Emerging IT trends for 2014

A strategic technology may be an existing technology that has matured and become suitable for a wider range of uses and thus benefit the business. It may also be an emerging IT trend that offers an opportunity for strategic business advantage for early business adopters or with potential for significant market disruption in the next five years or so. It is very important to keep the up with the pace and change according to the market. These IT trends impact the organization’s long-term plans, programs and initiatives and help them grow better and faster.

The “Outside-In” technology

Many of today’s top IT technologies including cloud, everything as a service, post-PC mobility, the consumerization of IT, social media, crowd sourcing and community content — are happening outside the organization. In 2014, this trend will continue and accelerate in every business.  For CIOs and directors, this shift will require a new perspective. CIOs will need to re-architect their organizations’ internal networks, making them more like the Internet, able to fully exploit the online communities that have emerged in the outside world and these changes will need to be done so that the organization are in pace with others to compete. The “outside-in” concept will help companies to transform and grow rapidly.

Bring Your Own Device

The unexpected consequence of bring your own device (BYOD) programs is something which has emerged in the mobile workforce rapidly. This is placing tremendous strain on IT and Finance organizations. Enterprise policies on employee-owned hardware usage need to be thoroughly reviewed and, where necessary, updated and extended for the betterment and organizational growth. Now-a-days employees expect to have massive amounts of information at their fingertips, empowering them to make better, quicker and precise decisions. Similarly, customers now fully expect your company’s website to offer features that include Google-quality search, the ability to mash-up information, and high-quality videos which will keep the customers interested and also which is more tech driven.

Mobility and Applications

Mobile apps will continue to grow while applications will begin to shrink. Apps are smaller, and more targeted and user friendly, while a larger application is more comprehensive which sometimes is a drawback while travelling or for quick access. Developers should look for ways to snap together apps to create larger applications. Building application user interfaces that span a variety of devices require an understanding of fragmented building blocks and an adaptable programming structure that assembles them into optimized content for each device.

Cloud Computing and IT

2014 will be a big year for cloud computing and there will be different types of clouds like public clouds, private clouds, and hybrid clouds. And you’ll have more than one of each. Some of these clouds will be built by your internal IT department, while others will be sourced from external third parties who are experts and have better knowledge. Hybrid cloud services can be composed in many ways, varying from relatively static to very dynamic. Managing this composition will often be the responsibility of something filling the role of cloud service broker , which handles aggregation, integration and customization of services.

About Author:

Shailesh Nambiar is consultant and part of Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. He actively contributes to information technology and VMO. He can be contacted at: shailesh.n@spluspl.com