Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2021. Read them in this 13th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Adapting to Changing Market Conditions by Maximizing on Technology Investments
By Yaakov Shapiro, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Tangoe
In 2020, companies across the board experienced unprecedented disruption. From being forced to quickly shift to online operations to finding sense amid the new normal, organizations of all types and sizes were confronted with tough decisions, cost-cutting imperatives and resource constraints.
While technology experts typically anticipate the following year to be centered around driving innovation, 2021 will be about adapting to changing market conditions driven by the global pandemic and finding targeted ways to push the transformation envelope.
To obtain a better sense of where the enterprise is headed going into the new year, below are five trends myself and others at Tangoe, the global leader in enterprise technology expense management and managed mobility services, predict will drive business strategy over the next 12 months:
1. Automation Matures, Moving from Innovation to Essential.
While automation has been making top trends lists for years now – trumpeted as one of the biggest innovations for the year ahead – in 2021, automation will move from innovation to table stakes. In fact, companies are open to investing in automation as a way to accommodate changing market conditions brought on by the pandemic, according to a recent study.
Business processes are maturing a great deal and so is automation. Over the next 12 months, automation use cases will continue to grow from repetitive and routine robotic process automation to AI and machine learning-based hyper-automation.
The way IT leaders talk about automation will evolve as well, from a technology in and of itself, to the specific use cases automation enables. As organizations increasingly rely on automation to drive business processes, new capabilities and cost savings, it will move from a nice-to-have to an essential element to running a business.
2. BYOD + 5G = The New IoT.
The sudden rise in remote work is driving the convergence of existing trends into a megatrend. As the workforce relies on a variety of devices – including personal devices – to get their jobs done from home or the office, bring your own device (BYOD) is once again a hot topic, posing the question of how organizations can not only gain visibility into their holistic technology ecosystem, but also manage these proliferating devices.
This challenge is only compounded when it comes to the adoption of 5G, which is poised to create new categories of smart “things” that will need to be managed alongside mobile devices.
The Internet of Things (IoT) generally refers to the explosion of devices and endpoints with connectivity. But the anticipated convergence of BYOD and 5G will give way to a new definition for IoT. Rather than associating a device with an individual employee, an office location, or its connection to the network, it becomes about how the device fits into the business – and that requires a different type of registry. In the year ahead, organizations will need to think about IoT differently and figure out to how to manage the explosion of devices and new categories of “things,” in addition to the associated costs.
3. Businesses Finally Reap the Benefits of 5G.
5G is another trend that’s appeared on predictions lists for the last few years, but in 2021, businesses will finally be able to reap the benefits, as the technology enters mainstream use. In fact, in just three more years, Statista predicts that there will be around 1.9 billion 5G subscriptions worldwide.
The shift to remote work is accelerating 5G deployments. Carriers are beginning to push the envelope in delivering the technology more quickly to allow organizations and individuals to take advantage in the coming year. Apple already introduced its first 5G devices and over the next several months, businesses will tap into the power of 5G.
To best capitalize on the technology, IT and finance leaders will need to put a strategy in place for introducing 5G into their business in order to mitigate the risk of out of control cost structures.
4. The Cybersecurity Mandate Becomes Urgent.
Perhaps one of the biggest trends to take place in 2021 will occur in the cybersecurity sphere. Cybercriminals tend to capitalize on times of chaos and the COVID-19 pandemic has been no exception. Of the 723 cyberattacks the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has handled over the past year (up from 658 the prior year), nearly a third were related to coronavirus.
The increased use of remote endpoints, personal devices and home WiFi can put organizations at a greater risk and make it harder to control their security environments.
With the heightened security risks brought on by the pandemic, IT and security leaders will need to adopt endpoint management solutions, employ a cybersecurity-conscious culture and place a greater emphasis on cybersecurity strategy – before it’s too late.
5. Business Continuity and Cloud Go Hand-in-Hand.
As the business world becomes less and less dependent on physical offices, cloud migration strategies will continue to accelerate. Organizations will look to cloud services not only for their new and evolving infrastructure needs, but also to enable stronger collaboration among remote teams.
Over the next 12 months, organizations will depend on the cloud for business resiliency and scalability as they navigate the new normal. The challenge they face is moving operations to the cloud without breaking the bank – and doing so requires great diligence and discipline.
By achieving clear visibility into existing usage, reevaluating infrastructure needs to optimize spend and establishing tools for future and ongoing cloud environment maintenance, IT and finance leaders can maximize their cloud investment and improve efficiencies for years to come.
After a year of mass disruption that transformed business as we know it, organizations should enter next year with an eye toward enabling business agility to help them navigate changing market conditions and prepare for future disruption. To achieve agility, IT and finance leaders should focus on understanding and maximizing technology investments. Those that apply strategic and targeted technology use cases to drive meaningful transformation will find success in the year ahead.
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About the Author
Yaakov Shapiro | Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
When Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Yaakov Shapiro joined Tangoe in May 2018, he brought with him a unique set of skills and experience. With more than 30 years of software engineering and management experience in both large corporate and small business environments, Yaakov is an innovative leader with proven experience in building motivated results-oriented teams across multiple locations and geographies. Yaakov gained a valuable perspective through the years: He was fortunate to have experienced software development before the World Wide Web revolutionized the internet in the 1990s, and smart phones made information portable in the new millennium.
Yaakov champions new ways of thinking and is a role model for continuous improvement. He encourages and rewards smart risk taking. His technical expertise includes areas such as mobile development, cloud computing, data analytics and desktop applications as well as other evolving technologies. Yaakov possesses exceptional interpersonal and communication skills and a style that is both open and respectful; effective with executives, customers, direct line employees and cross-organization teams.
At Tangoe, Yaakov helps executives solve their biggest IT challenges for fixed, mobile and cloud. He and his global technology team help customers increase productivity, reduce costs, and drive predictable results. His belief; people work smarter when technology works for them.
Before joining Tangoe, Yaakov was the Senior Vice President of Software Engineering at Pitney Bowes. As the domain leader of the PB Software Solutions Innovation team, Yaakov was responsible for the entire Pitney Bowes Software product portfolio, which included the Location Intelligence, Customer Information Management, Customer Engagement Solutions and Data teams. The team was composed of over 600 technical resources spanning the globe with teams in India, UK, Poland and the US. Yaakov also lead the Mobile Center of Excellence.
Prior to Pitney Bowes, Yaakov spent 18 years at CA Technologies where he held a series of progressively strategic positions culminating as leader of a global software engineering organization of 500+ charged with delivering innovative products for the CA Intellicenter portfolio-a strategic engine for businesses in the application economy that enable CIOs and IT leaders to provide value to their organizations.
In a prior role at CA Technologies as Chief Architect and Distinguished Engineer, Yaakov led a team of six senior architects driving technical architecture for the Business Service Optimization business unit comprised of dozens of products and over 1,500 Software Developers and Product Managers. His team designed a common architecture and tech stacks across products that involved multi-tenancy, database schema, common object definitions and reporting tools.
Yaakov holds a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and Computer Science from Touro College in NYC where he graduated summa cum laude.
Yaakov currently resides in Spring Valley, NY with his wife of 35 years, but without their six children who have all married and started families of their own. In his spare time, Yaakov studies Bible, Jewish Law & Philosophy and is a locally noted lecturer.
