Equinix recently announced the findings of its Global Tech Trends Survey 2022 report. The independent study, commissioned by Equinix, surveyed 2,900 IT decision-makers in diverse enterprises across the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and EMEA. Manoj Paul, managing director, Equinix India spoke to Dataquest about how the pandemic has impacted organisations, and some of the latest tech trends on the basis of the report.

DQ: How has the pandemic impacted the progress of digital transformation in organisations?

Manoj Paul: The pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation journeys of organizations in India and has fast-tracked the transformation of business-critical digital infrastructures. Equinix’s annual Global Tech Trends Survey 2022 revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic caused Indian IT decision-makers driving much more aggressive IT strategies than before. The survey data also shows that around 72% of IT decision makers believe that the technology changes they made during the pandemic are here to stay, and 63% of IT decision makers agreed that they became more aggressive and ambitious with their IT strategies due to the pandemic.

DQ: What were some of the common challenges faced by organisations in India?

Manoj Paul: According to IDC, Indian enterprises are re-examining their current enterprise digital infrastructure strategy to create a technology architecture that enables reliable digital services and experiences. It includes evaluating the readiness of their technology architectures to overcome challenges of legacy infrastructure, lack of scalability and the data deluge. Access to ecosystem players in prime locations and ensuring connectivity at customer locations are also mission critical. More organizations today are reinventing workflows by developing a digital-first business model to gain competitive advantage and be future-ready.

Further, Equinix Global Tech Trends survey 2022 shows that cybersecurity and supply chain issues are the most significant challenges to organizations in India. 76% IT leaders said they faced challenges in working with more complex digital supply chains and 76% mentioned global supply chain issues and shortages as key threats to their business. These continued supply chain issues appear to be driving a need for more virtualization, with growth aspirations underpinned by significant planned investment in digital infrastructure.

DQ: Could you highlight the top 5 tech trends in India?

Manoj Paul: Organizations in India have successfully illustrated the advanced benefits of adopting technology at all levels of business and societies for more connected, efficient and smooth operations. The continued acceptance of innovation and openness to implementing new methods of work that we are witnessing today is critical to the success of the country’s economy.  Increasing movement towards interconnection solutions, and cloud and IT infrastructure adoption remain, and some digital leaders are even accelerating global expansion plans despite cautious sentiment and pandemic disruptions. 

Below are the key trends from India:

Deploying a hybrid multicloud model to future-proof business: The hybrid cloud model for Indian IT leaders is the most common deployment method with the highest rate globally. This shows that the demand for the technology will only expand with more organizations expected to adopt this strategy. Although not as dominant as the hybrid cloud, there is also a growing section of digital leaders using multi-cloud, with 83% of them currently leveraging two or more cloud service providers.  

Evolution of Web3: Web3 is still conceptual, the applications and thoughts of its technology are being explored intensively. According to GTTS, a majority of Indian IT leaders (52%) expect Web 3 to replace Web 2 within the next 1-5 years. 79% of respondents indicate that their business already has a Web 3 strategy in place.

Considering service model strategies: The GTTS 2022 findings state that a vast majority of IT decision-makers across India are moving towards an Everything as a Service / Anything as a Service (XaaS) model.​ Only one in 10 indicates they are not moving towards an XaaS model. 

Cloud migration continues: 40% of IT leaders in India deploy public cloud, while 93% of them reported working with two or more cloud providers. 86% of Indian IT leaders said they plan to move more business functions to the cloud. Of those respondents, 79% of them plan to move their security functions to the cloud, and 60% intend to move databases to the cloud.

5G:  We are witnessing high adoption of 5G and some of the highest quality 5G experiences.  5G is more of a priority for Indian IT decision-makers, with many seeing it as a crucial component of their strategy to take advantage of new technologies in artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT).

DQ: What should the way forward be for organisations based on the findings?

Manoj Paul: Businesses in India are planning major investments in digital technologies to support ambitious expansion plans after lessons learnt from the pandemic. The GTTS findings suggest that 96% of IT leaders in India indicated their organization is planning to expand into new markets in the next 12 months.

Given this, here are a few key points for organizations to consider for future growth: 

Future-proofing is essential: The dynamics of nonstop disruption around the world are driving innovation and making agility a non-negotiable capability. IT leaders must be prepared to pre-empt and prevent numerous threats. Cyberattacks, security breaches and data leaks are serious threats to their business success, and constantly changing data privacy regulations maintain ongoing complexity. Hence, with the fast-changing landscape and expansion plan, organizations must take adequate cybersecurity measures and calculate the risks that a single provider’s service might pose.

Web 3 will replace Web 2: With evolving business models and consumer demands, the future of the internet is evolving too. Web3 will focus on the extensive use of decentralized applications and blockchain-enabled technologies; machine learning and artificial intelligence will be instrumental in empowering more intelligent and adaptive applications. To enable Web3 success, digital infrastructures will need to offer new bare metal configurations that contain large storage capacities and even lower latencies.

Migrate to HMC: With the digital economy seeing a continuous upsurge, companies report how leveraging cloud services, colocation and interconnection are key components of their business and IT strategies. Organizations must benefit from interconnection to join in the anywhere economy and deliver smooth digital experiences. All regions are closely aligned on the three main benefits of interconnection which are Improving network optimization, facilitating digital transformation and increasing flexibility of connectivity.

Target carbon reduction: In the present scenario, sustainability is not only a responsible move, but a necessary one to attract new business and remain competitive. IT decision-makers across the globe need to consider environmental sustainability plans while reviewing their IT strategies. 

As the world’s digital infrastructure company, Equinix has the responsibility to reduce the carbon footprint to create a more sustainable future. Our renewable energy coverage has been over 90% since 2018, and reached 95% in 2021. In India, the company has achieved 100% renewable energy goal. Equinix is also the first in the industry to commit to reaching global climate neutrality by 2030, backed by its science-based targets (SBT) and sustainability innovation agenda.