Market research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan has analysed 40 ‘mega trends’ that it believes will affect how the world functions in 2020, said Frost & Sullivan’s Phil Howarth at the Growth, Innovation and Leadership 2011 Africa event, in Cape Town on Thursday.

Howarth explained that mega trends had implications for how society, markets and cultures were transformed. He specifically identified key trends that will have implications in the African context, with urbanisation being the main mega trend.

As a phenomenon that is already affecting cities such as Johannesburg and Cape Town, Frost & Sullivan has calculated that, in 2020, 60% of the world’s population will live in urban areas and cities. Gauteng, he said, would become a mega region, defined by 15-million or more people, which will generate 40% of South Africa’s GDP and 12% of that of Africa.

A second mega trend was the advent of ‘smart’ technology, which Howarth says has become the new ‘green’. “Where companies have generally not seen a return on investment from green initiatives, we believe that smart opportunities, such as smart technology, smart infrastructure, smart energy and smart buildings, will create opportunities and better rewards for business investment,” he said.

Social trends made up a third aspect that will be most relevant in the future. With social networking already having made a significant impact on the twenty-first century economy, Howarth said that geo-socialisation – social networking combined with location-based technologies – would be significant in 2020. “This will be driven by the Generation Y population of people between the ages of 15 to 34, which in 2020 will constitute 2.56-billion people, 61% of these being from Asia alone,” he said.

Howarth explained the significance of the study on mega trends: “We see them as global sustained forces that are macro in nature but they have micro implications. They affect business, economy, society, our personal lives, they’re futuristic and they define the very pace of change to our everyday lives. It doesn’t matter what function or career you have within an organisation, mega trends should impact your thinking.”

“Whenever we present on mega trends we have to take a look at technology. I know that in our global mega trend programme there are tens of thousands of technologies that we analyse. The first is what we call ‘Space Jam’,” said Howarth, referring to the fact that, in the next 10 years, an additional 900 satellites will be launched into space.

“This is significant because 50% of these satellites will be for commercial applications, where in the past satellites have mostly been launched for government or military purposes,” he said.

“This means there will be huge increases in broadband speeds and bandwidth availability, which will give rise to applications across many different industries,” he said.

He also noted that Frost & Sullivan was confident that electric mobility, or e-mobility, will become a future trend and that by 2020 there will be 40-million electric vehicles sold yearly around the globe, with 30-million a year of these being two-wheel vehicles, and the remainder being made up of four-wheel vehicles.

Howarth was confident of these figures, with in-depth analysis having been carried out in conjunction with vehicle manufacturers around the world.

“We need to know that mega trends cross sectors and affect all industries. We need to carefully examine the impact of mega trends on a specific industry. In Africa we need to look at these trends in terms of the local opportunities they present in terms of local sales opportunities, but also in terms of the international export opportunities they present, as well as how we can be part of the supply chain to target those international opportunities,” Howard concluded.