Exploring Technology Trends To Shape 2020

2019 has been an incredible year for technology, we’ve seen an explosion of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), artificial intelligence, augmented reality, new social platforms and brand-new business models that have changed the face of economies across the globe. Below are the trends that I believe will keep moving into 2020.

Evolution of the CIO

Firstly, we’ll see the evolution of the CIO role. For many years, we’ve had CIOs that operated in control of the ‘Department of No’. The new CIO will wear the hat of an innovation officer, much more than an information officer.

They will be a change agent at the very core, helping to remove those existing final barriers between IT and the business. They will focus primarily on the ‘why’ of technology, rather than getting bogged down in the ‘how’.

The end of digital transformation

This year, digital transformation has been all the rage. But businesses can be in a state of digital transformation for years and never get anywhere. It’s time to separate the reality from the hype.

We’ve all heard how the promise of digital transformation will change user experience across the globe. Yet, when we engage with our customers it’s very rare that we hear a story about how technology will enable their new business models in the next three to five years.

Many enterprises that are stuck with legacy technologies and are piling on more technology for the sake of it without thinking about how that’s affecting emerging business models, are doomed to fail.

People-centric computing

In 2020, our focus will shift towards people-centric computing. This long sought-after balance between user demand and the needs of IT will finally be met by delivering an adaptive workspace, one that learns deeply how an individual prefers to work. One that is productive in nature, and is contextual by delivering the right tools, information, and applications, and drives high levels of productivity.

The people-centric computing approach will get technology out of the way, and focus on how an individual wants to work and adapt to that individual throughout the lifecycle of their employment.

Everything-as-a-Service (EaaS)

At Citrix, we’ve seen an increase in adoption of SaaS technologies to replace existing on-premises applications. Yet paradoxically, we see lots of applications still being developed by in-house teams, but in a much different way.

The monolithic architectures of applications are a thing of the past, given way to micro-service applications. These of course require brand new development approaches and approaches to operations. The big cloud vendors are slowly creeping into the corporate data center, bringing the promises of delivering “everything as a service” for the new world that we’re rapidly entering.

Hybrid cloud

In 2020, we’ll finally concede that hybrid cloud will be the predominant mode going forward.

For a decade or more, we’ve argued about public versus private cloud. And while it’s mildly interesting for a Twitter debate, it’s kind of pointless. Because what experience tells us, is that we deploy the right tools to the right cloud at the right time and for the right reasons.

The reality is that hybrid cloud, probably even in your own organisations, is the model today.

Not every hybrid cloud requires low level network connectivity, or VPN connectivity between multiple points. Every time you acquire a new SaaS application, you’re adding another cloud to your environment.

The world is by definition, hybrid cloud.

Employee experience

In the recent past, many organisations have spent a considerable amount of financial and human resource focusing on the customer experience. Building digital platforms to engage customers and using those digital platforms to retain customers to improve your customer Net Promoter Score.

And yet in 2020, we’re going to see a shift away from the customer experience, and much more focus on the employee experience.

In some customer conversations Citrix has had globally, it’s very interesting that they’ve said – “Hey, you know, we’ve created this world where our customers now have a much better experience than our own employees.”

So many digitally mature organisations are already starting to place an importance on enabling technologies and processes to drive employee experience.

Our research has shown us, improved employee experience certainly boosts customer experience but also improves internal Net Promoter Score, which is extremely important for the war on talent.

If you can’t build an environment that supports the needs of your employees, they’re going to find that at another company. Fundamentally, ease of use and flexibility are key pillars to enabling employee experience. The trend will result in new methods of tracking behaviours that can inform new technologies and processes; ultimately improving the value to the organisation.

We can’t wait to see what’s next.