Dr. James Canton

The Future of Financial Services In A High Tech World

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Advanced new telecommunications such as the Internet are rapidly reshaping business, markets and customers. But this is just the beginning of a more dramatic shift in markets, customers and the industry brought on by technology. Fluid markets, price elasticity, real-time anywhere communications, global digital networks will reshape financial services. This multimedia-enhanced keynote examines the key trends, strategies and technologies that will revolutionize financial services. This keynote explains what will happen when and how to thrive with these high tech changes.

The digital convergence of fast networks, smart computers and integrated knowledge devices will create a new purchasing landscape. How will the financial service organization of the future integrate the Internet, call centers and the new communications devices to create more effective customer service? What will be the demands of the financial services customer and how can organizations plan today to prepare?

The emergence of the Internet as a virtual electronic channel for managing financial services offers many challenges and opportunities for organizations.. As the convergence of computers and telecom networks reshapes the marketplace of the future, technology will become a competitive advantage offering many cost-effective solutions. Digital cash, interactive TV, satellites, genomics, biotech, wireless super phones, intelligent agents, knowledge engineering are all key technologies that will drive future opportunity. A review of the best of breed customer companies and technologies will be highlighted. Find out from a leading futurist and CNN Guest Host what are the key strategies that will give your organization the competitive edge to help win in the 21st century.

Dr. James Canton

CEO

Institute for Global Futures

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Fortune Magazine Interviews Dr. Canton

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Fortune
Leading-Edge Strategies for Collaboration

February 12th 2001

Fortune Magazine Interviews Dr. James Canton
President, Institute for Global Futures

This is a very good time to be thinking about how to generate value from networks of interaction,
according to Dr. James Canton, president of the Institute for Global Futures, a San Francisco think tank that advises corporations around the world about . leading-edge technologies. It is a good time, he says, because current definitions of collaboration will expand exponentially as soon as fast bandwith becomes more available. “

Fast bandwith, which I am forecasting will increase by 300 percent this year in the U.S., will provide the pipe for new and more powerful forms of collaboration,” Canton says. One outcome, he adds, will be the wide- spread use of real-time video e-meetings featuring multiple screen windows. “One window will certainly be for real-time face contact, because we, as humans . want some kind of visual, tactile identification. A second window will be for looking at data. A third window Might be for viewing video demonstrations of various kinds.

That's stage 1, as Canton sees it: multiple windows in a rich, real-time interactive multimedia environment. : Stage 2, he says is virtual “telepresence,” in which users can navigate through virtual environements for training, education, and communications. Stage 3 is full sensory telepresence, where one can actually “feel” objects and navigate through environments equipped with sensory connections. In a fast bandwith environment, says Canton, Such things are feasible, and these three stages . will materialize over the next five years as new, highly secured versions of the Internet are developed for business-to-business commerce.

What Canton envisions is something much more transformative than meetings between coworkers or even across partnered companies. “This is much bigger than saying, 'Now we're all going to be able to talk over the Internet and do more work and produce better,'” he says. “Companies will have the ability to throw out a net and find customers for products and services that haven't been created. They will be able to identify a market, obtain commitments from customers, and locate the resources needed to produce the product or service, all through e-collaboration."

Canton is not naive; he knows that many of the pieces necessary to fulfill this vision are still missing. Ultimately, however, it isn't the global communications platform that he sees as the biggest hurdle. Traditional telcos are working feverishly to figure out how to provide that infrastructure and he is confident that they will have the pipes in place before long.

What concerns Canton more is the fact that, while the pieces are coming together to permit real-time multimedia interaction, meeting participants are still very far from being able to retrieve information on demand from internal databases.

In order to for employees to collaborate successfully, or for companies to communicate effectively with suppliers and business partners, the information needed to make plans, answer questions, and reach decisions - inventory and shipment data, supplier performance statistics, account histories, market intelligence, etc. - must be immediately accessible.

How well companies do at connecting all the pieces, as they become available will, in Canton's words, "define the winners and losers in the 21st-century marketplace." And, he adds, companies that hope to come up on the winning side ought to be acting now to ensure that outcome. Some measures Canton recommends are:

- Thinking about how customers' needs are likely to change in a real-time connected economy and how to provide more value to those customers in this new environment.

