2020 has been a year full of turmoil as hijacked by a global COVID-19 pandemic and exposed to an extensive disruption. The world has undergone a lot of heartaches and uncertainties. But as a result of all chaos, there have been leaps and bounds in tech innovation.
Businesses across the globe are expediting and accelerating their digital transformation ingenuity at whirlwind speeds in a quest to reset and survive. The COVID-19 pandemic is substantially increasing investments in automated solutions like AI (Artificial Intelligence), ML (Machine Learning), and RPA (Robotic Process Automation). For better or worse, the year 2020 will be memorable.
So as we enter 2021 and 2020 draws to a close, here is a list of some of the technologies that are expected to define the next normal.
The Reign of Cloud Continues
The cloud had established its value for numerous businesses by rendering improved scalability, agility, and cost efficiencies across industries, even before the chaos of 2020. However, in 2021, the technology is encouraged to append a layer of resilience to numerous organizations by making an unexpected shift in working habits. This thing has sealed the place of the cloud as an essential part of enterprise technology.
In 2021, organizations will focus more on managing the cloud costs adequately and look to unify the various cloud environments. In this race of increased competition because of greater pervasiveness, cloud providers will be required to focus on integrating and improving security, privacy, and compliance into their offerings. Further, the cloud will grow in popularity as an absolute execution venue for innovative and emerging technologies like AI (artificial intelligence), ML (machine learning), edge computing, and blockchain. Therefore, making it essential to the digital transformation journey with numerous other companies.
Intelligent Channels Are the New Normal
The global pandemic is forcing organizations to innovate reactively and creatively to make work model shifts that they believed would take a lot of time, happen in mere weeks. The outcomes of this mass analysis have been eye-opening. Despite a lot of preconceptions and prejudices, remote working has been a success. The majority of remote working employees asserted the fact that their productivity has increased, which is a great thing for employers. The new normal of remote working will put new obligations on businesses as there will be a growing requirement for networks capable of establishing hybrid architectures, be it cloud, edge computing, or on-premises.
As a result of this, more organizations will seek intelligent and intent-based networks that will offer integrated security like virtual networks for multi-cloud or SD-WAN for the WAN with Zero Trust security and SASE to deal with the cybersecurity threat of the new perimeter-less ecosystem.
Likewise, the need to improve CX (customer experience) will accompany the enhanced digitization of industries. Being capable of offering personalization, platform stability, and ease of use while having a human touch will grow in importance, and more liability will be placed on digital trust.
Automation: A Business Imperative
In 2021, more organizations are predicted to grow platform-driven digital businesses. The use of technologies like Robotic Process Automation (RPA), AI (Artificial Intelligence), and ML (Machine Learning) will continue to grow. The rise in tech will help the organizations execute predictable tasks, automate routine, repetitive task, and unlock tactical advantages. The tech reforms will enhance the accuracy of platforms, establish operational efficiency, and develop user experience across ecosystems. Also, the innovation will drive cost realignments and efficiencies by supporting organizations intelligently, and by using these savings in the right place.
Internet of Things will Play a Great Role in Obtaining and Analyzing Data
There has been a raceme in the amount of data businesses have had to contend with this year because of the combination of all the digital change that has appeared in 2020 and the enhanced online activity due to remote working. With more technical rollouts expected in 2021, along with further development in LP-WAN-based services, the amount of data generated and managed by organizations is set to skyrocket.
Therefore, to differentiate themselves from the race, more organizations will start converging on data analytics technology competent in securely managing information, together with analyzing and obtaining greater insights from the mostly unused operational data.
So, IoT (Internet of Things) is expected to play a crucial role by assisting to automate processes and obtain more data readily available to businesses. As IoT (Internet of Things) becomes increasingly intertwined with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deeply rooted in organizational structures and alteration programs, tools will become increasingly ‘smart’ and competent in driving greater intelligence.
Final Words
The global pandemic has made companies proceed towards solutions that offer them more resilience and agility. Early adopters of IoT, cloud, and automation were the organizations that fared best in 2020. As we all hopefully expect to say goodbye to COVID-19 in the new year, but we expect the perks of digital transformation to grow.
