Enterprise Technology Trends for 2021 and Beyond

Now that 2020 is in the rearview mirror, we’re looking forward to things gradually returning to the new normal.

Before we focus on the coming months, however, we’d be remiss if we didn’t pause to remember the handful of things we were thankful for in the past year.

That handful begins with the fact that we as a company were extremely fortunate. In a year where resilience was absolutely critical, we are very appreciative that our teams were able to make a relatively seamless transition to work-from-anywhere. 

In fact, we’re extremely thankful for our teams—without them and their commitment to maintaining the high standards that our clients expect, even during such tumultuous times, 2020 would have been a much steeper hill to climb.

We are also impressed by—and thankful for—the resilience of our customers, most of which needed to immediately pivot to a new way of conducting business when COVID-19 shutdowns became a reality.

Whether their move to work-from-anywhere was already in the cards or they were forced to flip the switch seemingly overnight, the amount of commitment and flexibility on display by our clients was amazing to watch.We are extremely grateful to have been entrusted with helping them navigate such a major change.

Looking ahead

If we learned anything from the past year, it’s that all of us should continue to expect the unexpected.

Still, there are some trends we see continuing into 2021 that are worth highlighting. Five of them, to be exact.

1. Workplace modernization

Kicked into high gear by many organizations in 2020, workplace modernization efforts will be a major area of focus as business leaders invest more time and resources into providing teams with access to tools that allow them to be more innovative. 

2. Automation

Similar to workplace modernization, expect to see ongoing investment in automating operations, security, and workflows in order to create greater speed and flexibility in how products are developed.

3. Going cloud-native

Hand in hand with the first two trends on this list, expect to see more enterprises lean into a cloud-native approach to their applications and workflows to unlock cost savings, create agility, and smartly scale.

4. AI and ML adoption

2020 was a big year for advanced analytics tools like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). This will likely continue as enterprises seek to get more from the massive amounts of data—both structured and unstructured—they now have access to.

5. An emphasis on innovation instead of “keeping the lights on”

In 2021, we expect to see many enterprises take a step back from spending internal resources on infrastructure and platforms. Instead, there will be an increased reliance on partnerships with managed services providers (MSPs) to ensure things are running smoothly behind the scenes.

Here's to a better 2021

Last year was obviously a major challenge for most of us, and now that we’ve entered a fresh new year, it will be critical for enterprises to build upon the advances they’ve made.

Whether your organization needs assistance with workplace modernization, cloud adoption and cloud-native development, advanced analytics or managed services, we can help. Reach out to one of our experts for any and all of your technology needs.