Wednesday 29 August 2018

Top IT trends in 2018

As we near the end of the year, it becomes time for taking stock and thinking about what the future will bring. Dimension Data’s technology experts have shared their thoughts on the forces that will re-shape digital business in 2018. 

Top IT trends in 2018: Cybersecurity


Trend 1: ‘Zero trust’ security is making a comeback

In 2018, we can expect to see significant disruption in the cybersecurity industry. Increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks are forcing organisations to turn to the zero trust security model.
With this approach, the IT team adopts a mindset of ‘we don’t trust anybody’. Only by explicitly allowing users to access systems can trust be established.
A decade ago, the ‘zero trust’ approach implied that the IT team could simply prohibit people from using non-corporate issued devices and applications. However, the more modern ‘zero trust’ model will accommodate individuals’ personal preferences.
However, it does mean that there’ll be more rigorous authentication measures in place requiring users to verify their identities through multiple layers of credentials. Enterprise systems will vigorously authenticate whether users are indeed entitled access to specific sets of data, before making them available.
To avoid bottlenecks and delays in getting tasks done, a cloud-based system can be implemented. This will enable a near-instantaneous authentication and verification process.

Re-examine policy and process

Organisations that embrace a ‘zero trust’ model will use it as an opportunity to re-examine their cybersecurity policies and processes. They’ll also increasingly turn to managed security services providers to augment their security monitoring and management capabilities. This will allow them to focus on deriving maximum value from their investments in security controls and resources, and ensure that they’re being applied appropriately and effectively.

 

Trend 2: Deception technologies become the security enablers of IoT and OT

Operational technology (OT) is increasingly enabling the Internet of Things (IoT) in industries such as automotive and manufacturing. But the sensors attached to OT devices are introducing a new element of cyber risk, and organisations are turning to deception technologies to raise their defences.
Most manufacturers aren’t considering security in the development phase of their products, and sensors are typically light-weight devices with minimal storage capacity, which makes embedding encryption chips into them unfeasible.
As a result, I predict that 2018 will see deception technologies playing a significant role in maintaining security across the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) control system architecture, OT, and wider IoT infrastructure.

 

How do deception technologies work?

Deception technologies introduce thousands of fake credentials onto an organisation’s network, which makes it mathematically impossible for cybercriminals to gain access to a legitimate set of user identities.
Once a cybercriminal has used a fake credential generated by deception technologies, the security operations team receives an alert that an unauthorised user is lurking on the network. They can then immediately initiate incident response.
Deception technologies also allow organisations to determine exactly how the cybercriminals gained access to the network, and to analyse their subsequent pattern of attack.

Trend 3: Behavioural analytics and artificial intelligence demand a relook at identity

Thanks to a technique known as ‘deep learning’, the next 12-months will see us take behavioural analytics and artificial intelligence to a new level.
With deep learning, rather than providing a machine with algorithms, you can enable it to learn by itself. The potential of this technology was recently demonstrated when Google took the decision to turn off its machine learning toolset. Through deep learning, the machines were educating themselves to the extent that they had begun to create a new language which system developers didn’t understand.
Using deep learning, machines will start undertaking highly granular analyses of users’ activities.
For example, by analysing my online behaviour over a period of time, machines will be able to predict whether or not the person attempting to access my data or applications is indeed me.
This provides organisations with an additional layer of defence over and above standard authentication methods.
In 2018, I expect to see more security vendors starting to integrate artificial intelligence into their products to improve their ability to detect cyberthreats in this manner. 

Trend 4: Robo-hunters are the new norm

Most cybersecurity experts agree that it’s critical to have access to threat intelligence about the latest types of attacks and tactics. However, intelligence alone isn’t enough. Organisations must proactively ‘hunt down the enemy’.
In 2018, we’ll start seeing machines entering the enterprise. It’ll be the kind that my colleague, Mark Thomas, Dimension Data’s Group Cybersecurity Strategist, dubbed ‘robo-hunters’.

