The three biggest tech trends of 2021

2020 will stand out in both our collective memory and the history books for many reasons. One of those was the massive and rapid change in work patterns during the year to working from home across many industries. 

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations shifted to remote working on a near-overnight basis, embraced previously underused tools such as video conferencing and invested heavily in cloud-based systems that would enable their people to work anytime, anywhere. They found new ways to interact with their customers by exploiting digital channels and developed decision-making tools based on emerging technologies, such as advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI).

Undoubtedly, 2020 was a critical inflection point in the digital transformation journey. So, what can we expect from 2021? Rather than highlight bleeding edge technologies that will drive change over the next decade, I have focused on three technologies, which have been on our radars for some time now, where we will see a significant increase in business and consumer adoption in 2021.

1.      Cloud. The demands of the pandemic have not only driven the acceleration of cloud programs, they have also removed some of the institutional, reputational and regulatory barriers that previously prevented movement to the cloud. In the year ahead, organizations will focus on ensuring that they can operate an effective hybrid environment, featuring a mix of on-premise and cloud platforms. They will invest in integration tooling and capabilities while using data virtualisation to access and interrogate vital information from across their different cloud platforms, as well from systems that reside on-site within their data centre

2.      5G. Due to lockdowns and working from home, the focus on the need for 5G eased this year but will intensify in 2021. The technology’s ability to support high volumes of data traffic and large numbers of users makes it a powerful enabler of the internet of things (IoT). Because of 5G, organizations will be able to use sensors to gather and transmit data relating to their assets in a way that wasn’t possible in the past. They will then use that data to better inform decision-making. For example, they could potentially rethink their whole approach to maintaining their machinery and equipment. In a consumer context, 5G will make augmented and virtual reality more pervasive, transforming the consumer experience of certain products and services.

3.      AI. We will see widespread adoption of AI across all industries and across all functional areas of organizations – from customer services through to finance in 2021. Organizations will invest in AI as they look to tap their ever-expanding lake of internal data, as well as external data sources to gain additional knowledge and deeper insights about their business. AI is critical to processing large volumes of data at speed and turning that data into valuable strategic insights. By deploying AI at scale – and here I mean AI in its broadest sense of algorithms, data processing techniques and machine learning – organizations will be able to create better experiences for their customers, employees and other stakeholders.

Essentially organizations should not consider these trends in isolation. In order to truly achieve transformational change across an organization, it needs to be approached through the lens of three areas: deploying technology at speed, alongside innovation at scale and putting humans at the centre in the sense of how customers and employees engage with any organization. I believe through further deployment of the cloud, 5G and AI in 2021, organizations will be able to better embody these principles, implement technologies at speed and enhance their overall business capabilities. This, in turn, will allow them to anticipate the needs of their customers, and other stakeholders, and respond to events more quickly than their rivals.

If 2020 is anything to go by, we can expect 2021 to be another changeable, fast-moving and uncertain environment. So perhaps the most important tech trend of all is that, in today’s world, speed must be viewed as a fundamental source of competitive advantage.