24 January 2022
To start the year we talk to our Joint CEO, Bradley Sacks about the industry trends that will shape Capital Appreciation in 2022

Emerging trends


In summary there are three megatrends that will shape the technology industry as well as Capital Appreciation in the coming year. Cloud as a catalyst for adoption of AI, event data is a gold mine, and fast and actionable data are no longer buzzwords. Let me unpack these.

 

As we know, cloud is a catalyst for the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). The process of moving a business’s digital assets, including its service offerings, it’s client database etc. to the cloud is more complicated than it sounds. We have taken the opportunity to fill this gap in the market and are well positioned to offer companies exemplary data migration strategies. Testament to our deep technical expertise, our AWS partnership (Cloud) continues to grow, and Synthesis recently achieved the impressive milestone of 200 Amazon Web Services (AWS) certifications.

 

According to a report by Deloitte Global1, “innovators are making it easier for more companies to access AI capabilities through the cloud … and companies will accelerate their use of cloud-based AI software and services, resulting in full-scale implementation, increased investment and returns, and democratisation of AI benefits.”

 

Advances in machine learning and deep-learning neural networks have opened up a myriad of ways for companies to improve their operations, develop new offerings, and provide better customer experiences. Event data is a gold mine and alarmingly we find that many businesses still do not have a big data strategy. Fortunately, we are living in a time where organisations can adopt strategies with ease and more importantly extract insights from data to make better business decisions. Moreso, they can better predict the future and develop services and solutions that will serve their customers in a unique way. We are delivering good results in this area for our clients, as the companies in our portfolio proactively become faster and more competitive.

 

 

‘Fast data’ and ‘actionable data’ are no longer buzzwords. Businesses must bridge the gap between the data they have and the ability to turn it into meaning insights. The link has to be made and for it to be most impactful it needs to be done fast in order to capitalise on serving the customer at the time of the event or circumstance that give rise to the data.  This is how businesses can gain a competitive advantage.

 

Exciting Group developments


The Synthesis Digital team recently expanded into the shipping and logistics industry, after winning an RFP to build digital and AI systems for a large container shipping group operating out of Singapore. This has been a really exciting venture for our group and presented a further opportunity to earn dollar-based income.

 

We also launched a new subsidiary company Synthesis Labs B.V., driven by Synthesis South Africa and based in the FinTech hub of Amsterdam. This new venture will allow the Group to capitalise on international opportunities matched to the skillset, services, and product offerings that have been finely honed over the past years.


It is an exciting time as this marks the start of a focused effort to further diversify our customer base by introducing more international clients.


One of the new innovations of 2021 was Halo Dot, which falls within our software IP portfolio. It transitioned from being a smart technology idea into a fully functional card payment acceptance capability that can be installed on any Android-powered smart device. The “tap-on-phone” contactless payment capability has been broadened to also include PIN entry capabilities, all of which have Visa, Mastercard and American Express certification. Its compelling “PIN on glass” payment application promises to do well. We have seen significant interest for this product in South Africa and internationally

 

We’re off to a great start for 2022 and we’re looking forward to sharing more details on our expanding Group soon. Watch this space for further announcements this year.

 

Reference:

  1. https://www2.deloitte.com/lu/en/pages/risk/articles/cloud-accelerates-ai-adoption.html
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