It’s been 15 months and 2 deadly waves of the new Corona virus induced pandemic. Changes in the way we live that started as SOS measures for a temporary period have become de facto normal.
Work, education and entertainment has shifted indoors. In time, things will open up and people may not remain entirely cooped up in their homes. While the jury is out on when this will happen, it is generally accepted that life is not going to be what it was pre-pandemic. That we will have some sort of a hybrid lifestyle.
What does this mean for business? And in particular about IT networks used in business? I don’t claim to have the answers, but here are some areas that I would watch out for:
1. Fungible Networks
With partial work from home, flexible offices and hybrid working, enterprise networks will face unprecedented volatility in bandwidth requirements. Efficiency in bandwidth utilization and therefore costs will require innovative solutions from ISPs as well as from network infrastructure teams.
2. Data Security
Enterprises have had to move applications to the cloud faster than they had planned to. Each application is further integrated with others. Some applications allow data to be stored on user devices. Data security is getting more and more complicated. Allowing access to data for effective working while plugging all the possible data breach is going to require the CISO to re-think data security. Already, a number of smart solutions are available which ensure data security in a work from anywhere scenario.
3. Phygital enablement
With experiences moving entirely to the digital space during the pandemic, there are elements of it that will likely continue even when physical access resumes. For example, restaurant menus are unlikely to be printed on paper. We are likely to see this much more in sectors like retail where digital roots were already there and have grown stronger now. CIOs will be called upon to provide applications and networks that leverages both worlds to deliver unprecedented value.
4. Speed of Change
The rate of change of business processes and the systems to deliver them has entered the Moore’s law domain. The shelf life of tech solutions and investments has shrunk like never before. How enterprises and solution vendors cope with this new reality needs to be watched. The hitherto model of system refresh every few years backed by fat IT budgets, will be difficult to get past the investment committee.
5. Light Touch Operations
We have talked about the managed services regime becoming prominent in some of our previous blogs here and here. That and the distributed nature of devices, applications and users will require agility and speed.
This is by no means a comprehensive list of changes awaiting us. Do let me know your views and the changes to look out for as you see it.
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