help to prevent health problems. One of the healthcare data science projects is OASIS that aims to give the scientific community free access to neuroimaging data sets of the brain. One more example is BERG Health; the company analyzes biological samples to reshape the cancer medical market.

Blockchain in Healthcare: Security and Accessibility

Blockchain in healthcare is another trend that helps to enforce the industry with secure platforms and facilitate data access. Blockchain in healthcare today allows patients to use a public-private key and decide who will be able to view their personal medical records or invite a specialist via a system to give consultation regarding health issues.

Blockchain Healthcare Use Cases

Blockchain technology in healthcare has been incorporated into different applications and systems like BurstIQ that help companies to improve the sharing and usage of medical data. Another example of the utilization of blockchain in healthcare is Factom that aims to store digital health records securely.

Electronic Healthcare Records (EHR) in the Healthcare Industry

Medical records of the patients are usually stored in forms like paper, audio, or video and contain information like patient ID, diagnoses, treatment, laboratory results, surgeries, etc. Electronic Healthcare Records (EHR) software helps to store this data electronically and is superior to paper records as they do not deteriorate, could not be lost, and do not require physical space.

For example, Amrita Medical Solutions serves critical access and rural hospitals. The company’s web-based system provides customized billing and 24/7 EHR tech support. CGI is another of the kind and offers health systems with EHR solutions designed to enable more accurate and faster diagnoses.

In a Nutshell

Healthcare technology trends help to reshape and enhance the industry, and what is more, they bring several advantages both for medical professionals and patients. Although the process is rather slow, still more and more hospitals and health organizations acquire cutting edge technologies and solutions to make their services better.

Combined, the healthcare field and IT industry are showing astonishing results and help thousands of people cope with diseases faster, more comfortably, and more effectively. We experience a significant change that once was only possible in Sci-Fi fiction.

This pandemic shapes new social norms and drives new social rules that humanity should get prepared for starting today. We, at Intellectsoft, empower companies and their workforces with innovation services and approaches to help them survive during these times. Are you and your organization looking for some?

Talk to our experts and find out more about the topic and how your business can start benefiting from it today!

The post 10 Healthcare Technology Trends to Watch in 2020 appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

• Technological progress;
• Number of users;
• Number of transactions.

The Year 2020 is a Crash Test for All Assets

The current crisis has made significant ripple effects across industries. The stock market went down 30%, gold and bitcoin plummeted in tandem, even oil traded for a negative price. The market has since shown a surprisingly fast rebound. Notably, cryptocurrencies increased in value substantially, too.

TOP Cryptocurrencies in 2020

Bitcoin

On May 11th, BTC reward for finding a block dropped another 50%, from 12.5 to 6.25 BTC. Since this approach to emission is a key characteristic of the PoW algorithm, there was enough excitement generated around the “halving” event. The price kept climbing, moving the entire market up until the event took place.

However, we are interested in a more meaningful approach to evaluating cryptocurrencies. Thus, we refer to the readiness of solutions for privacy, speed and scalability when mentioning technological progress. According to the Gartner chart, the industry is transitioning to the plateau of productivity through the slope of enlightenment.

Gartner, 2019

Also, today Bitcoin has 33 million addresses with around 1 million daily active users; over 10,000 nodes support the network. While slow in development, Bitcoin is the most popular and supported crypto asset with the potential to store vital information, like sidechain transactions or real estate ownership.

Ethereum

In 2017, there was a promise from ETH founder Vitalik Buterin to solve the scalability problem. Its biggest hope — the Plasma — failed to deliver on promises. Nonetheless, the amount of addresses is steadily increasing towards 100 million, with the majority of blockchain applications running on the Ethereum blockchain.

Additionally, various teams received a grant from the Ethereum Foundation to continue the quest of improving the protocol. For instance, zkSync by Matter Labs is looking to enable zero-knowledge proofs on the second-layer protocol while allowing cut-price fees for transactions. Still, Ethereum has a vast number of platform competitors:

OnChainFX by Messari: platforms as of May 2020

ZCash

ZCash and Monero remain the leading privacy cryptocurrencies. Despite their infamous connection to hackers, project communities thrive: exchanges like Coinbase Pro, Huobi and Hotbit listed these coins; Binance launched ZEC/USDT and XMR/USDT futures, and numerous live streams and updates took place in the last six months.

