Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2021. Read them in this 13th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
SaaS Applications and SaaS Management Power Work-From-Anywhere
By Doug
Hazelman, chief evangelist & senior vice president, CoreView
Organizations and government agencies hustled
to accelerate cloud adoption and maximize their Microsoft 365 and other SaaS
applications' environment this year to support newly remote workers. With
remote work here for the long haul, a top priority in 2021 for IT teams is on
optimizing their cloud investment to support a digital workplace and today's
‘work-from-anywhere' environment. We can expect huge market demand for tools
and services that help drive productivity and collaboration and increase
security and governance in Microsoft 365 and other SaaS applications.
Below are my (based on input from the
CoreView team) 2021 predictions for enterprise technology.
- The
Rise of webOS's: As SaaS becomes even more prevalent in the
workplace, I expect a shift away from traditional workstations in 2021with
companies instead relying on lightweight Chromebooks and their associated
webOS's to help employees stay productive. Not only will this lead to cost
savings on hardware, but these systems are just as, if not more, secure than
desktop workstations.
- 2020
was Disruptive; 2021 Will be Transformative: For
many organizations, the immediate shift to remote work required IT pros to
manage a hyper-accelerated mass cloud migration that was pulled together with
hard work, duct tape, and hope. This year, enterprises will begin managing
their new cloud infrastructure more effectively and focus on how to support
employee productivity, operate more efficiently, and secure critical data and
apps.
- The
Rogue Employee Threat: Organizations will be faced with an old
adversary in 2021 - rogue employees. These are employees who are working from
home but are unhappy with their company's digital workplace and engage in risky
behaviors such as downloading unauthorized apps or sharing sensitive
information externally. Rogue employees typically aren't being malicious;
instead, they're rebelling against policies or tech that inhibits their
workflows. To combat this trend, organizations can educate employees on the
benefits of the organizations SaaS solutions and the dangers of going rogue to
gain buy-in and feedback to improve.
- Offices
aren't Dead... Yet: Remote work has shown many businesses that
it's difficult to replicate the value of in-person meetings in a remote
environment setting. While many are predicting the end of commercial real
estate as we know it, most businesses are going to test a hybrid collaboration
environment as the pandemic progresses.
Remote work isn't going anywhere and in 2021,
organizations and government agencies will continue to prioritize tools and
technology that support a dispersed workforce, emphasizing productivity and
security. As of right now, Microsoft's cloud-based productivity suite has more
than 258 million monthly active users and 115 million people use Microsoft Teams. Competition
in the SaaS applications space is heating up, evident by Salesforce's
acquisition of Slack in December for a whopping $27 billion - even the Dept. of Defense recently shared its
plans to accelerate its move to Microsoft.
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About the
Author
Doug Hazelman is senior vice president and chief
evangelist at CoreView (www.coreview.com), a
SaaS management provider. At CoreView, Doug plays a key role in helping grow
the CoreView brand through communities while providing feedback to marketing,
sales and product teams.
Previously, Doug was vice president of
technical marketing at MSP360 (formerly CloudBerry), where he led efforts to
create a community of its customers, as well as other MSPs and vendors in the
managed services space. He also worked as host of the MSP360 sponsored podcast,
MSP Voice (mspvoice.com). Doug
has also worked as VP of Product Strategy and Chief Evangelist at Veeam
Software, and as a consultant within the Advanced Infrastructure Group at
Bennett Adelson. He has also held roles at Bennet Adelson, Quest Software and
Aelita Software.