Tech Trends 2019

Digital experience. Analytics. Cloud. In the previous nine issues of Tech Trends, we have examined these powerful forces as they evolved from promising innovations and novel approaches into full-fledged trends. Today they are considered foundational components not only of enterprise IT, but of corporate strategy.

The journey to fully autonomous artificial intelligence is part of a growing trend in which companies transform themselves into AI-fueled organizations into AI-fueled organizations where AI is an integral component of corporate strategy. Its end goal: an organization in which humans and machines work together effectively.

Traditionally, the CIO’s responsibility of keeping business-critical technology systems running has absorbed up to 70 percent of IT’s budget as well as considerable amounts of labor bandwidth. Yet in an era of perpetually tight IT budgets, finding ways to redirect financial and human assets from operations to innovation remains a top CIO goal.

Traditionally, networking has lived in the shadow of high-profile disruptive enterprise technologies such as digital experience, cognitive, and cloud that capture imaginations and headlines. Networking, though mission-critical, is not particularly sexy. This is about to change.

An emerging technology trend that could redraw or even erase boundaries between humans and computers, a new breed of intelligent interfaces is turning the farfetched into reality. These interfaces combine the latest in human-centered design techniques with leading-edge technologies and working in concert, these techniques and capabilities are transforming the way we engage with machines, data, and each other.

Marketing technology is undergoing a renaissance. Channel-focused solutions such as websites, social and mobile platforms are fast becoming yesterday’s news. Organizations are adopting a new generation of martech systems that deliver unprecedented levels of customer intimacy, targeted engagement, and precision impact. These experiences can help customers create deep emotional connections to products and brands, which drive loyalty and business growth.

DevOps tactics and tools are dramatically changing the way IT organizations innovate. In the midst of this transformation, IT leaders are finding that longstanding approaches for integrating security into new products are not keeping pace with high-velocity, continuous delivery software development. Indeed, in the DevOps arena, traditional “bolt-on” security techniques and manual controls that rely on legacy practices often are perceived as impediments to speed, transparency, and overall security effectiveness.

Today, we refer to the process of using emerging technologies to reimagine an entire business as digital transformation. Simply put, digital transformation is the process of future-proofing one’s organization. It typically begins with leaders and strategists defining new ambitions often in the broadest of terms and grandest of visions.