As IT teams continue to deal with the chaos caused by COVID-19, they are also planning for a post-pandemic future. One factor that is common across all organizations is the need to embrace a digital-first world. In fact, IDC’s FutureScape study notes that more than 50% of the global economy will be based on or influenced by digital in 2022, using a digital delivery model for products and services or undergoing digital transformation.
For 78% of companies worldwide, the pandemic provided the push they needed to shift to digital-first. Today, the entire ecosystem of business as we know it is being reshaped. To remain competitive, your company’s ability to embrace and adapt to the digital dynamics of the future will determine its success. Below, we discuss four future trends that you may want to pay special attention to.
4 Future Trends
- The Evolution of the Cloud
The function and functionality of the cloud is evolving, and we’ve been watching this trend for the past four years at CrucialLogics. The cloud is moving beyond a solution to meet specific compute, storage, and backup needs. It is becoming a resource to achieve desired business outcomes, from the supply chain in the cloud to analytics in the cloud and more.
It is estimated that by 2023, 40% of Forbes’ Global 2000 companies will choose cloud solutions based on business outcomes, rather than IT requirements. Going forward, IT teams should be re-evaluating what their cloud provider offers and whether they should even stay with a single provider. It may be that using multiple providers for various functions, including leveraging the power of open-source clouds, is ultimately better for the business.
There are many factors to consider when engaging in a new strategic cloud partnership to ensure the ongoing, secure operation of your enterprise. It is important to evaluate the provider’s management and performance standards, procedures for governing the movement, storage, and archiving of data, as well as their security protocols. And don’t rule out open source-based solutions for connectivity, data, and operations, as long as you have good cloud security, data management, and disaster recovery protocols in place.
- Ongoing Governance and Compliance
With updated privacy laws coming into effect in Canada in 2022, organizations will need to implement up-to-date, governance-focused automation protocols across the enterprise. Many successful IT teams are already preparing, by engaging AI/ML solutions. In fact, IDC estimates that by 2023, 80% of enterprises worldwide will use AI-assisted, cloud-linked governance services, but will likely struggle to ensure that no inadvertent gaps or bottlenecks are created.
IDC goes on to predict that 70% of companies won't achieve full value from automated governance due to IT skills mismatches. To ensure consistent, coherent, and cooperative automation at scale, your IT team must have the right skills and be equipped with the proper tools and processes to set goals and assess results in accordance with the new governance rules.
The use of automation for governance can also pose risks. The service provider could suffer a security breach or there could be operational issues in provisioning, patching, and monitoring protocols. When your team is evaluating AI-assisted and cloud-based governance solutions, it is important to confirm the trustworthiness of the provider and the security of their enterprise.
- Fundamental Industry Changes
The systemic shift in technology trends during the pandemic will continue to grow. Even though IT teams will triple their IT spend for new environments by 2026, they will be hard-pressed to meet the 6-fold increase in IT operational efficiency needed to stay abreast of the fundamental industry changes. In the future, organizations must re-evaluate how they deal with their IT workloads, using AI-assisted operational systems and network/cloud convergence. They should also consider how developments in 5G technologies and the evolution of blockchains will affect their enterprise technology plans and priorities.
Along with digital-first will come an explosion of data unlike anything we have ever seen. You may want to consider engaging the services of an IT partner that can help you evaluate and navigate all the new technologies, secure and manage all those new streams of data, and ensure compliance while providing real-time data insights.
- The Exponential Growth in IT Security Spend
The record for data loss due to breaches was set in 2020, as cybercriminals honed their hacking skills and increased the number of attacks – and they are busy breaking that record. This year, 86% of organizations have already suffered a cyberattack, compared to 81% for the whole of 2020.
The pandemic has a lot to do with this upswing, as there has been a surge in the number of remote workers who make easy targets for cybercriminals. Organizations are scrambling to stay ahead of hackers by investing in cybercrime prevention and remediation solutions, which is likely contributing to the fact that global spending on IT security is forecast to reach a record $170.4 billion in 2022. Mobile security is already a problem for most companies, and now because of 5G increasing the bandwidth of connected and IoT devices, companies will become even more vulnerable to cyberattacks. Many companies are turning to AI/ML solutions to quickly identify and analyze threats. But your data security is only as strong as your weakest link, and since 95% of cybersecurity breaches are caused by human error, as remote workforces increase, the risk of breaches will also continue to grow.
So What Now?
CrucialLogics can help future-proof your company by understanding and identifying your future IT needs. We’re here to assist with the planning and implementation of solutions to keep your IT infrastructure current and secure. Reach out to our team today.
