IT Trends and Predictions

FountainBlue’s April 1 VIP roundtable was on the topic of IT Trends and Predictions! Below are notes from the conversation.

With the decades of advances in technology – from consumer to enterprise solutions, from infrastructure and network set-up to databases and big data, from networks to cloud, from mobile apps to IoT solutions, we’re continuing to push the technology development and adoption angle. 

With that said, the obstacles to adoption are not necessarily the effectiveness and impact of the technology solutions themselves, but more process, people, access, and operational challenges. There may be traditionally slow-moving industries, companies or countries who are resistant to change, and afraid that new technologies will create more problems than they can solve. There may be operational, technology and cultural hurdles which make the adoption of IT solutions more problematic – from the difficulty of integrating with legacy systems to the difficulty of integrating established processes, to the change-resistant mind-set of leaders and staff who are so used to doing it the-way-it’s-always-been done and those who are fearful of the implications of technology adoption and the resultant change.

The challenge then is a communication and management issue – how do you articulate the value proposition to teams/ companies/partners/customers and other stakeholders so that we can all reap the rewards? Suggested strategies are below:

• As IT leaders, pivot away from the internal/supply-chain perspective and more into the customer point of view. Understand what the customers are looking for and develop customized solutions based on their requirements. 
• Thinking about IT solutions as case studies for industries and customers will help IT leaders and companies understand and deliver on their value-add. 
• Think about the technology and the data as secondary to the needs and requests of your stakeholders. Frame IT and big data solutions as ‘real-world’ problems.
• Consider how your IT solution fits within the overall ecosystem and create partnerships and alliances based on what would add the best end-to-end value for the customer.
• Strategically and plan-fully approach integrations so that they complement current offerings and meet and anticipate the needs of current and expected customers. Make sure that the leadership team and staff on both sides of M&As are/would be receptive to an integration and have the skills to do so effectively and efficiently.

Thoughts on trends and opportunities are highlighted below.

• There are huge opportunities around the Internet of Everything (not just things) which goes far beyond the data and beyond things and focuses on outcomes.
• Adapting technologies and processes for existing solutions to solve current problems creates opportunities for leaders to serve new customers and markets. 
• Leveraging existing technologies to save the waste will provide opportunities for many, and has the potential to transform industries.
• There are huge opportunities as there will be an amplified proliferation of sensors, including Edge-of-the-Network low-cost sensors, leveraging existing technologies including BlueTooth, radio, power lines. 
• All these sensors will continue to generate huge volumes of data, which needs to be managed and processed real-time, perhaps leveraging machine learning rather than traditional formulaic calculations. Opportunities here are immense.
• 3D imaging and printing solutions open up a real opportunity in many industries – from customized tailoring to customized medical treatments, from rapid prototyping to construction.
• Many industries, most notably financial services are open to sophisticated, real-time, security-oriented IT solutions personalized to the needs of their customers.
• Healthcare is ripe for change. There are opportunities around infrastructure, from security to hospital management, around big data and analytics, from wearables to disease management, around diagnostics with imaging supporting everything from radiology to pathology for example.
• Independent of industry, IT solutions generally include real-world, consumer-facing technologies from sensors to apps to ingestibles, cloud infrastructure to support the gathering and reporting of the data generated, analytics and reports which may trigger decisions and actions, aggregated reports based on volumes of users, etc., 
• With that said, there will be standardization and specialization as we reach critical mass for solutions in each industry, for each problem, so there are opportunities for companies to support other companies in serving the customer – much like what IBM’s Watson is doing for the analytics side of cancer research or what RuntimeIO does to support the back-end collection of data. 

Resources, information and studies  

• CSC IT Trends to Watch in 2016 – ‘specific decisions guided by relevant data in critical contexts’
• Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2016 – The Device Mesh, Ambient User Experience, 3D Printing Materials, Information of Everything, Advanced Machine Learning, Autonomous Agents and Things, Adaptive Security Architecture, Advanced System Architecture, Mesh App and Service Architecture, Internet of Things Platforms
• 8 Digital Health Startup And Investment Trends We’re Watching In 2016 – Funding will shift overseas, corporate activity and partnerships will increase, and more trends looking forward to the rest of 2016.
• IDG Enterprise editors predict IT trends for 2016 – Security, Mobile & Wireless, Internet of Things, Big Data/Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing
• 

Please join us in thanking execs present at the roundtable as well as our gracious hosts at Dell.

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