Automated threat-seekers

Essentially, robo-hunters are automated threat-seekers that can make decisions on behalf of humans. Enabled by artificial intelligence, they continuously scan an organisation’s environment for any changes that might indicate a potential threat.
They learn from what they discover and then take appropriate action, for example, by isolating a bad packet or compromised device.
I believe that the rise of robo-hunters will enable more businesses to move from a proactive to a predictive security posture. Many of our clients have invested in threat hunting personnel and capabilities and Dimension Data is already offering it as a service. Those organisations leading the charge are starting to look at ways to automate threat hunting cycles and are conducting retrospective analysis to identify patterns in historical incursions.

 

Trend 5: Blockchain is the disruptor

The opportunities and applications of Blockchain in the world of cybersecurity are only just emerging. It has significant potential to allow organisations to boost cybersecurity around user authentication and identity and access management.
Blockchain allows a digital ledger of transactions to be created and shared among participants via a distributed network of computers. The system is highly accessible and transparent to all participants ─ all transactions are publicly visible.
This means it’s possible for businesses to make Blockchain ‘corporately visible’ within their organisation so that they can see every transaction that takes place.
The Blockchain ledger can detect suspicious online behaviour and isolate the connection, giving the user restricted access until the transactions have been sanctioned by system administrators or the IT security team.
Essentially, Blockchain becomes the implementer of the ‘zero trust’ policy I mentioned earlier.
It also holds potential to assist in forensic investigations. For example, an organisation that had confidential intellectual property stolen can take their immutable ledger to court and prove that an unauthorised person extracted or copied a set of data.

Top IT trends in 2018: Digital Business

Ettienne Reinecke, Chief Technology Officer, and Scott Gibson, Group Executive, Digital Practice, share their thoughts on the forces that will re-shape digital business in 2018.

 

Trend 1: Artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and virtual and augmented reality are delivering compelling and complementary outcomes

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and virtual and augmented reality aren’t new concepts. However, until now we’ve been talking about it somewhat in isolation. Increasingly we’re seeing how these technologies collectively have the potential to deliver disruptive outcomes.
Let’s look at some examples: logistics giant, DHL, is successfully using machine learning, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality in its warehouse picking operations through the use of smart glasses.
The glasses place a display in front of the wearer’s eye, which provides a visual display of order picking instructions, the exact location of the goods in the warehouse, and where they should be placed on the cart. This has resulted in massive improvements in employee productivity and in accuracy of deliveries.
Use cases for augmented reality are moving into the consumer space. Air New Zealand is currently trialling a solution to improve how they serve their passengers.
As flight attendants walk down the aisle wearing augmented reality glasses, they immediately know each passenger’s details – how many miles they’ve flown, what their meal preferences are, and where their final destination is – all of which enhance their ability to provide a more personalised service.

 

Roaming robots

The true promise of robotics is starting to manifest. In the US, San Jose's Orchard Supply Hardware is using machine learning with robots connected to their inventory systems.
When you enter the store, you can walk up to the robot and communicate with it in normal language. The robot knows exactly where the items that you’re looking for are located and will escort you to the relevant aisle. It’s also 100% up to date with what goods the store currently has in stock.

 

Trend 2: Lack of programmability is hindering businesses’ ability to deliver on the potential of hybrid IT

We believe that organisations haven’t made as much progress as they’d like to in optimising their hybrid IT environments, partly due to limitations in their ability to leverage programmable technology.
In 2018, both applications and infrastructure will continue to become more programmable, but the pace needs to pick up. Why? Programmability delivers business benefits, such as reducing cost and human error that are too compelling to ignore.
We anticipate that infrastructure vendors that haven’t made their wares sufficiently programmable are going to see their market share being significantly eroded in 2018.

Automated managed services: a must-have

To successfully operate a hybrid IT environment, businesses will need highly automated managed services.
The traditional outsource managed services model is gone. Today, organisations expect an automated service managed from the cloud in a hybrid IT environment.
Companies don’t want to worry about whether technology resides on their existing on-premise equipment, on a provider’s cloud, or on a hyperscale cloud, or all of the above. They just want to consume it the way they want to, in a fully automated way.
Find out how we’ve helped Hirsch’s, Woolworths, and First Choice Global to optimise their hybrid IT environments.

