A year of “Elegant Chaos”

2012 is likely to be a year characterised by high technology, volatile asset prices and a positive economic undercurrent. In short, a year of “Elegant Chaos”. These were the takeaway themes from the first Finweek Outlook event for 2012 hosted in conjunction with consulting group Accenture. Guest speakers for the day included technology guru Simon Dingle, ETM Analytics Economist Russell Lamberti and Finweek Editor Marc Ashton.

Lamberti coined the phrase of "Elegant Chaos" to encompass his concerns around the state of the economic field and emphasized that investors should not mistake rising asset prices and stock markets for a sign of a healthy and emergent global economy.

“While Russell’s presentation was a little more downbeat than ours, I think his term ‘Elegant Chaos’ sums up what we expect to see in 2012,” said Ashton.

Finweek has identified 5 key trends for 2012:

Things will be better than “ok” – 2012 has kicked off on very positive footing and might surprise the world with an optimistic result 

Technology indices will lead the way – We wouldn’t be surprised to see the Nasdaq at least 10% above where it is trading now

South African platinum miners are in for a scare in 2012 – Government appears to be zeroing in on key sectors in the mining landscape

The unsecured lending bubble goes on – The warning signs are already apparent

A good year in retail is priced in – Retailers are going to have to work hard in the face of stiff competition

A common theme throughout all the presentations was that technology would be a huge driver of markets in 2012.

Willie Schoeman, MD of Technology at Accenture, agreed.  Citing Accenture’s latest Technology Vision 2012, Schoeman said that the global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company has identified context-based services as among the key emerging technology trends that are predicted to have a critical impact on businesses.  It predicts that a surge in context-based services is imminent, enabled by the convergence of and easy access to many sources of contextual information, including soaring smartphone usage, the expansion of cloud computing, an explosion of social media participation, and the development of powerful tools for aggregating and analyzing multiple forms of data.     

“CIOs and other IT leaders who have started to leverage contextual data to build a deeper understanding of consumer preferences and habits are establishing themselves as strategic players within their companies,” said Schoeman. “They are teaming more effectively with functions such as sales and marketing and leveraging contextual services to drive new revenue and deliver more value for their businesses.”

“For the last three years it has been a case of hunkering down and trying to survive, we think 2012 will be a year of opportunity, even if the world is a relatively volatile place,” concludes Ashton.