Real-Time Data, Execution Will Drive Enterprise Strategy in 2014

by Darryl K. Taft

Real-time execution will hit its stride in 2014 and touch nearly every facet of the IT landscape. Cloud control and big data digestion have also lost their novelty, but not their endurance. With heightened customer demands for market-defining technologies, next-generation strategies such as virtualization, cloud and mobile high-transactional models mean that organizations will continue to juggle more real-time processing than ever before.

With recent government IT ailments and costly redundancies, enterprise IT investments will be under the microscope, making complete end-to-end systems testing a top priority.

Once just a topic for science fiction, AI will become an integral part of daily automation and solutions for everyday business. For example, cloud AI offering scaling will be based on a set of rules determined by the CIO that trigger when traffic spikes or server resource usage increases. With CIOs managing the resource automation during peak seasons, they will also become the AI officers spearheading all business and technology needs.

Across industries, particularly retail and financial services, routine changes and new functionalities are creating cumbersome, unsustainable environments that are costing enterprises time and money. Multichannel and multiplatform approaches will become streamlined to harmonize disjointed business systems to reap the tangible benefits of mobile IT for both the enterprise and the consumer.

Today’s shoppers are part of a new generation that’s more demanding, constantly connected, and accustomed to the speed and simplicity of mobile and online shopping channels. Retailers are collecting gobs of data from in-store, e-commerce channels and social media to predict shifts in purchasing patterns. With this data, retailers are uncovering new revenue streams and focusing more on cross-channel customer consistency, streamlining the supply chain, and localizing messaging to maintain customer loyalty and stay ahead of competitors.

The proliferation of mobile devices means data storage and processing capacities are maxed. As such, enterprises will take another look at cloud alternatives such as over-investing in additional storage, particularly as mobile devices increasingly handle compute-intensive tasks.

Much like big data, cloud and even bring-your-own-device (BYOD), transformative IT trends have been democratized by the mainstream. Yet, enterprises are mystified on where to start with the Internet of things. Competition and accelerating customer expectations will continue to drive such IT as embedded sensors, image recognition and near-field communication (NFC) to improve customer engagement and personalization. With the information floodgates free-flowing, IoT will take actionable shape.