What’s more important, there is a growing usage of ZEC. People use it for commerce (39,000 locations available), support charities (Zcash has reached over 60,000 ID-verified recipients in Venezuela alone), and even earn this currency via learning (see Coinbase Earn).

Tether (USDT) and other stablecoins

OnChainFX by Messari: stablecoins as of May 2020

De facto Tether (USDT) is the digital dollar. Citizens of developing countries are using this stablecoin amid bitcoin during local crises to protect their savings. Tether has also replaced Ripple (XRP) from the third position in market capitalization. Although posing controversies, stablecoins are critical to crypto-economics as people use them for moving value across borders and trading on exchanges.

Dapps and specialized projects

Cryptomiso, number of commits for the past half-year

Chainlink, 0x, Basic Attention Token, and Augur remain the most active projects in terms of development. Overall, there are over 5,000 projects with 90% of them being neglected. Nevertheless, 16 ICOs ended this year with 39 coming soon, according to ICOdrops.

People had been anticipating a public release of two secretive projects: Telegram Open Network (TON) and Calibra by Telegram and Facebook respectively. Their leaders attracted massive investments and partnerships hoping to use this advantage before the SEC and pretend “too big to fail.” Unfortunately, the SEC sensed a threat to national security in the companies’ stable currencies: GRAM and Libra. As a result, Facebook froze the project and TON’s visionary Pavel Durov publicly accepted TON’s defeat.

Exchanges are a Lucrative Business

In 2017-2019 exchanges popped up en masse. However, frequent hacker attacks or a fraud took many out of business. There are now 270 exchanges and their branches that traded over $100,000 in cryptocurrencies in the last 30 days. They offer between 1 and 826 trading pairs. Only a handful of companies are able to keep their reputation clean and grow their audience globally.

The largest industry players in terms of liquidity volume are the following:

• Bitfinex ($197,948,966 in volume, 24h);
• Coinbase Pro ($464,774,254 in volume, 24h);
• Huobi Global ($1,021,997,618 in volume, 24h);
• Binance ($7,456,040,905 in volume, 24h);
• OKEx ($3,357,245,954 in volume, 24h).

OnChainFX by Messari: exchange tokens as of May 2020

Interestingly, Binance and Coinbase keep stretching their reach far beyond trading. They have launched services like custodial and non-custodial wallets, digital identity, digital securities (DSO) and decentralized exchange (DEX), crypto lending, mining pools, savings and debit card, a startup incubator and venture investment division. Having set security as a number one priority, these titans have cemented a solid foundation for the further development and global expansion.

Today, there are 15+ million Binance users in 180+ countries; the team operates in 40+ countries and keeps expanding a number of its communities. There are 30+ million Coinbase accounts from 102 countries, and it is still a humble number compared to the company’s ambition of reaching 5 billion people. Binance issued own token called BNB and Coinbase has its stablecoin called USDC.

Conclusion

One may have forgotten about the hot topic of the past three years. Indeed, the biggest projects like TON and Libra stumbled upon strong resistance from the financial system. Nonetheless, crypto assets signal their readiness for mass adoption. In spite of the COVID-19 crisis, people didn’t leave the market; quite the opposite — people bought more crypto as it is much easier and accessible than even two years ago. There are plenty of user-friendly interfaces to interact with them, and exchanges have become omnipresent and powerful hubs for it. In fact, it is an inviting opportunity to introduce your crypto solution before the next buzz.

The post State of Cryptocurrencies in 2020: Post-Pandemic Report appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

Summary:

1. Healthcare
2. E-commerce and Online Shopping
3. Entertainment
4. Restaurants and Food delivery
5. IT & Tech Industry
6. Construction
7. Hospitality
8. FinTech
9. Sensing and Shaping the Post-COVID Era

Today, for the global sectors, COVID-19 presents two challenges: largely idled sectors disrupting trade and reduced demand from consumers. A few examples to consider, Chile is reeling from reduced copper demand. Germany — from auto parts shortage.

In this article, we examine how different industries react to business and economic turbulence caused by the novel pandemic through innovation and digital capabilities. We discover this through the example of 8 industries that try to win over the battle using digital and innovation capabilities.

