Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2021. Read them in this 13th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Data Challenges and Trends to Watch in 2021
By experts from FTI Technology
If a crystal ball existed, perhaps the world would have been better equipped for the chaos that defined the past year. Though futurists and industry pundits didn’t include a global pandemic in their predictions for the defining events of 2020, some the changes that emerged over the last 12 months weren’t wholly unexpected either. In fact, many of the shifts we’ve seen-more remote work, new workplace collaboration, increasing reliance on digital services-were already developing well before disaster struck. As the pandemic began effecting business operations worldwide, many of those steadily developing, emerging trends were rapidly accelerated into a full arrival.
As a result, data has become a central focus. Across a variety of practice areas, experts within FTI Consulting’s Technology segments have stayed apace, and in some cases ahead of, the rapidly shifting landscape of data and the emerging challenges around it. Drawing on insights from their work helping clients navigate the past year, FTI’s teams have compiled their top predictions for how data will continue to influence business and risk as the world recovers from the pandemic. These include:
- “The new year will bring several shifts that are likely to impact in-house legal and information governance teams. As the COVID vaccines are rolled-out, and begin working to stamp out the pandemic, certainty will begin to return to the economy and business operations. With this, we’ll likely see an increase in spending on privacy and security initiatives that fill some of the gaps exposed during the pandemic. Also, with the new Biden administration, enforcement action is likely to increase, putting renewed pressure on corporations to have their governance, risk and compliance programs in sound working order.” – Jake Frazier, Senior Managing Director, FTI Technology
- “Several interesting trends will begin to materialize in the technology space. For one, anywhere operations and turbo-charged digital transformation will drive multi-cloud and managed service adoption. The economic crunch will also drive an uptick M&A activity, in turn drawing increased scrutiny from competition authorities on big tech and data use and sharing. I think we’ll also see Data Protection Authorities increasingly focusing on data subject rights and automating privacy controls on data.” – Sonia Cheng, Senior Managing Director, FTI Technology
- “As companies emerge from the pandemic and legal teams return to internal initiatives that had been put on hold, such as improvements to contract lifecycle management (CLM), new internal PMOs and project teams will be formed with increased frequency. These groups will be prioritized to shop, develop and implement solutions including contract management systems, contract analytics, contract process outsourcing and legacy data remediation. In the rebound, the attention to and urgency on these activities will feel like that which is normally reserved for regulatory compliance initiatives.” – Ryan Drimalla, Managing Director, FTI Technology
- “Many companies plan to continue allowing their employees work remotely for the coming six to 12 months, and are quickly adopting new applications and technologies that make it easier for teams to collaborate in a remote environment. For legal teams, this is creating a tidal wave of emerging data sources that may need to be incorporated into e-discovery activities. In the coming year, in-house and outside counsel will need to get up to speed on these new data sources and be ready for how they are likely to impact their discovery matters.” – Elizabeth Noble, Senior Director, FTI Technology
- “We’re continuing to see companies playing catch-up to implementing programs in compliance with the California Consumer Privacy Act. Now, with the recent passage of the California Privacy Rights Act and updates to Europe’s ePrivacy Regulation, there will be a new set of requirements to incorporate into policies and procedures, which are likely to set companies back even further through 2021.” – Melissa Cohen, Director, FTI Technology
- “The events of this past year forced most organizations to increase their use of cloud-based apps, storage and solutions in general. In the coming year, more will continue to move to cloud services, but many may not be ready to handle that shift from a governance standpoint. Alongside cloud adoption, it will be essential for organizations to address how new systems will impact policies and procedures, legacy data, data migration and other aspects of information governance. At the same time, organizations will continue to struggle with balancing strong governance over remote workforces with ensuring data and systems are readily available for day-to-day operations.” – Vanesa Hercules, Director, FTI Technology
