More so than in almost any other industry, if you’re doing business on the web you must move fast. Businesses are forced to constantly, quickly, and dramatically evolve their operations in response to trends and market forces.

Some recent examples:

• Online retailers are reckoning with the continued dominance of Amazon, which uses advanced personalization, among other tactics, to continually raise the bar for customer experience. This level of experience is near impossible to achieve for companies without the scale and flexibility (in particular, trustful shareholders and healthy revenue from other lines of business) that is enjoyed by everyone’s favorite retail hegemon.
• Publishers are dealing with the rising use of adblocking technology that stunts the potential revenue to be gained from tracking and advertising to users. As respected newspapers the world over will tell you, it’s never been easy to make a dollar on the web — and sophisticated, angsty users are making it even harder.
• And every business, in every industry, is having to rethink its web strategy to account for the stratospheric rise of mobile computing. 20 years of steady progress in web design and development for personal computers has been forcibly reconsidered in the span of a few years because everyone from your mom to your toddler is accessing the web on a mobile device.

Three Underlying Trends – With Ripple Effects Across the Industry

If we take the tangible challenges like those above and look deeper into the underlying forces behind them, we can capture what’s happening in a single sentence: mobile is imperative, context is king, and customers have taken power.

Mobile is driving changes to how we think of web experiences. Context is becoming increasingly important to realizing a positive ROI in advertising, marketing, and merchandising, as customers increasingly expect tailored experiences. And those customers, armed with information and a world of choice, have more power than ever to be kingmakers. How a business deals with these three trends will define whether it’s be paddling against the waves or riding them past competitors.

We at Yottaa, along with thousands of our peers in the wider internet technology industry, have been a part of the natural technological response to these forces. In particular we’ve seen the rapid growth of CDN, cybersecurity, mobile acceleration and predictive analytics, categories that have either been invented from whole cloth or massively evolved from their former selves. And the investment is pouring in. Each of those categories is expected to grow at or near double-digit rates through the next 5 years — some at over 40% CAGR.

How does one navigate the sea of services and opportunities?

To start with, by understanding them. That’s why we’ve put together a 16 page eBook that covers our thoughts on these trends and technologies, along with predictions for the next year. It includes statistics and recommendations for further reading about these trends, and how businesses can respond.

You can read or download the PDF here.