Healthcare

As each industry emerges from its acute response phase, many will find that they are entering a “new normal.” Expect the way healthcare is practiced and marketed to be no different.

Beyond the negative impact of a traditional economic downturn, COVID-19 presents additional challenges — fear from the virus itself, collective grief, prolonged physical distancing, and associated social isolation — that will compound the impact on our collective health.

Reported signs of distress related to COVID-19 in the US.

As the way healthcare is practiced evolves, so too will the environment and platforms through which that care is delivered. There will be new needs that emerge; new content will be needed, in new formats, manifesting in new marketing assets.

Digital Transformation in Healthcare and Other Solutions

There are three areas that healthcare marketing leaders should focus on, as the impact on their business and the subsequent need to adapt will be significant:

• Telehealth

The acceptance and utilization of telehealth services within the US were already on a sharp incline before the COVID-19 crisis erupted globally.  Since then, medical and municipal leaders are leveraging the platform as a tool in combating the spread of COVID-19, accelerating adoption in the process.

From a Payer perspective, CVS Health, Aetna, Cigna, and United Health are just a few of the payer organizations recommending patients move to virtual care – going so far as to waive copays for utilizing the service.

Consumers are showing increased interest as well, with SEMRush reporting a 146.15% increase in searches for “in-home doctor visits” and a 53.97% increase in “in-home medical care” searches.

• Urgent care

Urgent Care Centers are quickly becoming the front door in a person’s treatment journey.  A study from the Urgent Care Association found that a median of 35% of patients utilizing UCCs do not have primary care physicians, reflecting the fact that Healthcare is shifting to much more of an on-demand service. Medicare and Medicaid patients made up almost 27% of UCC patients in 2018, confirming that the shift is not driven only by the young or affluent.

The organization is flanking the physical services with digital efforts, with  almost 30% of the landing pages on CVS.com Minute Clinic specific. Not to be outdone, Walmart launched the first of its augmented health facilities in September 2019.

• Almost everything goes online

Medical conferences and congresses are a huge priority for companies in the Health sector. These events are valued by commercial organizations, advocacy groups, and healthcare professionals as key opportunities for medical education, peer-to-peer engagement, and the release of official study data.

While some of those activities have been digitally distributed in parallel, a vast majority of that activity is face-to-face. The COVID-19 crisis is forcing digital transformation in IT solutions for healthcare industry to take new turns.

Intellectsoft Healthcare Solutions

Since healthcare and economic environments force medical experts to take extra shifts, this greatly affects their own quality and safety of life.

The idea behind Intellectsoft’s solution was to empower medical professionals with a simple tool that gives them flexibility, control, and more. We created an on-demand healthcare staffing solution consisting of two parts:

• iOS and Android app with an Uber-like feel (for the Nurse role);
• Web Admin Panel (for Hospital Administrator or Security Supervisor role).

Some of the most significant features included there are a nurse and hospital management, shift management, notification center, data export, etc. Solutions of this kind can be a major stride within the current time frames because they help doctors stay focused on more essential things and certain patients with reaching for treatments.

As consumers and organizations have no other choice, the COVID-19 crisis is accelerating the utilization of digital platforms. While there have been financial, behavioral, and attitudinal roadblocks to adoption in the past, the need to overcome the crisis is superseding those roadblocks and increases the number of first-time users.

E-commerce and Online Shopping

Today, as B2B digital transformation statistics say, online shopping is the fastest-growing slice of the pie, dominating the scene and continuing to invest in digital capabilities.

Traditional, smaller players are also eyeing the online scene. Many traditional small markets have taken to online channels to hawk products, conduct online auctions, and even to carry out customer relation-building, for example, passing tips on how to prepare dishes using their products.

However, most authorities are warning organizations to prepare for the long haul. Virtually every company involved in global trade feels the impact.

Digital Transformation in B2B E-commerce

Digitalization had swiftly come into B2B E-commerce sectors a long time ago. But since recent times the situation has drastically changed, the technologies and trends have changed too. Although some things remain untouchable. Still, most of the E-commerce sales are made through mobile devices (73%). Progressive Web App (PWA), with its native-app-like experience, is also here to stay.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, personalized customer experience, and predefined analytics — all complement an evolution of B2B consumerization. Data remains the primary fuel for accelerating the development of any organization involved in sales. Focusing on eternal questions: what data to collect and how to process it effectively remains unsolved even today. 