 

Trend 3: Decentralised transaction models are breathing new life into cybersecurity and the Internet of Things (IoT)

Over the last year, blockchain has gone from strength to strength. In the financial services sector, we saw both the US and European capital markets moving onto Blockchain platforms in a large way, with similar activity in more conservative markets like Japan. Considering how conservative and compliance-focused this sector is, that’s quite remarkable.
Many people found it quite ironic that the cybercriminals that perpetrated the recent WannaCry ransomware attack could hold a federal government to ransom and demand to be paid in Bitcoin.
Bitcoin might be a crypto-currency, but as it’s based on blockchain, it’s an interesting use case. The fact that the cybercriminals ─ who invest a lot more in cybercrime than most companies do in cyberprotection ─ are confident that bitcoin provides a safe mechanism (i.e. its blockchain foundation) for the payment of ransoms, should give us an idea of just how secure the distributed ledger approach is.
We believe that blockchain has the potential to totally re-engineer cybersecurity, but that the industry has yet come to terms with it.
With a distributed ledger, cybercriminals don’t have a central database to attack. With an encrypted ledger distributed across numerous computers, all validating one another, where’s the perimeter? It’s an inherently more secure architecture.

 

Blockchain will deliver on the promise of IoT

In the year ahead, we believe that the potential for blockchain to deliver on the promise of IoT will become better understood because IoT requires a peer-to-peer mechanism to be practical and executable.
In the world of IoT you’re generating millions of small transactions collected from a distributed set of sensors.
It’s not feasible to operate these systems using a centralised transactional model, because it’s too slow, expensive, and exclusive. Once a sensor alert is received from a control system you have to be able to react to it, meter it, and bill for it instantly – all of which negates the viability of a centralised transactional authority.
We also expect to see interesting applications of Blockchain and IoT in the area of cybersecurity in the year ahead.

 

Trend 4: Surge in interest in software-defined wide area networks (WANs) while wireless is set to boom

In 2018, we expect to see recently released software-defined WAN technology gaining significant adoption. Some 40% of businesses across the globe will start to deploy software-defined wide area networks – up from just 2% in 2016.
This technology allows you to automate decisions, establish more granular sensitivity to the application and determine how best traffic should be handled. It can even adjust virtual architectures to match workloads or conditions in real-time.
The technology also allows for more informed decision-making about how to use either broad-based Internet or your own costlier, but more robust, traditional MPLS-based networks, thereby enabling a better cost/performance balance.

 

Wireless wins

In 2018, we can also look forward to a boom in new wireless technologies enabling IoT, which brings us a step closer to the dream of pervasive connectivity. Some of these advancements will include 5G and Gbps Wi-Fi, new controls, virtual beacon technology, and low-power, long-distance radio frequency.
Wireless is rapidly becoming pervasive in the enterprise, and even in larger spaces, such as campuses and shopping areas. More intelligent Wi-Fi providing application hooks simplifies the collection of rich control and metadata that drive applications and analytics, and impacts business processes.
We’ll start seeing more wireless-enabled processes. This technology can truly link the user to the application, and to the business process, leading to optimisation and new business model opportunities.
We also believe that networks, particularly on the edge, will become more intelligent especially when analytics becomes a stronger focus. 

Trend 5: Only organisations with the correct architectures and data structures will achieve digital supremacy

To achieve digital supremacy, organisations need to ensure that their basic architectures and data structures are in place.
Most will need a partner to help them get the basics right. Systems integration skills are key for incumbents hoping to compete effectively against new market entrants. A systems integrator can help you determine how to extract value from your legacy environment.
We also expect to see businesses increasingly seeking out a new genre of consulting and advisory services. In the past, businesses would look for advice on how to improve specific technology towers.
Today the conversations are quite different. Organisations are saying: ‘I want to move to digital, but how do I get there from here, quickly? Be very precise ─ I want to know what I should do this week, not what I should do in two years’ time. Which of all these moving parts should I look at first ─ operating profit improvements, cash flow, client experience, or my supply chain?’

 

The digital fight-back against disruptors

We’re seeing increasing numbers of cloud-born start-ups starting to be disrupted in certain industries.
We believe that established organisations that have proactively transformed into digital businesses, modernised their architectures, and embedded high levels of automation into their operations have a window of opportunity in the year ahead to claw back market share.


