Pictures of the Future Spring 2005
Personalization – Facts and Forecasts
Why Personalization Sells
It’s no easy task to precisely measure the advantages that personalization provides for businesses. Research on online offerings indicates that a website’s sales increase in direct proportion to the site’s level of personalization. According to Fletcher Research, 68 % of Internet users who use a personalized page shop online, while only 28 % of customers make purchases on pages without personalization. An opinion survey of 4,500 Internet users conducted by the Personalization Consortium (Massachusetts) showed that in order to receive better service, many users are willing to provide personal information to websites that can remember their preferences and personal data.
Saving users’ personal profiles doesn’t only make it easier to navigate and use websites and operate devices such as cell phones and PCs. Demand is also growing for individualized automotive solutions that adjust seats, mirrors, heating systems and air-conditioning according to the settings selected by an individual driver, for example. In the event of a traffic accident, new sensors can adjust a passenger airbag’s release so that it is tailored to the passenger’s size and weight. What’s more, keyless systems are expected to make cars more theft-proof. Sensors that recognize the fingerprints of a vehicle’s authorized users, for instance, can ensure that only those persons can open the car’s doors and start the engine.
Which information would you give to an online-shopping website?
Personalization is gaining in importance. Test participants are more likely to enter their personal data at individualized websites
Source: Personalization Consortium, 2000
Biometrics Show Strong Growth. The market for personalized, biometric access concepts is booming, and the growth figures are high. That’s the consensus of all market researchers, even though the data regarding volume are varied. A study conducted in 2004 by Frost & Sullivan indicated that, contrary to earlier estimates, the expectations for 2002 and 2003 were not fulfilled. This was primarily due to a lack of public sector spending. This changed in 2004, however, when many state-funded biometrics projects were launched. According to studies conducted by Frost & Sullivan, the worldwide market for biometric access concepts will grow from approximately $158 million in 2002 to more than $3.5 billion in 2009.
C. Maxine Most, founder and chief analyst at the Acuity company (Boulder, Colorado), estimates a maximum value of $400 million for the global biometrics market in 2003. The market for chip-based fingerprint systems, in particular, is expected to grow as a result of more widespread use in mobile devices such as cell phones and laptops. In 2001, worldwide sales totaled only $5.1 million; by 2006, however, that figure is expected to exceed $424 million. In the area of aviation security—i.e., controlling access by airport personnel and identifying passengers—the world market for biometric processes is expected to increase from $2.7 million (2002) to nearly $640 million by 2006. Fingerprinting processes account for 35 % of that total, and an additional 33 % will be spent on face recognition (see Pictures of the Future, Spring 2003, Security)
Strong growth in the global market for biometrics
Increasing investment. The biometrics market has posted strong growth since 2004—mostly due to government spending
Source: Frost & Sullivan, 2004
Potential for Health Care. Personalization concepts are also becoming increasingly important factors in the provision of cost-effective and high-quality medical care. In Germany, plans call for issuing electronic health cards to approximately 80 million insured persons by 2006. Personal data related to a patient’s medications, chronic ailments and vaccinations can be stored in the cards. In 2003, the European market for software licensing and support contracts for electronic patient records registered a growth rate of 19.2 % and reached a volume of 207 million euros. "People have realized that the electronic patient record is more than just another version of the paper file," explains Siddharth Saha, an industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan. By 2010, the market researcher forecasts, the European market will reach a volume of 688 million euros. The first successful pilot projects—in Germany, for example, with the treatment of cancer patients in the city of Essen and at Elisabeth Hospital in the city of Birkenfeld—are contributing to greater acceptance of electronic patient records.
Sylvia Trage