Tech Bytes: Three Technologies Poised to Disrupt Future of Retail

A lot of attention has been paid to a variety of technologies currently disrupting retail, like beacons and wearable devices. Here are three technologies still in the development phase that hold potential to radically disrupt retail, and even life as we know it, in the next 10 years:



Quantum Computing

I first learned of quantum computing during a casual discussion with Skyler Fernandes, managing director of Simon Venture Group, at a Plug and Play Tech Center event in Sunnyvale, California. The Silicon Valley setting was a perfect place to learn about efforts to develop super-powerful computers which would use quantum mechanics to process data in volumes and at speeds unimaginable today.



The specifics of how quantum computing works are well beyond my understanding. Suffice it to say retailers will be able to perform activities like targeting customers, predicting consumer demand, forecasting weather, and other data-intensive and future-looking tasks with much greater ease, speed and accuracy.



However, quantum computers will also be able to crack any security code currently used to protect digital data in an instant. The most advanced digital security technology available today would become obsolete. With major world governments and IT companies all actively developing quantum computers, it is a matter of when, and not if, retailers will face these new opportunities and challenges.



Self-driven vehicles

An experimental fleet of Google self-driving cars has driven more than one million combined miles with no at-fault accidents and a few minor collisions, with the majority caused by other (human) drivers. This phenomenal safety record has rightfully achieved widespread recognition, but retailers will directly benefit from other factors.



Most automotive experts agree that self-driving cars will become standard transportation, possibly in as soon as 10 years. With “drivers” no longer bound by the need to actually pay attention to the road, consumers in cars will become a captive audience ripe for engagement in omnichannel commerce.



Location-, time-, and context-sensitive targeted offers to bored commuters could have extremely high conversion rates, especially with the potential for other automated vehicles or drones to deliver goods right to the customer’s car window. That unpleasant sound you hear is fast food and coffee retailers salivating.



Universal Internet

In the cult 1980s film “Riders on the Storm,” Dennis Hopper led a crew of renegades flying a B-29 bomber across the U.S., interrupting TV broadcasts with countercultural messages. Facebook’s plan to broadcast the Internet to remote and impoverished locations around the world using drones is not quite so anarchic, but potentially much more disruptive to the status quo.



Google and other tech companies have similar plans to deliver truly universal Internet access by means such as high-altitude balloons and satellites. Much of the world’s population still does not have ready Web access. Gaining it would open them to participation in the global economy, thus raising their standard of living and creating new middle classes.



There is no customer quite like a new member of the middle class, as evidenced by retailers’ intense focus on developing markets like Russia, India and China (hundreds of millions still lack Web access in these three countries). Nations like Myanmar, Ethiopia and Bangladesh, which are almost completely disconnected, may be the growth markets of tomorrow thanks to universal Internet access.