This blog post tells us the five technological areas in which effort, money and time will be invested in 2016 by enterprises. These trends are expected to have a significant impact on enterprises and may require major investment.
Automation
Automation has become a part and parcel of every technology that we use and interact with. Automation brings in sophistication to the product and it makes life easier for us. In a way, it speeds up the processes and makes it user friendly.
Tasks are automated through smart agents or by remote virtual agents. It could be Smart agents which are on the device or it could be virtual agents typically connecting from a remote location. The smart agents becomes the main user interface and provides an ambient user experience because of precision in assistance.
Virtual Personal Assistants like Microsoft’s Cortana and Apple’s Siri are becoming smarter by the day and have been the precursors to smart agents. Siri taught us that we can have a meaningful conversation with a machine. A decade ago, all these were only seen in science fiction movies.
Automation is one area, enterprises will spend their money and time in 2016. Enterprises will continue to optimise their automation environment, increasing the efforts to make their solutions more efficient in terms of computing and storage resources.
2. Cloud Integration
In addition to automation, enterprises will continue to gain confidence and build internal expertise in areas like cloud provided infrastructure and process management solutions, significantly impacting offerings and strategy. Cloud adoption will slowly move from peripheral to core business applications.
“90% of enterprises are relying on APIs in their cloud integration plans for 2016 “[IDG’s 2015 Enterprise Cloud Computing Survey]
Enterprises will focus on integration of all the different applications into a cloud eco system. Some applications will be available on public cloud; some will be enterprise level applications and some will be legacy applications.
Cloud integration will lower total cost of ownership and will bolster business continuity. This will provide greater flexibility to react to changing market conditions. Cloud brokers would be romped in for these cloud integrations.
3. Monitoring the IoT chaos
The Internet of Things (IoT) has taken the world by storm. By 2020, it’s estimated that 90% of cars will be connected to the Internet as compared to 10% in 2012. [Source] This statistic gives us an indication that we are in the midst of the IoT revolution. The entire enterprise is being morphed into the IoT space. Enterprises will spend on monitoring, and managing the devices, in addition to the compliance requirements from regulatory authorities.
4. IT- Business alignment
2016 will also see an increased spend in aligning the internal IT teams to the businesses. Businesses should respond to the faster changing market requirements especially in the context of IoT, cloud and automation. The internal IT needs to align to the business to ensure that applications are delivered quickly.
IT alignment” has been a major challenge for IT leaders. This idea of “aligning” the IT group with the rest of the organization is a persistent thorn in the flesh for many business leaders. Efforts to bridge this gap will be in the mind of most C suite executives.
5. Cyber Security
As the Internet of Things (IoT) transforms data centres, industries and governments, threats are quickly evolving to target this connected landscape. The year 2015 saw some of the greatest cyber security breaches of all time with the unforgettable U.S. Office of Personnel Management breach and the Ashley Madison scandal.
Instead of trying to rebuild after a cyber-attack, enterprises should focus on adopting solutions that make their infrastructure more secure by pre-empting and preventing a breach even before it attacks the enterprise.
Robust monitoring, identity and access management, security analytics and threat Intelligence are some of the areas where enterprises will be allocating a major chunk of their focus in 2016.
Conclusion
From this we can be certain that in 2016, those enterprises that are slow or unwilling to adapt to automation, cloud and IoT are at high risk. Those enterprises that make rapid steps in these direction will be a force to reckon with.
- Bobby Varghese
Vice President - IT, Operations Management.
