Introduction

The year ahead holds significant promise for IT, especially considering the recent upheaval that swept across the field. Enterprises scrambled to address the changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and vendors and service providers pivoted to fill the needs that these shifts created. This report looks at five key areas in IT that will have significant impacts today and in the near future. They are bound together by the need to more closely connect technology to the people who interact with it, shifting technology from an end to a means. Technology must serve new models of work, meld dispersed elements of infrastructure, and inform and enhance customer experience while securing the systems and information that drive it.

The Take

As organizations transition from the urgent, crisis-driven work of the recent past, they will be well served to reconsider how they have used the technology assets at their disposal. They must become more data-driven and build skills across their business lines to put that data to work to serve their customers, employees and partners. Employees are demanding greater flexibility in how they work, and technology has become a decision point in what companies they choose to work for. Customers want visibility into how and where their data is used and how it is protected. To support all of this, enterprises will have to become skilled at managing and securing a hybrid collection of resources and services if they are to remain competitive in their markets and be an attractive place to work. Technology mastery will pay off for them in those markets and as responsible stewards of their place in society and the planet.