A disruptive year –2020 is likely to be a tipping point in the adoption of digitalisation. We can see this in the way people are behaving as employees (working from home), as students (online education), as consumers (e-commerce), when seeking entertainment (virtual events, e-sports), and when needing medical advice (e-medicine). We also see this in business, especially with asset-heavy industries seeking efficiencies and disruptive new business models through artificial intelligence and automation. In our view these are likely to be long-lasting changes in behaviour which could lead to the next phase of technology-led growth around remote access.

We examine four themes linked to technology and related infrastructure that we think are key to these shifts, and hence well-placed to drive long-term outperformance in an already growing technology sector – connectivity, automation, experiential, and digital health. Our analysis uses the HSBC Disruption Framework, which classifies technologies into five phases of evolution. We focus on the important transition at the end of the cycle - from the “real applications” phase to the “new normal” - and the resulting 1st tier (intended) and 2nd tier (unintended) disruptive impacts on industries and consumer behaviour.