2020 a year of consolidation and transition towards a DX economy

S Mohini Ratna, Editor, VARINDIA

In an era where data is the new oil, understanding of what you have, where it is and who has access to it has never been more critical. The ability to uncover and understand the data, and whether it is potentially harmful or helpful, will put organizations in a stronger position, not only increasing compliance with regulation, but also gaining value from the data they are unaware of.

With a strong trust, the Indian economy that has bottomed out is expected to see a gradual recovery. Overall, CY20 will likely be a year of consolidation as the economy and earnings catch up with the markets and transition as the broader markets start participating.

Companies have not been alone on their journey towards digital transformation. People have also been on a parallel path, incorporating new technologies at an increasingly rapid rate. When mobile phones were first introduced, they took 12 years to reach 50 million users; the internet took just seven years to get to the same point. Looking at purely digital technologies, the rates become frantic: Facebook reached 50 million users in four years; WeChat, one year and Pokémon GO, the augmented-reality gaming app from Niantic took just nineteen days.

The power of cloud and artificial intelligence will continue to advance. When combined with technologies such as distributed ledger, extended reality, and quantum computing, they will reshape not only the business sphere, but also the relationships with individuals - customers, employees and ecosystem partners - that are critical to future growth.

Digital is indeed important, but now it is simply the price of admission for doing business. Studies indicate that the overall level of trust in anything digital is at an all-time low, and the everyday news we hear about data breaches and misuse of data further contributes to this declining level of trust.  

A recent report shows that 80% Indian executives believe AI is essential to stay in business by 2025. Only a few have made the shift from mere experimentation to creating an organization powered by robust AI capabilities. AI automates repetitive learning and discovery through data. But AI is different from hardware-driven, robotic automation. AI performs frequent, high-volume, computerized tasks reliably and without fatigue. Businesses need to step on the pedal and learn from the leaders.

The Indian cloud computing market, currently at $2.2 billion, is growing rapidly and is expected to grow to $4 billion by 2020 with an annual growth rate of more than 30%. Multi-cloud becomes one of the top priorities, and it requires for an immediate need of interoperability of data and applications. Azure Stack enables you to run Azure workloads on-premises or even within a co-location facility, enabling stronger security and control over your data and applications with a single management platform for your public Azure cloud infrastructure and your Azure Stack deployment. Many cloud companies are coming out with these types of solutions.

The challenge is, with the increasing scrutiny on security of personal data and severe financial and reputational implications for firms experiencing breaches, it’s vital that businesses fully understand where personal data sits across their network - or face the consequences. In recent years, data privacy has become a prominent concern for netizens across the globe.

Cybersecurity has become a top-of-mind strategic business issue for enterprise organizations deploying SD-WAN solutions. As a result, organizations worldwide are turning towards solutions that tightly integrate next-generation firewall security and SD-WAN functionality. Social, mobile, analytics, and cloud (SMAC) are combined to drive the biggest enterprise and market transformations since the dawn of the industrial era.

2020 will also witness the growth of next technology revolution into Distributed ledger technology, Artificial intelligence, extended Reality, and Quantum computing (DARQ) that are already having an impact in disparate areas of enterprise. DARQ technologies will drive the post-digital wave, but catching that wave will only be possible with the firm foundation of SMAC.

Digital Transformation (DX) is disrupting business models to deliver. By looking into 2020, customers will continue to expect more from businesses, regardless of whether they are digitally native, disrupting, or transforming their industry. In line with this, more companies will recognize the power of adopting an omnichannel CX strategy to give their customers an increasingly seamless experience. Moving forward, by 2023 products and services from digitally transformed enterprises will account for more than half of the global GDP, signalling digital supremacy, as per the data of IDC.

Looking at the recently held CES 2020 in Las Vegas, the event had inspired and connected every major industry across the globe. The innovations unveiled at CES 2020 will reshape industries, create jobs, fuel the global economy and improve lives around the world. The event featured the entire spectrum of transformative technology that will redefine markets and shift business models.

I also expect to see a higher adoption of AI and self-service. AI is a must for the growth of IT. The impact of AI technologies on business is projected to increase labour productivity by up to 40 percent and automation will incrementally drive the DX economy.