Predicting the future isn’t easy, but it is valuable. If you knew with absolute certainty which products would be a hit with your customers, or what steps you needed to take to send profits soaring, you would make sure you sold those products and took those steps, wouldn’t you?

While we can’t say what the future will hold with absolute certainty, we can develop a better idea of what’s to come by studying the past — looking at trends and gathering data to draw thoughtful conclusions. In our latest report, called Self-Service Future Trends 2011, we’ve assembled valuable information from a variety of sources to help you get a handle on what’s next in the self-service industry.

First, we conducted an industry survey to capture information points from questions such as:

• What self-service applications have you deployed?
• What self-service applications do you plan to deploy in the next 12 months? In the next five years?
• Over the next 12 months, will your spending on self-service increase? What about in the next five years?
• What technologies or applications are important now, and will be important in the future?
• Which industries will benefit the most from self-service?
• Is it important that self-service be environmentally friendly?
• What impact will digital downloads have on DVD vending kiosks?
• What impact will mobile phones have on self-check-in kiosks?

The results were analyzed and, where appropriate, compared with results from an industry survey conducted in 2007. Learning how attitudes have changed (or not) in the last three years can help us anticipate areas of change in the future.

In Part II of the report, executive and industry leaders shared their insights on where self-service is today and where it’s going. These perspectives come from large companies, small companies, deployers and vendors, representing several different industries:

• Ken Bostic, United Airlines
• Bart Foster, SoloHealth
• Gregg Kaplan, Coinstar
• Francie Mendelsohn, Summit Research Associates
• Joseph Nakhla, TIO Networks
• James Reikert, Fujifilm
• Michael Verdeska, Jack in the Box
• Michael Webster, NCR

"We think that digital signage and kiosk will converge to a single unified platform, and that’s an innovation that NCR is going to be bringing to the market." - Michael Webster, Vice President and General Manager, Retail and Hospitality, NCR Corp.

In Part III, we compiled numerous case studies originally published on KioskMarketplace.com. We have examples of various types of self-service technology applications, including ordering kiosks, self-check-in, advertising, payment kiosks and interactive/entertainment kiosks.

Finally, we rounded out the report with a directory of DSA members organized by member category.

I’m sure you can’t wait to dive in. So, please, don’t let me hold you up.

DSA members can save $50 on the report. To get the discount code, please contact us.