Top IT trends in 2018: Digital Infrastructure

The following digital infrastructure trends are insightful predictions provided by Kevin Leahy, Group SVP, Data Centre Business Unit.

 

Trend 1: Speed trumps cost

In today’s world of digital disruption, every business perceives itself as being under threat, and, as a result, most are making a conscious decision to choose speed over cost.
Organisations will enable acceleration in the following ways:
  • IT leaders will intensify their efforts to identify and eliminate the inhibitors of speed.
  • We’ll see enterprise IT leaders moving away from lengthy, in-depth total cost of ownership analyses and instead choosing the technology or platform that they can leverage the fastest.
  • Organisations will identify the technologies and platforms that will deliver the business outcome they need at the required speed.
We’ll also see more businesses exploiting software-defined networking and network virtualisation across the network in the data centre, hybrid WAN, and the campus as part of their efforts to transform their networks.

 

Balancing act

These choices have to be made while taking into account the constraints of the organisation, like their own corporate policies, industry rules, and data privacy laws. They’ll also need to factor in the location of their users.
Ultimately, the challenge for organisations in 2018 will be to strike a balance between investment, technology, and governance rules, and their ability to execute at speed.

 

Trend 2: Leveraging tools that support innovation and differentiation is critical

In 2018, businesses need to embrace innovation by leveraging new tools that enable their developers to create new sources of competitive differentiation.
Developers need access to new tools and the flexibility to create business models. They have to be able to support new application types, using modern development and deployment tools, particularly in the area of containerisation.
Considering the pace of innovation in containers, I predict organisations that aggressively embrace these tools and make it available to their development teams will be winners. And those that fail to act will see their competitive edge being eroded.

 

Exploit the SaaS evolution – so you can focus on what differentiates you

Increasingly, we’ll see businesses that are successfully accelerating their digital transformation focusing on using SaaS for non-differentiating processes. This will allow them to reap the benefit of the continuous SaaS industry revolution, and the economies of scale and standardisation that these products afford them.
Using SaaS to ensure that their non-core focus areas are running optimally will enable organisations to focus their resources on creating and evolving their differentiation capability elsewhere – for example, in their manufacturing or CRM environments, or in the development of custom customer-facing applications.

 

Trend 3: The rise of the API economy

Increasingly, businesses are recognising the importance of APIs as an enabler to develop revenue-generating applications and services. This evolution has been dubbed ‘the rise of the API economy’.
In 2018, I predict that organisations will start to see the wisdom in standardising on a set of APIs. We’ll see IT decision-makers move away from evaluating tools, technologies, and services purely on the basis of their features and capabilities.
The API’s maturity and availability, and how easily it allows the implementation of processes, rather than performance will become more important. Increasingly, businesses are looking to exploit the software-driven nature of these environments.

 

It’s all about abstraction

In the year ahead, businesses will be challenged to keep up with the pace of change of APIs. They’ll need to ensure that they can invest in relevant programming to drive their business objectives.
The type and number of APIs that organisations select will depend on several factors, including the extent to which they want or need to abstract away the underlying technologies.

 

Trend 4: Shifting focus from technologies to services architectures

In 2018, in addition to investing in the appropriate APIs to enable abstraction, businesses will need to revisit their architectures and ensure that they’re fit-for-purpose and future-proof.
There’s a clear acceptance in the industry that hybrid IT is the model of the future. However, hybrid IT has significant architectural implications which organisations will need to address.
Over the last decade, IT teams have focused much of their energies on technology integration. The advent of hybrid IT has changed the paradigm: mastering hybrid IT requires you to instead focus on services integration. Most organisations’ existing architectures were not built with this theme in mind.

 

Composition of services

It’s important to determine which services must co-ordinate with others and how they all need work together to deliver the business outcome and a positive user experience.
If you attempt to bring together different services components without first implementing the appropriate architecture, you run the risk of delivering a poor, inconsistent user experience. As the services start to become more complex, your ability to scale it and deliver with quality, will be limited.

