6 business technology predictions for 2016

By CenturyLink

May 19, 2020

undefined mins

With 2016 right around the corner, IT decision makers are reviewing business technology trends that will carry them into the next year.

Although macro tech trends such as mobility, big data and the Internet of Things (IoT) will continue to dominate headlines, there are several other trends becoming increasingly important as the world adapts to rampant market demands, growing competition and changing landscapes.

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In each of these areas, IT infrastructure will play a growing role in how businesses overcome challenges, and more infrastructure will be outsourced and externally managed.

This will increasingly become the norm as companies mix and match their existing internal IT infrastructure with externally managed services to attain the agility needed to be competitive.”
According to CenturyLink, these are six business trends to have a big impact in 2016:

1. Hybrid IT

The increased outsourcing of IT infrastructure and services is set to dominate the business landscape in the coming year. With a hybrid IT provider, organisations can identify and establish the optimal mix of existing infrastructure and outsourced services with which to drive agility, modernise their IT environments and maintain competitiveness without overcommitting resources on capital expenditure.

2. Next-generation data centres
As business needs mature, so will data centres. Expect to see greater use of modular data centres, which effectively couple hyperscale and hyperlocal environments for ultimate flexibility, greater data centre network speeds, better energy efficiency and a greater number of automated procedures involved in the management of data centres.

3. Further into the IoT
More and more analogue devices are being hooked up to the Internet, giving rise to the IoT. Everything from refrigerators to home thermostats and vehicles are now connected and producing actionable data. In 2016, this trend is expected to continue along the trajectory set by its already impressive growth.

4. Outsourced big data
The data produced by the explosion of connected devices goes to waste without advanced data analytics. Data analytics is already an important part of business operations for many companies. While most organisations with a web presence, electronic customer communications channels or digital payment gateways are analysing their data, not all businesses are making as much of the data available to them as they could.

5. Security in the cloud
Instead of proactively updating their security software, many companies are increasingly implementing cloud-based security-as-a-service offerings. This is already broadly used in email services such as Gmail. However, security-as-a-service is now being taken on to protect all facets of organisations’ IT infrastructure. With so many IT services being outsourced, cloud-based security is likely to explode.

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6. More mobility
Most companies that look to elevate employee productivity and engagement need to increase support for the use of mobile devices in the workplace. Mobility is already a huge part of how many organisations do business. In 2016, mobility will become even more important to the overall business mix, with more business functions, services and processes being performed via mobile devices.

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