Author: riddhisawantwrites

Future Outlook of the Global Construction Industry

Adapting to new trends in the connected world

The construction industry is steadily coming out of challenges after disruptions created by the Coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital technologies in almost every industry, including the construction industry. Automation and digital construction trends are becoming popular among civil engineers, contractors, and developers. Technological advancements in the construction industry are boosting the overall efficiency of building and development operations.

Construction professionals are rapidly shifting toward advanced methods of construction and smart operations to improve the productivity level of workers. As the global population continues to grow, contractors are witnessing an increase in the demand for houses, residential apartments, and commercial buildings on a massive scale. Engineers and architects are making use of advanced manufacturing practices to fulfill the construction demands of the mass population.

Prefabrication is one of the most popular trends in the construction industry, in which prefabricated structures are being made off-site in a factory, which is then assembled and transported to the construction site. The focus of the construction and infrastructure development companies is shifting towards advanced manufacturing processes & structural design with the help of scalable components to maintain accuracy & speed.

The future of the construction industry seems bright with the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology that can be widely used in resource management, budget allocation, minimizing safety issues, and remote allocation of resources. There is rapid growth and advancement in the development of smart city projects across the globe. In many developing countries, huge capital investment is being made by the government to support the development of smart cities for sustainable economic growth. Technological development in the construction industry, increasing usage of numerous mobile-based applications to access remote working sites, and real-time inspections & monitoring through mobile cameras are creating tremendous growth opportunities in the coming years.

Construction is no longer about building unique structures and physical infrastructure. Various other tasks are being managed by the professionals such as streamlining workforce allocation, project management, design & development, efficient management of resources, material availability, and supply. Affordable and sustainable materials for construction are being developed by the manufacturers. 3D printing methods are being increasingly adopted across the globe due to the surging demand for affordable houses from potential buyers.

The emergence and implementation of automated processes make the construction site safer and more efficient. Increasing applications of drones in the construction industry minimize the human presence on-site. The rising presence of robots on a construction site will continue to protect the workers from danger and help boost productivity. Sustainability in operations, adoption of advanced tools for building & construction activities, and better project management methods are reshaping the construction sector in the coming years.

Top 10 Food Technology Innovations & Trends for 2022 and Beyond

INNOVATION OUTLOOK OF FOOD TECHNOLOGY TRENDS IN 2022

Opening up of the HoReCa (Hotel, Restaurant, Café) industry after the peak Coronavirus period is benefitting stakeholders in the food technology and innovations industry. Food businesses are increasing efforts to strike the right balance of creativity and science to meet taste palettes of foodies whilst aligning their business to a circular economy. But do food businesses need constant improvement for technological innovations? Let’s find out!

Top 10 food technology trends that are revolutionizing the market landscape can be illustrated as follows:

  1. Food Safety & Transparency

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the importance of food safety and transparency. Blockchain holds promising potentials to enable food safety by tracking how food products travel from farm to the customer’s table.

2. Veganism

Researchers in the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, are developing plant-based cheese that stretches and melts through prolamin technology. Innovations are underway for extrudable fat technology that mimics animal fat in plant-based meats and allows for more authentic fat textures, such as marbling.

3. Alternative Proteins

Following suit for vegan food, alternative protein product manufacturers are drawing innovations in plant-based meat, lab-grown meat and edible insects amongst other items. Microbial based protein is grabbing the attention of consumers since it is derived from the dried cells of micro-organisms such as yeasts, microalgae and fungi.

4. Nutraceuticals

Though nutraceuticals are storming the health and fitness industry, there is a need for ready & near-market platform technologies for processing ingredients like proteins, fibers & probiotics into marketable value-added functional food & nutraceutical products.

5. 3D Food Printers

3D (3 Dimensional) food printing is a breakthrough innovation in the food technology industry and is expected to grab the attention of the Gen Z population that opt for Instagram-friendly pictures of food items.

6. Personalized Nutrition

Mobile apps are emerging as one of the best strategy to facilitate personalized nutrition for individuals in need of weight loss and weight gain. Customized diet plans help individuals of different age group and ethnicity to align with their fitness goals.

7. Food Wastage Reduction

The FoodCloud social enterprise app is gaining recognition for allowing food businesses to upload information about their stock whilst alerting charities to collect and distribute any surplus.

8. Restaurant Digitization

Paperless menus and collection of consumer data are key restaurant digitization trends. Food product merchandizing through eCommerce and hyper-local food delivery apps are propelling growth in the landscape of food technology & innovations in 2022.