In response to social distancing, many businesses will make their E-commerce operations a key priority.

Solutions

Here is what we suggest you can do right now to mitigate the impact of coronavirus on your E-commerce business:

• Even as early digitalization investments are paying off, the current inability to fulfill delivery of online purchases suggests digitization efforts by businesses have only been focused at the customer-facing end. Supermarket chains should consider integrating their online shopping platforms with the stock-holding information of their physical branches.

• COVID-19 may accelerate the growth of the online grocery sector. People did not just flock to physical supermarkets, but also loaded virtual carts with groceries from online platforms. With government directives to allow workers to work-from-home and to avoid non-essential trips to shopping malls, this trend of online shopping is likely to persist.

• Another possibility is for online shopping platforms to partner with businesses that specialize in delivery fulfillment such as UberEats, Grab, Glovo, and Bolt Food. B2B digital transformation trends are another milestone companies should consider today.

Intellectsoft Solutions in E-commerce

Since 2012, we’ve specialized in custom E-commerce application development, building E-commerce platforms dedicated to client’s needs or modify existing solutions to help scale-up businesses. A multi-category E-commerce platform based on digital tokens is one of the most significant solutions we’ve developed before.

The solution includes a number of software systems released atop of the blockchain network to allow for a seamless experience in different stores. Multiple stores built on top of a shared blockchain network. Merchants can open their account without any extra effort and start selling goods or services for internal cryptocurrency. Customers can securely buy, transfer, and exchange online and offline goods while receiving loyalty points for future purchases.

Get in touch with our top minds to find out how your business can start benefiting from our innovative solution today!

Entertainment

Around the world, COVID-19 is having a marked impact on media supply, consumption, and advertising. Demand for content-streamed, live, and multi-layered — is skyrocketing while new content creation has been largely turned off.

Since cinema and amusement parks across the globe are all shut down for uncertain times, thousands of entertainment organizations suffer formidable losses and fail to receive any kind of income. The outbreak triggered online entertainment and how some companies are finding ways to engage differently with consumers and the new reality.

Digital Transformation in Entertainment

• Demand for all forms of media — TV programs, short-form video, music streaming, and online gaming, particularly in geographies currently under stay-home instructions, has surged. Digital transformation in entertainment is expecting more new turns in the foreseen future.
• The supply of new content may be limited to a few weeks for some formats (e.g., daytime dramas). New TV series currently being launched were completed prior to production sets shutting down.
• Network resiliency and capacity continues to be a focus, as the demand for content surges. In the European Union, streaming platforms are reducing video quality to ensure networks are not overwhelmed and that customers can still view content.
• While sports companies come to terms with a wave of cancellations, many are seeking new ways to reach their customers digitally. Many are looking to eSports or online simulated events to provide content to fans, with even professional athletes engaging in eSports competitions.
• Musicians are going online and relying on streaming platforms as live shows are canceled.

Intellectsoft Solutions in Entertainment

Our partnerships with comprehensive streaming TV, film, and sports apps and websites have brought our clients and us valuable experience and knowledge of this industry.

Our solution was a cloud-based, highly scalable elastic platform with advanced search and ingestion layers functionality to support a multi-million users base with a steep growth curve. Among the most significant benefits our client got were:

• Cloud scalability and elasticity;
• Fast users growth potential;
• Streamlined rich client application.

Restaurants and Food delivery

Despite some concerns, food delivery companies gain their momentum and become a popular option as people practice social distancing. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how much growth there has been in this sector, but higher demand has led to higher pricing in some areas. What more to expect?

Digital Transformation in Food Industry

Uber, for example, recently provided Uber-only drivers with information on adding Uber Eats food deliveries to their services. Within the first week, around 15% of Uber drivers had completed their first food delivery.

Fine dining establishments, small-town restaurants, and fast foods are now switching to offer delivery services to their customers. At the same time, restaurants that did not previously offer take-outs are now considering this option as never before. Some restaurants choose a third-party delivery service to partner with, and each offer comes with unique benefits.

Uber Eats and Deliveroo, among others, have launched contactless “leave at your door service” to help drivers and customers follow social distancing and quarantine rules.

