5 enterprise technology predictions for 2021

December 28, 2020 12:06 PM

There is no doubt that 2020 was a turbulent year, and I think we all felt we were out to stormy seas for a bit. But winter has arrived and, with it, another cold breath of uncertainty. Where do we go from here when examining our strategic imperatives? Do we have a crystal ball to predict what will happen in the coming year? Well, I whipped out my crystal ball (actually, I had really long conversations with industry experts, customers and partners, and scrutinized a lot of research) to make some predictions for 2021.

Claire Tu, an employee at Reprise Digital, works from her home in Shanghai during the coronavirus outbreak.

Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

Remote work until fall

Optimistic people believe we will be back and lounging in the corporate offices by spring. If you are in sync with Bill Gates, we are just over halfway through the pandemic. I think we are somewhere in between, with most agreeing on a fall timeline for returning to the office. But will we really ever get “back” to the office? 2021 will be the year of the hybrid work mode, with over half of our workforce on a permanent WFH plan.

Hackers will target remote workers

Long gone are the days of the corporate firewall, accompanied by all assets locked down virtually behind this protective measure. I cannot imagine dealing with hundreds or thousands of remote access employees, giving them office-like access to private company resources and ensuring the security for those assets. Outside of the corporate domain, end-user home networks and computer assets are now vulnerable to hackers as a path to the center of the corporate domain — at higher levels than ever before. I compare the vulnerability of COVID-19 and the ICU bed count: IT can handle remote access at lower rates but now that everyone is working remotely, this surge of activity can overwhelm both small and large organizations looking to protect their realm.

Cloud revenue will skyrocket

You can no longer kick the can down the road. The cloud is here and the migration of resources is inevitable. We are seeing cloud interest from verticals that never before would have considered it an option. Financial services, healthcare and other industries are realizing they have to be prepared for unplanned and uncertain events. Holding out in their on-premise bastions is hampering their agility and flexibility. I was on a panel last week about the rise of the cloud and leveraging multiple cloud providers. One of the participants likened the cloud to the invention of electricity and the pervasive electrical grid. If you are one of the holdouts using candles and all the competition has electrical lights, machinery and heat, you will lose.

On-premise ERP will die

ERP systems have always been an on-premise ball-and-chain for the enterprise, preventing movement to the cloud. It’s disorganized and a tangled web of customizations, satellite apps, reports and sunk costs were the bane of the accounting world, as well as a blockade on the high road to “cloudness.” I have seen a noticeable shift in the desire to recreate the ERP app web through SaaS offerings and a strategy of public and private cloud offerings. The rise of integration platforms (iPaaS) has also made data transport and migration a seamless, affordable exercise. In the past, this was either not possible or prohibitively expensive.

Businesses will reinvent themselves — again

The only certainty is uncertainty as we breach the wall to exit 2020 and arrive in the new year. Flexible and agile digital organizations will be able to weather challenges and storms that the upcoming year will bring. Businesses that can reorganize and reinvent will be the winners.

How will your organization fare in 2021?