9. Robotics

Food serving robots and robots for food manufacturing are bringing a sea change in the food technology industry. Right from agriculture stages to restaurants, grocery stores and home cooking, food robots are being programmed to help with food cultivation & production tasks.

10. Plastic-free & Smart Packaging

Since sustainability has become one of the most overused words in any industry, manufacturers are designing plastic-free and smart packaging solutions that are suitable for high temperature food items. They are innovating in realistic plastic alternatives like bioplastics that are both biodegradable and non-biodegradable.

Above takeaways indicate that the market of food technology & innovations is projected to advance at an astonishing CAGR in 2022 and the upcoming decade.

How Data-driven Trend Intelligence Makes a Business Future-ready

Data-driven decision is the new master-key for unlocking profitable business avenues. But what are the right steps to capitalize on big data potentials? Let’s find out!

Big data has become the bread and butter for most businesses by now. The obvious answer to gain a competitive edge is data-driven intelligence. So how do new trends influence business activities in organizations and what are its long-term impacts? Let’s explore!

What is Data-driven Trend Intelligence?

Data-driven trend intelligence is a technique where business owners gain cognizance about ever-evolving market trends like falling raw materials prices, increase in dollar rates and new geo-politics activities with the help of software & technology platforms. This type of trend intelligence has been helping business owners to map long-term implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects to overcome supply chain disruptions, logistics availability and product delivery.

How Trend Intelligence Makes a Business Future-ready?

Trend intelligence helps business organizations to accurately predict, monitor and act on possible future trends that tend to influence consumer behaviors. For instance, the ongoing veganism trend in the food industry is compelling manufacturers to innovate in ready-to-eat products using plant-based foods.

How AI and Big Data Makes Trend Intelligence More Lucrative for Profits

Since artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions, AI holds potentials for trend tracking to help market players gain a competitive advantage. Since data is the new oil and has surpassed the valuation of oil revenue in the world, big data helps to provide a wealth of insights that help to simplify business processes as per future trends.

Opportunities and Challenges of Data-driven Trend Intelligence

Though data science plays a monumental role in allotting financial budgets for long-term business activities, its challenges include inaccurate information since real-time changes in trends affect machine learning (ML) algorithms. To overcome these challenges, business organizations are now analyzing broad sets of data with many inputs to find key insights in real-time. Continuous troubleshooting in ML algorithms is another strategy to gauge accurate market trends. Data science experts are pulling up dashboards to acquire key information from broad data sets.

Thus, data-driven trend intelligence is paving the roadmap for intelligence as a service model that enables C-level executives and managers to excel in organizational leadership & generate high return on investments (ROIs).

Roadmap for 2022: Energy, Resources and Industrial Sectors

A comprehensive viewpoint on sector trends

Due to the Coronavirus fallout, several industries like chemicals, oil & gas, utilities, construction and the renewables industry are undergoing tectonic shifts. The following blog gives a perspective on how market players can be optimistically cautious to maximize profits.

Future prospects for resilient business strategies in 2022

2020 and 2021 witnessed major ups and downs in terms of business & industrial trends. With the beginning of the financial year in 2022, market players and new entrants are anticipating promising growth potentials in the energy & industrial sectors. However, this optimistic outlook is being met with caution due to poor demand sentiments, labor shortages, high costs for raw materials and slow movement of goods & services. Thus, stakeholders in the industrial and energy sectors are gauging short-term and long-term industry trends of 2022 to tide over business uncertainties.

Companies are navigating through supply chain disruptions to ensure business continuity, especially in mission-critical projects of the energy, architecture, engineering and construction industry. Though 2022 is generating workforce and labor opportunities, challenges include with respect to growing skills gap as new technologies like digitalization take over and open positions going unfilled. This finding is prominent in the oil & gas industry since several thousand jobs were lost in 2020 and more than 50% of those positions remain open.

In the manufacturing sector, job openings continue to be at an all-time high with a possibility that workers and employees have chosen alternate employment opportunities to overcome the hire & fire trend amid volatility in businesses amid ongoing pandemic. While in the engineering and construction sector, lack of soft skills training and the presence of an exceedingly high number of engineers is reducing the scope for employment.

Such industry hurdles can be overcome with proper training, investment in forming focus groups and continuous R&D to onboard laborers & employees that contribute for long-term business & industrial growth. Companies in the renewables, utilities and chemicals industry are offering training programs in data science, programming & data analytics to ensure job security. These strategies ensure low attrition rates across industries. Companies are revising their financial budget for 2022 to adjust with changing shipping rates.

Thus, new government budgets, federal bills and implementation of new employment policies are safeguarding the interest of both the workforce and employers.