In addition to understanding already in place strict food hygiene standards, consumers may also be interested to learn if the businesses have:

• New practices for social distancing in the kitchen or during delivery pickups;
• Policy for staff members who display symptoms of COVID-19;
• Changes in food delivery guidelines, such as containers that allow for easier disinfection or better customer experience.

Though it is uncertain where the digital transformation in food industry and the delivery trend will go in the post-COVID-19 era, many businesses are working as hard as they can to ensure they meet consumers’ expectations and remain relevant by providing an excellent service.

IT & Tech Industry

The effects of COVID-19 and are having a significant impact on the technology sector, too. However, the disruption has caused reevaluation on organizations’ business continuity plans (BCPs) as well as the acceleration of remote operations and online meetings. Let’s dive in to see what has changed more and what solutions organizations appeal to remain afloat.

Digital Transformation in IT and Other Solutions

• Companies with remote-working technologies already see increased demand as organizations accelerate their remote-working capabilities.
• Security software will see third-order benefits from a growing remote workforce. Organizations race to secure endpoints, cloud-based tools, log management, and VPNs. So, IT spending on security software will increase too.

• Due to enhanced remote work scenarios, IT digital transformation will play a larger role in future BCPs. Thus, CIOs and senior management will need to ensure a resilient, secure network, disaster recovery systems, and more devices for the ones working remotely.
• The need for ever-faster access to data and automation will drive the focus on network equipment and communications, speeding up 5G network and equipment introduction.
• An increase in the use of tele- and video-conferencing software as more companies encourage employees to commute.

Intellectsoft Business Continuity As Crisis Response

As a part of our Business Continuity Plan, within a couple of days, the global Intellectsoft team organized the smooth transition to remote operation without affecting any core systems and business processes to operate as usual during this period.

As we are always fully committed to continue providing our customers and partners with the products and services they depend on, our senior leadership team remains vigilant and is monitoring the situation in real-time to respond rapidly to continuous change.

Construction

Today, the most vulnerable industries are those lacking digitalization and tech maturity. The construction industry is one of them.

Creating $1.3 trillion worth of structures each year only in the USA, the construction industry remains one of the most under-digitized industrial sectors. Longer-term construction companies across the globe will have to contend with decreased demand as governments face rising deficits, and residential and commercial projects are dampened by unemployment and low GDP growth.

To stay one step ahead of the crisis, the sector requires a different approach to the overall strategy. Digital transformation in construction industry is a burning topic for both — senior management and government. What are the solutions construction companies have today?

Solutions

Today, key questions executives and boards should be asking are: do we need to rethink our company’s digital strategy to remain financially solvent, and how can we use technology to gain operational leverage. And the digital transformation in the construction industry becomes inevitable.

The importance of transformation in different types of construction departments.

Digital Transformation Construction Industry Solutions

The construction giant’s partnership with Intellectsoft has brought us tremendous experience and practical knowledge of this area. We have witnessed how modern technology could transform and improve further processes. It also carried the customer over to the next business development stage, ensuring the company’s end-to-end digital transformation.

We hope to see more and more construction companies implement innovations and disrupt digital transformation in the future, such as:

• Scheduling and resource management system & real-time reporting platform;
• Asset tracking and management system;
• Vendor ecosystem & compliance solution;
• Decision-making dashboard based on Big Data analytics.

Join us at our upcoming Construction webinar hosted by industry top minds on Thursday, April 23, at 12 p.m. Eastern time. 

Register for Webinar

Hospitality

Hospitality is taking proactive financial steps to mitigate the huge impact. It’s obvious today, both revenue and supply chains will be affected the most. Hotels, restaurants, theme parks, cinemas all went silent. The entire disruptive effect of the hospitality industry will have a significant, tremendous impact on the global hospitality industry and economy. And there is a question hangs heavy in the air — can digital transformation in hospitality industry change the rule of the game?

Solutions

Despite this, hospitality shows its maturity level: in working together, showing their true hospitality commitments in helping out our society where they can. Technologies like artificial intelligence, big data, connected devices, virtual and augmented realities are shaping the hospitality industry as we speak.

Only during the last two decades dozens of industry disruptors, such as Airbnb, Skyscanner, and TripAdvisor, have appeared on the market. Companies and organizations are expected to get out of the crisis more digitally mature, and those ones who find enough strength to focus on digitalization — are going to win the race. Here are some of the steps to consider today:

• “We may be apart, but we’ll get through this together,” says Airbnb experts introducing 50 new online experiences with unique activities for their customers. The home-sharing platform curates free online experiences to inspire people and stay afloat.