- Investing in systems and software that will transform how employees communicate to get their jobs done.

- Allowing the organization to experiment with new methods of collaboration and creation of "knowledge webs."

Dr. Canton's Streaming Media

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Streaming Keynote Videos

Dr. Canton's Demonstration Video
Ten Key Trends of The Extreme Future
The Extreme Future
Consumer Trends
Innovation and the Future
Future Innovation Landscape
Collaboration
Competing In the Future
Future of Business
Globalization
Innovation Economy
The Innovation Economy #2
The Emerging Nanofuture
Managing Future Disruptions
The Future of Financial Services
The Future of Healthcare
The Future of Healthcare #2
The Future of Healthcare #3
New Workforce
Future of the Internet
Future of Retail 
Technofutures 
Population-Demographics-Workforce

Streaming Media Interviews

CNN - Welcome to the Future - Health & Medicine
CNN - Welcome to the Future - Security
CNN - Welcome to the Future - Technology
CNN - Welcome to the Future - Workforce
CNBC Asia
CNBC - Street Signs
FOX News - Dark Times
FOX News - Crystal Ball
Forbes - Trends of The Extreme Future

Additional Videos

Institute for Global Futures Overview
Institute for Global Futures Overview & Innovation
Serious Game

The Future of Globalization

1 Globalization will be one of the key forces that determine competitive advantage in the future. This presentation offers a clear map of the future of globalization and what every organization must do today to prepare for this future. Based on this futurist’s new book The Extreme Future, and his work with global Fortune 1000 companies and governments, this presentation identifies the key trends that will shape the future of globalization. Developing a focused globalization strategy will determine your future competitive advantage. Rising economies like China and India will redefine the future—will you be ready? The war for talent, outsourcing, leading-edge technology, global trade, security, global supply chains, demographics, emerging markets, new consumers and the Innovation Economy will shape globalization. Discover how your organization can better prepare today to meet the challenges of globalization.

Dr. James Canton
CEO
Institute for Global Futures

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Money Management May Become Man vs. Machine

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The Wall Street Journal

Money Management May Become Man Vs. Machine, Futurist Says

By Judith Burns Dow Jones News Service

DALLAS

Dr. James Canton has seen the future and believes it will offer enormous challenges- and opportunities-for money managers.

"We see new technologies developing that will rock your world," warns Canton, Executive Director of San Francisco-based The Institute For Global Futures and Praxis, a high-tech consulting firm.

Speaking Thursday to the Investment Management Consultants Association, the self-described "working futurist" predicted money managers soon will find themselves pitted against intelligent "digital agents" that offer investors customized, on-line financial planning and advice.

These digital agents will compare mutual fund managers' performance, advise investors on the best funds, based on their investment goals, and negotiate fees with the funds themselves, Canton says. And the technology isn't pie-in-the-sky, he adds: "I have seen the prototypes".

Money managers face new competitors already-and among those scrambling to enter the lucrative business are some of the biggest names in the computer industry, Canton adds. "You don't think Microsoft (MSFT) wants your clients?" he asks. "Think again."

Guard against complacency, not technology, Canton recommends. "If you think its not going to change, you're wrong." He declares. "It's all going to change."

Indeed, the pace of change is picking up. Canton says it took nearly 35 years for telephones to reach 10 million users, and 20 years for fax machines to do the same. That fell to about 10 years for personal computers, cellular telephones and video cassette recorders-and now less that five years for the Internet.

Consumer Trends

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Eco-Business: Towards a Sustainable Future

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How will sustainability affect the future of business when over 90% of consumers indicate they are concerned about the environment? Deep concerns by consumers about climate change, oil, pollution and environmental hazards will create a new competitive landscape for business. There is a clear trend emerging and it is Green. Based on new research at the Institute, this keynote charts the course that every organization will need to know about to succeed in the 21st Century—how to develop a sustainable or Green business strategy. Sustainability will be a new competitive advantage and ticket to growth in the future global economy. Cases, forecasts and examples from Green Cities to renewable energy to Green finance, Green services and Clean Tech products will be reviewed in this informative presentation.

Dr. James Canton
CEO
Institute for Global Futures

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