Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
With so much going on in the world of IT, it’s completely acceptable to NOT be caught up on the latest market developments. New technologies continue to emerge, trends continue to shift, and businesses continue to adapt.
All eyes are on IT, and rightfully so. Global spending on IT is expected to reach $3.8 trillion in 2014 (a 3.6% spike from 2013), according to Gartner. The spotlight will remain squarely on IT as businesses look to separate themselves in a fiercely competitive marketplace.
Conveniently enough, a recent webinar by Gartner Research VP David J. Cappuccio explored 10 trends and technologies that will affect corporate IT teams over the next five years. In the interest of brevity, we won’t dig into all 10 industry observations. Here are three of the more important IT developments to keep your eye on…
Application Overload
Applications have rapidly morphed into the lifeblood of today’s businesses. Some companies are even relying exclusively on their applications to generate revenue. The proliferation of mobile devices and escalating user expectations is accelerating the adoption of business applications.
The emergence of streamlined DevOps methodologies and agile development cycles has inundated the marketplace with business apps of all kinds. Not only are applications becoming increasingly more single-purpose, engineers are also starting to build innovative new functionality into said applications that will extend their usefulness and deliver added business value.
Hybrid Cloud Services
The emergence of hybrid cloud services is allowing IT professionals to become more responsive to customer needs. Over time, Gartner anticipates the rise of cloud brokers which will help aggregate and manage the marketplace of service providers needed to fuel the cloud ecosystem.
A recent Gartner survey revealed that “the internal cloud services brokerage (CSB) role is emerging as IT organizations realize that they have a responsibility to help improve the provisioning and consumption of inherently distributed, heterogeneous and often complex cloud services for their internal users and external business partners.”
Intensified IT Workloads
The demand for IT to enable and drive business success will not slow by any means. IT demand over the next five years will be shaped by a number of factors including server workloads, network requirements and storage capacities. Not surprisingly, IT teams will still be asked to do more with less. Cappuccio indicated that Gartner expects to see IT budgets remain fairly stagnant (~ 3% growth) over the next several years.
While the role of IT will undoubtedly continue to evolve, its contribution to the business must remain consistent. With competitive margins shrinking and the playing field leveling off, innovation and creativity must become top priorities for overworked IT teams. Despite its mandate to “keep the lights on,” IT will need to find ways to deliver proactive business value and springboard its business counterparts.
Click here to access the original Gartner presentation.