• Digital transformation in the hospitality industry should now be focused on those that we know are available to travel. The dramatic rise in online gambling during COVID-19 lockdowns is one of the results of current circumstances. The online gambling industry is one of the winners of the current shutdown, and some offline casinos and other organizations can consider this as a potential opportunity for future growth.

• Smart automation confidently moved into the industry through the Internet of Things technology. It has improved not only the convenience and comfort standards for clients but also reduced costs for businesses and organizations.

• Robots that handle food preparation and delivery, predictive analytics, and cloud storage — are the next big moves for automation in the industry.

While the COVID-19 shutdown has brought the industry to a standstill, it is also an opportunity for the companies to reevaluate their digital strategies and map out the right path ahead.

Intellectsoft Digital Transformation in Hospitality

From ordering concierge services in one tap to booking golf courses in less than a minute, our expertise in the Hospitality industry has an extensive history. Despite COVID-19, consumers continue to demand improved solutions and unique experiences. However, today the lockdown hit a stop button for most of the industry players.

During our long-term partnership with some of the key market players, we’ve witnessed that digital transformation remains one of the key drivers of industry growth today. Here are some of the solutions we’re proud to design for our clients:

• Turnkey solutions for the entire hotel;
• Internet of Things ecosystem that connects all amenities and guest services;
• Created an app that adapts to suit type;
• Comprehensive IT audit for software systems;
• Streamlined system, eliminating bugs, and making necessary improvements.

FinTech

Digital-only becomes the new industry norm in financial services, greatly accelerating a trend that started in the last decade. Digital transformation in FinTech triggers a “Big Pocket” battle between incumbents and challengers to win the (newly) online customer. Financial Institutions turn to Tech companies rather than in-house solutions to accelerate digital transformation.

Digital Transformation in FinTech

FinTech sector winners:

• Consumer and SME lending platforms: best-adapting mechanism to swiftly and efficiently deliver capital to key segments of the economy;
• Mortgage and life insurance digitalization: leaping forward with technology to disrupt the role of intermediaries, whose role was often face-to-face.

FinTech’ enablers’ around AI, IoT, and software solutions are in high demand:

• AI: bots for call-centers; account-opening procedures; loan automation;
• KYC: increased need for safe digital ID given volume of digital business transacted and robust solutions required for the protection of client assets.

Sensing and Shaping the Post-COVID Era

Crisis often leads to changes. This time is no exception. The shifts in social attitudes and behaviors we see today pave the broad path to new opportunities and ways of living and working. Some of which is here to stay with us in the long run. Some of which disappear right after the crisis is gone.

Crisis often leads to long-lasting changes. Source: BCG Henderson Institute.

Nevertheless, some changes show a positive dynamic. For example, we see a greater focus on crisis preparedness, system resilience, social inequality, social solidarity, and access to health care. These attitudinal shifts could, in turn, be reflected in significant policy shifts in many areas, including trade, border controls, health care, crisis preparedness, foreign affairs, employment, and social welfare.

This pandemic shapes new social norms and drives new social rules that humanity should get prepared for starting today. We, at Intellectsoft, empower companies and their workforces with innovation services and approaches to help them survive during these times. Are you and your organization looking for some? Talk to our experts and find out more about the topic and how your business can start benefiting from it today!

The post Digital Disruption: The Industries’ Way of Survival During the COVID-19 Crisis appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

Digital transformation is, no doubt, one of the key drivers of industry growth today. But since the sudden COVID-19 pandemic outbreak hit the “pause button” hard-full stop, the hospitality industry especially is losing its positions day after day.

Nevertheless, consumers always continue to demand improved solutions and unique experiences. The industry is rapidly adopting new technologies to exceed their expectations and digitize the customer journey with one-tap check-ins, digital concierge services, voice-activated devices, chatbots, smart in-room technologies, advanced analytics, virtual-assistant platforms, enhanced direct bookings, and more to come.

Travel. Transformed.

Many companies from the hospitality industry are still only entering the new exciting world of digitalization. To create a more seamless guest experience, more hotels automate and streamline the travel processes, developing the advanced tools necessary to capture the full potential of data.