 

Trend 5: Push to manage the business value of data

In 2018, there’ll be an intensified focus on exploiting the value of data, and ensuring that it’s provided to those who need it, when they need it – this a truly data-centric view of IT.
The advent of all-flash storage means that there’s less need for organisations to be concerned about different storage types and tiers. In addition, today you can architect so that cost is not an issue, by moving to an all-flash option to make your business faster.
What’s more important is the fact that as organisations transform into digital business, the role of data is taking on greater significance. Now, the emphasis is on finding new value in your data – and being able to leverage the value of that data faster.
At the 2017 Tour de France, our data analytics platform incorporated machine learning and complex algorithms to combine live and historical race data. This provided deeper levels of insight during the 23-day event. It also provided cycling fans with a better understanding about the environments and circumstances in which riders perform best.
This is a good example of how the Internet of Things is enabling organisations to find new sources of data and to extract new value from it.

 

Trend 6: Programmable infrastructure everywhere

In recent years, developers’ focus has been on the level of computing requirements they anticipated they’d need, rather than networking and security considerations. Thanks to the advent of programmable data centre infrastructure, this will change in 2018.
We’ll see more businesses considering network and security requirements in the development phase. We’ll also see them programming their applications to take advantage of software-defined infrastructure.
Network and security services that enable you to move and protect your data can be provisioned to provide on-demand connectivity and security as applications flex, based on changes in business requirements. Infrastructure becomes a ‘living and breathing’ entity that enables the notion of digital business to become a reality.
The technology will allow organisations to challenge their infrastructure status-quo and rethink basic principles using flexibility, programmability and software-defined as cornerstones. This technology transformation could be used as a lever to unlock operational transformation, and in some cases, financial transformation through emerging IT consumption models.


Top IT trends in 2018: Hybrid Cloud

 

Trend 1: Transforming customer experiences and targeted business outcomes with the Internet of Things (IoT)

For IoT to deliver real business value, I believe it’s critical that organisations stop thinking about it as simply a collection of connected sensors and devices.
Companies focused on the business outcomes from the start of the project see real value as a result of their efforts. Organisations trying to solve many disparate business problems find that their lack of focus is less likely to lead to success.

 

Focus on business objectives at the outset

A key example of how the focus on key business objectives delivers real value is our work with Tour de France organisers, Amaury Sport Organisation (A.S.O.). From the outset, A.S.O. focused on bringing the race into the digital era. Their objective was to embrace the benefits of digital technologies and leverage it to protect broadcasting rights and open up new revenue streams.
The core of the solution is IoT: attaching GPS devices to every bike in the race peloton and relaying the location data back to a central location. However, the business value isn’t achieved from the devices alone. The value to A.S.O. derives is from services that turn raw data into information that the fans can use to better understand the challenges, tactics, and race strategy.

 

Trend 2: Hybrid cloud cost containment is a pervasive issue

Three to four years ago, many organisations made the decision to move a significant portion of their infrastructure, and anything new, into the public cloud. They assumed that this would enable them to drive out costs and reduce both operational complexity and headcount.
Today, many businesses have realised that few or none of these objectives have been met.

 

Cost containment strategy

In the next 12 months, we’ll see businesses carefully assessing the return on investment delivered by ‘generation 1’ cloud projects. They’ll also reduce and / or review their consumption-based opex budgets in favour of what could be developed in-house, this time using more intelligent tools. Rather than continuing to consume public cloud, many organisations will consider building private clouds.

 

Trend 3: Increasing understanding of the platform economy

Digital marketplaces are changing the face of business. Organisations will recognise the true potential of the platform economy, and begin to realise its impact on their operating models.
As more businesses shift to a ‘digital front end’, revenue-generating digital assets demand fundamental changes in organisational operating models. Running a digital business with platform-based services differs from traditional operating models.

 

A new risk paradigm

In the platform economy, the risk shifts from the consumer to the provider.
Businesses that operate platforms need to make significant upfront investments to build their platforms – before they receive any revenue. They need to change their commercial and pricing models to factor in new risks.
In the platform economy, sales cycles can be longer and generate less upfront fees. Organisations therefore need to think about how they manage cash flow fluctuations and how they remunerate their sales force.

 

Trend 4: Hybrid cloud solutions are becoming verticalised

Throughout 2018, we’ll see more vertical cloud solutions on the market. Smaller cloud providers are looking for ways to differentiate from the hyperscalers. They’ve realised that they need to find new ways to drive scale and grow market share via a deep vertical focus.
In the year ahead we can expect to see these smaller players investing significantly in industry-specific compliance regimes for different verticals to build credibility with their target market.

