Eight IT Trends Already Shaping Global Business in 2017

It’s already clear which IT trends are shaping global business this year. From augmented reality to IoT to cloud computing, here are eight of the top trends.

Outside-in strategies continue to be a major player in defining how enterprises operate in this always-changing market. Businesses must rethink and reinvent new models and processes for agility in order to be successful. This will affect overall organizational structures, leadership cultures, talent selection, team style and partner ecosystems. To achieve success, investments will need to be made in employee toolboxes that will allow for rapid deployment of processes and constant improvement.

We’ve only just scratched the surface when it comes to artificial intelligence and machine learning. Machines are getting smarter and are beginning to out-think their human counterparts with their ability to perform complex computations and much broader information sets. Enterprises will need to merge the output of this high-volume, high-velocity data into data ecosystems. This will give way to cloud-based machine learning on AI platforms. But to be successful, executives must be deeply, digitally savvy and trained to weed out any digital biases. The business and productivity implications of bringing information to the forefront of every employee’s job will drive this adoption.

CIOs are in the process of implementing an 80/20 plan—placing 80 percent of their workloads in the public cloud by 2020. Current cloud leaders will continue to outpace the rest of the competition by offering new functions and capability, creating a new style of hybridization or cloud diversity. Cloud diversity will allow companies to meet regulatory and security requirements more effectively. Additionally, a more real-time platform will emerge as information moves directly from hand to code through a new class of middleware.

In software-defined networks (SDNs), software applications can handle performance, service or cyber-security issues proactively through a broad set of network—and network function—based controls to better serve the business. SDNs offer greater control of network traffic and big advantages in application performance management. SDNs will have a profound impact on virtualized hybrid data centers, not only by providing an advanced level of programmability but also changing how CIOs think about their information networks and overall service architectures.

The demand continues to rise for a platform that simplifies the enterprise implementation of the internet of things (IoT) to drive return on investment. Sensors are a key tool to provide a stream of data on the front end to meet this demand. Increased sensors on the network and the emergence of exponentially more bandwidth with 5G networking allow productivity to explode, just like it did in the 1990s when desktop computers entered the workplace. Simplified IoT will give way to a new renaissance of learning that will create more efficient machines.

The Sinosphere—the East Asian cultural sphere that refers to Vietnam, Japan and South Korea, which has been historically influenced by China—is an area of the world to watch. The rise of the Digital Silk Road is quickly becoming a rival to Silicon Valley as a center of innovation. California and Asia will leapfrog in the competition to be on the forefront of digital innovation.

Companies are aggressively investing in use cases to firm up adoption strategies, evaluate data privacy and cyber-security, restructure business processes, step up legacy modernization and incorporate cultural nuances of the organization. Augmented and virtual reality are enabled by the combination of advanced computer-generated graphics, machine learning, high-performance computing, data collection and analytics. AR will be inside IoT devices, guiding employees and consumers to interact with their environment in new, more productive ways.

We’re beginning to see businesses combining cyber-security operational processes with workflow automation, representing a more integrated approach than we’ve seen in the past. The closer tie between IT and security helps organizations deliver more efficient incident management and speed up remediation. Automation is playing an increasingly critical role in streamlining the manual processes involved and prioritizing threats, incidents and vulnerabilities based on their potential business impact. This type of structured response engine replaces the manual work patterns of the past with intelligent workflows of the future. We’ll continue to see this closing of the gap between security and IT throughout 2017 and beyond.