Insurers will soon abandon many mobile apps because of poor ROI, Gartner predicts

By the end of 2015, insurers will abandon 40% of their current customer-facing mobile applications because of inadequate return on investment, according to a forecast report from research firm Gartner.

The firm has released several of its top industry predictions for IT organizations and users for next year and beyond that.

It also predicts that by 2017, “15% of consumers will respond to context-aware offers based on their individual demographics and shopper profiles.”

“Transformation remains a critically important phenomenon across all industries,” Kimberly Harris-Ferrante, vice president and analyst at Gartner noted in a statement.

While last year, many industry decision-makers focused on converging social, mobile and cloud technologies, today they’re “significantly shifting their business models and processes,” she noted.

Some of the firms industry predictions include:

• By 2016, poor return on equity will drive more than 60% of banks worldwide to process the majority of their transactions in the cloud.
• By year-end 2017, at least seven of the world’s top 10 multi channel retailers will use 3D printing technologies to generate custom stock orders.
• By 2017, more than 60% of government organizations with a CIO and a chief digital officer will eliminate one of these roles.
• By 2017, 40% of utilities with smart metering solutions will use cloud-based big data analytics to address asset-, commodity-, customer- or revenue-related needs.
• Full-genome sequencing will stimulate a new market for medical data banks, with market penetration exceeding three percent by 2016.
• By 2016, 60% of U.S. health insurers will know the procedure price and provider quality rating of shoppable medical services in advance.
• Through 2017, K-12 online education spending will increase 25%, while budgetary constraints will keep spending on traditional instructional categories stagnant.
• By 2018, 20% of the top 100 manufacturers’ revenue will come from innovations that are the result of new cross-industry value experiences.
• By 2018, 3D printing will result in the loss of at least $100 billion per year in intellectual property globally.
• By 2015, 80% of life science organizations will be crushed by elements of big data, exposing poor ROI on IT investments.

“The pressures of consumerization continue to disrupt many enterprises, forcing them to change their traditional business processes and operational models,” noted Harris Ferrante.

“The necessity to adopt digital business models transcends all industry verticals, and its diverse impacts are creating business opportunities that were not possible in the past. Enterprises must respond immediately in order to build the right business and IT roadmap for future market demands.”