How technology has become the 'differentiator' moving into 2021

... from just the 'enabler' in 2011 when "Digital transformation" – the use of technology to radically improve performance or reach of enterprises – was coined for the first time.

A quick read on what has changed in last 10 years and what to expect in next few years:

Impact of year 2020 - Pandemic has caused disparity in each industry's focus and pace of digital transformation. Telecom, Healthcare are going strong. Retail, automotive are recovering (most industries fall into this category). Travel, hospitality are struggling. FinTech, Banking are moving slow. It may take entire 2021 to reduce this disparity.

Rise of platform business - Proliferation of mobile devices has given birth to platform businesses likes of Airbnb, Uber. This new business model is here to stay for long term although new kind of business will emerge. These digital-native companies inspired traditional businesses to leverage SMAC (popular acronym in last decade). Netflix, Walmart are the biggest examples. Technically, at the heart of platform are web APIs than web apps.

Data is the new oil - If there is one thing that has impacted IT most is 'massive data' aka 'big data'. The 3V of data has grown at enormous pace in last decade and will continue to grow. Majority of it is still human generated data but next decade will see more of machine (through IoT) generated data. Data engineering will be in focus. Data-crunching technologies like predictive analytics, AI and machine learning, will mature and get standardized through processes like AutoML.

Cloud became new infra - Cloud adoption changed from dramatically from 'experimental' to 'cloud-first'. Today, startup companies do not plan their own IT infra, they use public cloud. From multi-cloud to 'all-in' model (Netflix, Time, Barclays are few big names on 100% AWS cloud) cloud migration was unstoppable. Lately, powered by Kubernetes, cloud providers brought in universal control plane model (Google Anthos, Azure Arc) that allows customers to use best of private and public clouds.

In-sourcing vs Out-sourcing - It was the data security and focus on R&D that forced many large business to 'in-source' their IT operations. Today, most large businesses specially global financial and retail houses have setup own technology centres in India. These GICs are seen as innovation hubs than mere cost centers. However, in 2020 there was fresh wave of out-sourcing as most businesses world-over struggled to maintain their IT operations amid impact on their core businesses.

Open source is mainstream - Led by Kubernetes, Docker, Kafka, MongoDB etc, open source tools were adopted heavily. The movement was triggered by companies open sourcing their in-house platform/framework. This include not just Google, Apple but also businesses such as Netflix, Walmart etc. Biggest surprise was of Microsoft's big push towards open source in last decade. "Open, but commercially supported" is lucrative business model after $34B acquisition of RedHat by IBM.

Architecture is redefined - Role of Software architecture has changed from 'big upfront' to 'minimum' or 'evolutionary' architecture. The importance of 'architecture definition' is reduced to less than half of overall scope of IT architecture encompassing delivery and operations. This is primarily attributed to a) shorter project lifecycle, b) IT modernization and c) increased share of rapidly evolving modern engineering approaches and tools.

Software development trends - JavaScript is one of the most required languages in software development. With everything from PWAs (Progressive Web Apps) to IDE (GitHub Codespaces) nowadays accessed through browser, JavaScript and its libraries are at top spot. Last decade saw rise of agile SDLC and microservices in order to speed up development and scale faster. To satiate business agility further, next wave will be in form of Low-Code and No-Code tools.

Intelligence at the edge - AI at the edge allows mission-critical and time-sensitive decisions to be made faster, more reliably and with greater security. Gartner predicts that by 2025, 75% of business-generated data will be generated and processed at the edge. AI engineering will play a key role.

IoT is part of human life - IoT enablement will see massive advancement in next 5 years. IoT and smart devices have already begun to infiltrate every activity whether it is home convenience or safety initiatives in manufacturing industry and forecasting natural disasters.

Blockchain for data security - Undoubtedly, Blockchain is the most secure system present to date. Largely known for cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin and Ethereum), Blockchain will be slowly integrated in securing patients health data, intellectual property, supply chain transactions etc.

Disclaimer: All views are personal. Thanks for reading. Please comment your views!