Revolution not evolution: How COVID-19 is shifting our approach to ICT deployment

It’s the year 2020 and enterprise tech innovation has never been more attractive. What began, for many, as a moderate walking pace towards some lofty digital transformation goals, turned into a fast canter at the start of the year, with79% of companies upping their innovation budget.

As such, the COVID-19 pandemic has sped up our digital transformations by an average of six years, according to some estimates. Pressures like mandatory remote work, new and emerging cyber threats and the heightened possibility of disruption have thrust us into a new paradigm of ICT deployment, also.

Even firms in the upper echelons of the digital transformation scale have had to make notable changes - scaling up their practices to ensure security, safety and connectivity for their remote workforce.

Late-adopters, too, have been ramping up ICT procurement. Tools that were once considered progressive, like hybrid cloud, VDI and Desktop as a Service (DaaS), are now the bread and butter of our business continuity diets, with91% of firms working remotely, says a Gartner report. Discussions around technology procurement have also broadened from the project to the enterprise level.

Intelligent automation, for example, has become crucial across the board, as governments, health systems and hospitals around the world seek to mobilise. In fact, Gartner research tells us the intelligent enterprise industry is expected to reach $29.48 billion by 2022, driven mainly by demand for dashboards, reporting and self-serving business intelligence.

Cloud services are also gaining traction as companies continue their work-from-home policies on a long-term basis. In fact, almost half are adopting a “cloud first” policy, with year-on-year cloud spending up by 23%.

With many recognising the value of increased capital spending in a public cloud model, a mass shift from Capex to Opex could soon be underway. In turn this will pave the way for new financial models, like pay-per-use, lending and renting services.

Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is also becoming more mainstream, as companies begin to recognise the value in unifying their cloud environment and streamlining backend operations. With ICT dollars more precious than ever before, HCI is also crucial for cutting cloud costs.

Edge computing is fast becoming the popular new kid at school, with market revenues expected to reach billions in 2025, up from 1.47 billion in 2018. Helping to reduce cost, physical footprint, power consumption, and response time or latency are some of the key benefits.

The growing popularity of edge computing will coincide with a global surge in data and internet of things (IoT) usage, fuelled by the increased speed and bandwidth of fifth generation broadband (5G).

This year, 5G has seen a 308.66% quarter-on-quarter increase in worldwide connections, reaching 63.6 million connections in total. As such it has confirmed its status as the fastest growing wireless cellular technology.

The rise of Edge computing and 5G will fuel AI adoption, with the quantity of data generated at the network edge creating significant demand for data processing and structural optimization. In turn, this will pave the way for Edge and AI Integration.

All of this is expected to propel a hybrid world. While the cloud has provided AI with the platform it needs to grow, the combination of HCI and edge computing will provide a breeding ground for AI to truly flourish.

For the IT channel, 2020 will be a crucial time to support India’s businesses with access to the right technology and capabilities. Longer-term, even the channel itself may have to adapt to the new business reality. This could mean casting a broader net in terms of lead generation, refining corporate communications or reallocating budgets to afford new business models.

In a nutshell, what has this year taught us? It’s that we shouldn’t just have our eyes on the ball, but have our arms out ready to catch it.

By Ritesh Syal, Head and Director- Channels and Alliances, India, Nutanix