For those of you who are retirees, you will have lived through an incredible age of change and prosperity. You will remember the days of stopping the car and going to a phone box to make a call, possibly dictating a letter for a colleague to type for you, waiting for the post each morning to see if your recent job interview had been successful. Cars with no seat belts, and only the well-off flying around the world for holidays etc. On and on I could go, but you get my point, I hope.
Exciting times ahead
By Jeremy Ferguson
This article is published on: 26th March 2024
Most of us would have started to write emails in the mid 90’s, and since then the advances in the use of the internet have increased exponentially. Mobile phones now are quite simply the most amazing multi-media tools, with what seems like the whole world obsessed with them. Maybe they aren’t a good thing for society, only time will tell.
But what I do know is the fact that you can use them to navigate anywhere, watch TV, read the newspaper, write emails, pay for your car parking online, translate between languages etc. All of this just never ceases to amaze me. Could you imagine telling someone a decade ago, this is where we would end up with mobile phones? Overall, this technology at our fingertips is incredibly useful and has changed the way we live.
The next decade is going to see an ever-increasing transformation in the use of technology, not only in our daily lives, but also in business and commerce. I am sure you have all heard of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) race that is underway at the moment.
AI technology has recently been on trial in a Scottish hospital, analysing mammogram data, and managed to spot cancer in a number of patients which had been missed (due to its tiny nature) by the consultants. This is a perfect example of how this technology can be used to improve our lives.
There are four main areas of ongoing technological advance that may be worth observing over the coming years. Companies operating in these sectors offer huge growth potential for their shareholders.
There are AI companies, such as Microsoft, Amazon and Canon; and those specialising in financial technology (Fintech), Sage being prominent in this market, as well as Ricoh; there are robotics specialists, IBM and Adobe for example; and finally, the one we are all bored of hearing about, energy storage – many of the companies in this market are new, so there are few familiar names in there, but SAP is one name some of us may recognise.
The advances we are seeing in these areas are quite incredible, and if you think about it, the technology itself helps to further increase the speed of the new developments. Businesses who embrace these technologies to maximise their efficiency will all benefit from these advances. The knock-on effect will be far reaching and ever present in everyday life.
My clients are retirees here on the Costa Del Sol, now living off pensions and investments they have accrued over the years, and one of my responsibilities is making sure they are getting the most from those investments. With the world changing so quickly, it is essential we pay attention to the management of those funds, in particular to ensure that whoever is making the investment decisions is forward looking in their approach, and importantly understands the new world evolving around us.
Please feel free to email me if you would like to discuss your existing investments and pension funds, to see whether we can help make them work as hard for you in retirement as you did in your working life to accrue them.