Moreover, considering that millennials are increasingly dominating the travel sector, hospitality companies should be prepared to curate and personalized travel offerings and to make a data-enabled transformation work. This generation of tech-savvy travelers prefers using apps for bookings and getting more personalized interactions. The cultural change, as well as the long-term impact of automation, machine learning, and even robotics, are here to stay.

Intellectsoft’s experts have developed an in-depth overview of digital transformation trends in hospitality and what to expect from hotels of the future presented in this infographics:

View full size

What’s next

Some things never change. Companies powered by data and advanced technologies will always be driven by people. Hospitality organizations are no different. They have to keep pace and grow into agile, reinvent themselves to become more relevant, and deliver engaging customer experiences.

Leaders have to bring to the fore some fundamental questions about values, cultural changes, privacy, and cybersecurity if they want to keep up with automation and machine learning solutions.

We empower companies and their hospitality workforce with tools like travel AI and chatbots, and data-driven insights to transform into intelligent operations. Are you and your organization ready to shift the mindsets and get the most out of innovations?

Talk to our experts and find out more about the topic and how your business or project can start benefiting from it today!

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In the past, Intellectsoft Blockchain Lab has reviewed blockchain technology trends. Generally, they fit within the three waves of digitalization when the first to disrupt the industry are startups and SMEs. During the second wave, the enterprise starts to catch up while carefully observing the market and studying ways to upgrade its business verticals. Finally, iconic corporations from a traditional and overregulated space with gargantuan infrastructure and decades of history begin to accept the new reality.

There is one case from an old good business that urges for blockchain implementation both in terms of cost savings and military-grade security — it’s aviation. In the future, the growth of this sector will depend on the increasing wealth of emerging economies with new consumers representing an astounding 6 billion people. Whereas the next-generation airline fleet introduces opportunities to optimizing operations, it will also require significant investment in the in-service commercial planes.

Why AOG matters: Aircraft Market Dynamics

When an aircraft signals to pilots that something is wrong, there is a delay. The plane is forbidden to take off until the issue is handled and the crew is safe to proceed a voyage. Such cases are commonly referred to as Aircraft on Ground (AOG) situations. It is also when each tick of a clock costs an airline thousands of dollars.

The problem may not concern original equipment manufacturer (OEM) or firms responsible for maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) directly since a planned repair is a different case. But the moment an airline realizes a detail replacement is necessary as soon as possible, it is left one-on-one with the issue. Suddenly, its managers are forced to start searching for the exact piece at the current airport or nearby locations. It can be either an entire engine or a little tube in the lower shell of a fuselage.

Even if the crew gets lucky and their colleagues possess a missing piece, the price may triple or quadruple due to numerous brokers being involved. There is an entire secondary market for aircraft components where managers exchange information upon the request:

• Whether they have the needed part
• Part ID
• Maintenance history
• Rapid shipping availability
• Cost for the part and service

Since the airline loses more when the plane doesn’t operate, it is ready to pay almost any price the seller and a reseller would offer it. Moreover, the process itself is lengthy and costly. It is bizarre and yet true that airlines are eager to follow these bureaucratic procedures and even deliver a single piece using another plane since that still would be cheaper than losing reputation and money from reimbursement.

The problem only gets bigger as Oliver Wyman estimates in-service commercial airline fleet to increase up to over 35,000+ by 2027 from 25,000+ aircrafts today. With aircraft deliveries growing to 20,000 over this period, the retirement of older technology will total 10,000 in six years, resulting in 58% of the new-generation planes. Such a massive technology shift will significantly increase the need for the Used Serviceable Material (USM) market. Increased USM has the potential of reducing material costs for airlines and MROs.

Commercial airline MRO is forecast to grow at a 3.8% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) by 2027. Thus, the market demand will change from the current $80+ billion to almost $109 billion over the 7-year period. In fact, net fleet growth by region will vary: the major growth is observed in Asia, specifically in China and India. On the other hand, North America is going to lag behind Asia and Europe as the third-largest region.

An eBay for Airlines on Blockchain

In the aviation industry various factors matter: the source of the detail, its material type, modification number, the full time of usage and its current state, the history of the detail maintenance since it left a factory and all respective documentation available. Since the novel aircraft technology introduces additional construction materials (such as carbon fiber composites, hybrid fusions, and special coatings), it adds complexity to the MRO market.