 

Comprehensive solutions for the entire XaaS stack

The result will be hybrid cloud offerings that span the entire spectrum of the XaaS stack and deliver a comprehensive solution for specific verticals.
These solutions will cover everything from the infrastructure layer, to platform tools that customers’ development teams can use to build new services without the fear of any compliance breaches, to applications delivering the service.

 

Trend 5: The rise of hybrid cloud management solutions

Businesses will continue to commit to multi-cloud architectures, both public and private, and from several different providers. While there are significant benefits to this approach, it can result in greater management complexity.
As a result, businesses are recognising the importance of having a defined set of management tools to run operations, and we can expect to see an increase in demand for hybrid cloud management solutions.

 

Standardising services

Specifically, organisations will invest in hybrid cloud management solutions allowing standard services to be created.
Businesses use cloud to deliver services to their internal users and/or their external customer base. If they’re operating a platform they need to standardise various components to deliver a particular offer. Hybrid cloud management tools allow this.

 

Trend 6: Industry skills and talent pool continue to shrink

The talent pool of people available to help organisations architect, implement, and operate hybrid cloud solutions will continue to shrink.
This shortage of skills will generate new opportunities for managed services providers that can deliver highly automated services. Why is automation so critical? The more a service provider can automate elements of a client’s IT environment, the lower the costs to deliver the service and the subsequent cost to go to market.
This also benefits the client. By delivering services to customers in a more automated manner, the costs of providing it is also reduced and it can be offered at a lower price-point.

 

Software development becomes the new ‘trade’

Software engineering will become the essential trade of the 2020s.
In 2018, we’ll start to see this manifesting in a war for talent. There’ll be a significant spike in demand for software development talent graduating from tertiary institutions, as organisations seek the skills required to build digital front-ends.

 

Trend 7: Expectation for service providers to deliver a unified, embedded cybersecurity posture ─ across all platforms and services

Organisations that appoint service providers to take on the management of their hybrid, multiple, dispersed, and potentially unrelated IT platforms, will expect them to enable a security posture that spans the entire platform.

 

Built in, not bolted on

Organisations will expect their service providers to offer robust security measures that cover on-premise and cloud-based assets, the network, and applications ─ all built into an intelligent security core.
In evaluating service providers, businesses should consider their capability to provide a holistic approach to cybersecurity and to identify threats and risks across multi-faceted, distributed architectures, including on-premise, cloud, and hybrid environments.
Providers should demonstrate an understanding of how digital infrastructure, digital workplaces, and cloud environments expose new risks. 


Top IT trends in 2018: Digital Workplaces

Joe Manuele, Group Executive, Customer Experience and Workplace Productivity; Alex Bennett, Customer Experience and Workplace Productivity Practice-lead: Productivity; and Dino Marasco: Customer Experience and Workplace Productivity: Go-to-Market Lead; share their thoughts on the top digital workplace trends in the year ahead.

 

Trend 1: Artificial intelligence driving voice-enabled virtual assistants in the enterprise

Artificial intelligence-driven virtual assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple's Siri, and Microsoft’s Cortana have been around for some time in the consumer world. These voice-activated helpers assist us to find information, and carry out a range of everyday tasks on our behalf.
These virtual assistants are now starting to make their way into the workplace. According to our recently published Digital Workplace Report, 62% of organisations expect virtual assistants to have a place in their companies in the next two years.

 

Voice is cool again

Because these virtual assistants are voice-enabled, they allow us to get things done much faster ─ you don’t have to log onto your computer and then onto some sort of system or application using a username and password to complete a task.
Imagine you wake up on a Monday morning, ready to tackle your working week. Your first meeting is only at 10:00 am, so you decide to spend an hour or so in your home office. One of the items on your list is to approve an employee’s expense claim. You simply say: ‘Cortana, please approve Mike’s expenses’ – and it’s done.
Just before setting off to the office, you ask Cortana to scan the traffic newsfeeds to check for any disruptions along your normal route, and if so, recommend the best alternative. If necessary, using automated messaging integrated into Microsoft Exchange, Cortana could also inform the colleagues who you’re meeting at 10:00 am that you may be late, or need to reschedule.

