Editor's note: As we wind down to the end of 2015, Constellation Research Insights is taking a look back at the year's highlights with perspective from each member of the analyst team. In this installment, we check in with Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Guy-Frederic Courtin for his views on commerce, the supply chain and other topics from 2015.
What were the most important market trends in your coverage area this year?
Courtin: The continued evolution of matrix commerce and what that means for commerce in general. We're moving beyond the separation of commerce and e-commerce, and looking at commerce as an overarching thing. It's blurring the lines of digital commerce, physical commerce, phone sales, catalogs, all those things. Customers are demanding the same experience and level of service regarding how they interact with brands and channels. There's no tipping point—it's an evolution.
What was the most significant piece of research you published this year?
I wrote a report looking at five business models for the Internet of things. One is around the hardware—sensors, devices, things like that. Another is around engineered stacks, where companies are looking to produce a whole range of products that are IoT-enabled in their own ecosystem. Think the connected home, the connected car and so forth.
A third is what we call "insights platforms." This is more on the software side, with the goal of pulling in information. The fourth model we call "insights brokers," which are similar to syndicated research brokers like Bloomberg. The fifth is network ecosystems. Think connected cities, connected neighborhoods. You're going to have a lot of infrastructure associated with that and big companies like GE and Siemens are putting in a lot of effort here.
Which news events during 2015 had or will have the most impact on your coverage areas?
The price of gas being so low will have a long-lasting impact on our supply chain, particularly how that impacts retailers from the standpoint of discretionary spnding and the cost of shipping goods.
There's also going to be some impact from El Nino. There's the basic notion it's going to mess up winter-oriented product sales, and that's true to some degree. But most economists will tell you warmer weather is good because it has people out doing more things. People in the northeast are still booking tee times for golf.
The refugee crisis in Europe is also going to have an impact. It's putting a large strain on supply chains for folks like the Red Cross, but also logistics in general, what with people clogging up roads and rail heads. It's going to have impact on how you move goods around. I don't think we've seen the full brunt of it, but it's not something we can just dismiss as a socioeconomic event.