New data collection and measurement tools are designed to offer advanced forecast capability. Platforms like Partsbase and E-plane already support this secondary market with a list of millions of inventory items and automated requests for quotations (RFQs). However, the need for properly harnessed maintenance for aviation organizations remains. Service companies must introduce a formalized approach to the necessary level of security that airlines demand and integration with their legacy systems of inventory management.

During a regular SOW meeting with a team of the client company, we presented a Proof-of-Concept for the new generation tracking and procurement system. We responded to the challenge by offering an elegant solution: a blockchain-based marketplace for selected manufacturers and trusted airline partners.

This is a simplified chart for a system workflow

As depicted in the chart above, it aggregates data on ownership movement, parts condition and maintenance history, and is securely shared on a consortium blockchain network. Within such a network, each participant would have a chance to host their own node to enable real-time data security and decentralization. Our “eBay for Airlines” can help take action before a component fails and significantly enhance reliability, cultivate proactive decision-making and reduce costs.

Aviation Procurement Platform: Closer Look

Tech Stack

Our case with the client to deliver a supply chain platform for a revolutionary aviation needed to cover the following goals:

• Military-grade security
• Real-world assets tokenization capability
• Transparent parts and ownership history
• Provenance and maintenance tracking
• Fast search and purchase process

To achieve this ambitious task, we referred to Hyperledger Family of frameworks, in particular, Hyperledger Fabric in combination with modular platform architecture. It is the most mature enterprise-grade blockchain framework with consortium capabilities.

Hyperledger Fabric is an open-source private network with custom logic, simple permission levels, sophisticated queries and mixed data formats. With its medium speed, dynamic block time and block size, absence of transaction fees and native support by infrastructure providers, we chose it as a great fit for the aircraft management and procurement platform.

Platform core services

The system needs to include various vital components to guarantee access and accounts control, transaction validation, asset management, private data management, transaction execution. Specifically, a secured API layer with DDoS protection guards the main point of contact with its database and information exchange. Security and accounts services ensure the validity of digital ID and flexibility of settings to oversee account permissions, limitations and overall access.

E-commerce core engine handles e-commerce functionality management whereas an asset storage service tracks all assets, transactions and requests keeping their status relevant. KYC service communicates with KYC/KYB providers and stores encrypted user data. Notifications service provides multiple channels for communicating with clients: email and SMS.

Finally, the blockchain asset management layer covers all asset history and transactions and broadcasts information to a secured blockchain network. As a result, the history of all successful transactions is stored permanently on an immutable ledger and serves as a rock-solid proof for airline’s activities: MRO, insurance, and asset management.

Payment gateways related services

The irrevocable element of our procurement system is seamless interaction with legacy banking networks such as SEPA, SWIFT, Visa, or PayPal. Notably, the system can be as fast as its slowest chainlink. Therefore, we added a range of options not only for a quick search but also for payment and delivery.

This module covers fiat payments service that acts as an interface to banking service, an international wire transfer service, and localized rates, jurisdiction and limitations details. Perhaps, we will add virtual assets management in the near future. Although, the companies from our case are usually paying with net 60, meaning that even solutions like TransferWise are quite rapid.

On the other hand, the US dollar is currently considered a global reserve currency, especially within aviation. However, the world is changing so quickly that we might witness an emergence of an alternative. As an advantage, our system can introduce ether or bitcoin when necessary.

Shipping services

Shipping is the inevitable part of the process, and our system counts on integrations with the biggest shipping providers to bring maximal transparency and automation. This component enables worldwide coverage and includes:

• Integrations with DHL, FedEx
• Delivery status tracking
• Specific configurations for different locations and jurisdictions

Concluding the AOG Blockchain Case

Intellectsoft has been witnessing how the three waves of digitalization penetrated global industries: first startups, then enterprises and traditional companies. Aviation is among the most regulated sectors; simultaneously, it is the one that calls for radical optimization. We introduced one of the solutions that can save airlines millions of dollars while remaining excellent customer service. It simplifies a complex process of searching, querying, paying and shipping MRO parts in the overly formalized market and promises to achieve a competitive edge to those companies that implement blockchain in their business verticals.

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