 

Trend 2: Smart buildings are evolving into smart workplaces

In 2018, we expect to see smart buildings evolving into what we call ‘smart workplaces’.
For example, by leveraging the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and wireless virtual beacon technology, property owners can track which parts of a building have the greatest footfall and attach a higher rental price tag to those areas. They can even use data collected by sensors to negotiate new contracts with their office cleaning providers, based on the amount of dirt that accumulates in different areas.
Let’s return to your Monday morning arrival at the office to explore some of the other smart workplace innovations that we can look forward to in the year ahead…
As you enter your office parking garage, a smart parking system allocates you to a bay as close as possible to where your meeting is located. On entering the building, a biometric identity verification system, using a combination of voice and facial recognition, grants you access to the reception area.
Next, what’s known as ‘ambient artificial intelligence’ kicks in. The digital signage in the passageways identifies who you are and where you need to go and directs you to your meeting room.
By integrating with identity solutions such as Microsoft Active Directory and using voice and facial recognition, the room senses your arrival, and immediately brings the other attendees into the meeting via video. A smart board automatically shows the notes you’ve made during a meeting held the previous week. The lights dim, the blinds close, and your meeting begins.

 

Trend 3: Support of major vendors is driving adoption of Web real-time communication (RTC)

While Web RTC has been around for some time, we expect to see an increase in its adoption in 2018 because Apple and Microsoft ─ whose browsers are the most popular ─ are embracing the technology.
Web RTC allows you to enable a video meeting using only a web browser. You don’t need a client on your desktop, and attendees don’t need to worry about finding meeting call-in numbers and passwords. Everyone simply clicks on a link and joins the meeting via their respective browsers.
Web RTC will also provide new ways for organisations to communicate with and support their customers, driving greater levels of customer experience.

 

Trend 4: Video becomes the defacto

Video is becoming mainstream to the point where organisations are re-defining their workplaces to make it more collaborative and supportive of video.
Traditional workplaces typically include offices, cubicles, and meeting rooms. Increasingly we’re seeing a shift to workplaces that comprise of more shared spaces, commonly known as activity-based working. This could include huddle rooms and other small office spaces where people can collaborate and have video conferences.

 

Network considerations

While video is good for productivity, you need to consider the impact on the network. If you start video-enabling all your users and Web RTC becomes the primary way to communicate and collaborate, your supporting digital infrastructure needs to be able to cope.

 

Trend 5: From BYOD to BYOA ─ the next wave of individual empowerment

Next on your Monday afternoon agenda is a catch up with Sanjay, a 20-something data analyst on your team, who’s based in India. This meeting takes the form of a video-enabled WhatsApp call from a hot desk.
When Sanjay joined the organisation, he quickly expressed his frustration with internally provided tools and requested that you rather meet via FaceTime or WhatsApp. He’s also sourced his own powerful data visualisation software to enable him to quickly ‘slice and dice’ data and conduct in-depth analysis, rather than rely on spreadsheets.
This scenario is indicative of a trend that we believe we’ll start to see accelerating in 2018. Individuals are increasingly asserting their desire to communicate and collaborate however they want, using their choice of tools. Employees ─ particularly millennials don’t just prefer to use their own devices, they also want to use their own applications.
This is a trend that’s been dubbed ‘bring your own app’ or BYOA.

 

What’s the impact on the IT team?

BYOA means that what IT needs to deliver to the business is going to change.
IT teams shouldn’t deploy technology just for the sake of it. They should firstly focus on understanding what a functional team or employee needs to perform their particular tasks and ensure that they feel empowered to use it, while following regulatory and compliance requirements.
IT’s metrics will also need to change. It’s no longer just about keeping track of uptime of the environment. Integrated business outcome KPIs are required regarding adoption, usage, pipeline increase, and speed of sale so that, for example, you can demonstrate that the productivity platform deployed is increasing sales.
Monday’s been a productive but tiring day so you decide to head home. As you approach your apartment, you turn your thoughts to the evening ahead. You decide that a quiet night in with a pizza and a Netflix movie is just what you need – all arranged by your virtual assistant of course!



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