This post is part of the A-Z of 2021 technology predictions series, beginning with part 1, A to D, then E to J, and K to S. This is the concluding post in the series.
T is for talent.
"With the increased focus on diversity and inclusion, we will see a hypercompetitive landscape for technology talent. There will be a focused and amplified commitment to STEM – access and implementation – across all regions:
"- New methods of delivering virtual learning opportunities that level the playing field will be explored and implemented.
"- Enterprises and governments will tackle equity issues in the “digital divide” (access to resources such as the lack of computers, smartphones, Wi-Fi and broadband) that the pandemic exacerbated."
- Keysight.
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| Source: Telstra. Bates. |
"Moving forward, we believe that the workforce will place an emphasis on companies with robust, flexible work culture, supported by strong technology infrastructure and support. Those leading employee development and engagement efforts will have to step into the new year with a fresh perspective and a bold willingness to set new gears in motion."
- Todd Bates, Regional Lead South Asia at Telstra.
U is for (more) useful.
"A growing number of enterprises are benefitting from advances in automation and the use of AI at the WAN edge to further streamline application management. Advanced SD-WAN edge platforms are business-driven, reflecting a top-down approach to aligning network resources to the changing needs of the business. Advances in areas like threat analysis and automated diagnostics are making the network more secure and resilient to disruptions in underlying network conditions and an ever-expanding threat landscape. Network engineers are becoming more confident in 'letting the network drive itself', acknowledging the benefits of being able to focus more attention on moving their businesses forward and less on day-to-day administration."
- David Hughes, founder of Silver Peak and Senior VP of the WAN business at Aruba.
"Automation can be started by companies of any size or maturity by making use of infrastructure-as-code, with the recommended approach being to automate single tasks rather than a global complex workflow. An infrastructure-as-code approach creates opportunities for standard deployments, allowing reproducible operations and error-free actions, which is exactly what small teams require for their day- to-day operations and for problem-solving.
"2021 will be the year when network, security and IT automation teams make significant improvements to both process efficiency and ability to handle increasing complexity. Taking an 'API-first' approach will be key to this, with IP address management being an easy first step in the automation journey for building reports, analysis and automation with external systems. Openness with API, standard configuration methods, webhooks and code kits will be highly important, helping infrastructure and operations teams move through small but valuable increments towards automation."
- EfficientIP. API stands for application programming interface.
"Automation will become essential, not extra. As businesses maintain hybrid remote-working models and anticipate other potential disruptions in 2021 and beyond, the role of automation and AI use cases in the workplace will grow. These may include enabling efficient day-to-day communications between knowledge workers doing their jobs from home and automating invoicing and expenses to keep valued partners paid and to preserve budgets. We will also see more businesses leaning on AI algorithms to make quick decisions backed by real-time financial transparency in order to meet the business needs brought on by the pandemic."
- Andy Watson, Senior VP & GM for Asia Pacific Japan and Greater China, SAP Concur.
"In 2021, we’ll begin to see a reversal in the industry’s 'automation anxiety'. With tightening budgets and other pandemic-induced operational challenges, organisations and tech teams will have no choice but to fully embrace automation to optimise environments and reduce the time spent on monotonous tasks. This will include automating time-consuming tasks like workstation patching, configuration changes for network devices, compliance checks and remediation, server patching, and more.
"This shift to automation will help reduce toil, improve processes, and prevent burnout — three scourges resulting from COVID-19. It’ll also have a significant impact on the day-to-day role of tech pros. The extra time they’ll finally have will allow them to be able to learn more skills and focus more on their career path."
- Chrystal Taylor, Head Geek, SolarWinds.
"What’s changed recently is the opening of network infrastructure to automation. Because of this, monitoring and management tools are now expanding to help network engineers create, manage, and monitor the scripts and tools used to create them, incorporating the best aspects of integrated development environments (IDEs) programmers have come to love and rely on. We’ll see these shifts and evolutions continue in the future."
- Leon Adato, Head Geek, SolarWinds.
V is for verticals.
Education
“With the rise of remote work due to the global pandemic, many educational institutions are facing new data and cybersecurity challenges, thanks to a student and teaching faculty that has gone fully online.
“In today’s virtual, rapidly changing environment, it is important to have a plan in place to address questions of data privacy and data security. Educational institutions have been one of the most overlooked sectors when it comes to data protection management. Schools will need to re-evaluate outdated systems of collecting and storing assignments. They will need to place a higher priority on protecting assignment data, research material, as well as student and staff data given that many of these are the institutions’ intellectual property. The education sector will need to focus more on data protection management in 2021.”
– Rachel Ler, Area VP, ASEAN, Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan, Commvault.
Finance
"The foreign exchange (FX) industry has accelerated digital transformation initiatives in 2020, such as increased automation and mobile technology advancements, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These initiatives have helped traders run their day-to-day business with more efficiency despite the work-from-home routines and helped financial institutions think differently to remain relevant and competitive. Flexibility and an innovative spirit will serve us well as we adapt to seismic shifts in how we live and work."
- Jean-Philippe Malé, CEO of BidFX.
"Financial technology has advanced to a point where processes such as account opening or credit assessment can be done using innovative new digital platforms and pathways, so we will see more organisations addressing these vast, previously overlooked markets. We look forward to seeing governments, companies, fintechs and financial institutions collaborate and leverage technology to tackle these challenges and build a more inclusive financial services industry in the year ahead."
- Luc Hovhannessian, MD, APAC, Finastra.
"Fireblocks foresees more major financial institutions will step in and enable its access to cryptocurrencies and digital assets as we have already seen with organisations such as PayPal and DBS. This trend will continue to increase in momentum in 2021.
"This means that cybersecurity around crypto-storage and transfers will be instrumental to businesses and there will be zero tolerance towards hacks and threats. In addition, stablecoins will be adopted as an upcoming B2B payment method to speed up and lower transactions costs between businesses, be it for regular payments of sophisticated trade exchanges. Lastly, we will see the expansion of DeFi (decentralised finance) to address more use cases and transform how traditional lending and trading are conduction, with the removal of the middleman."
- Michael Shaulov, CEO and Co-Founder of Fireblocks. Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency. They promise more price stability as they are associated with other assets.
"The sensitivity and lucrative value of financial data will continue to make financial organisations a target for cybercriminals. The sophistication of attacks risking data protection will be enhanced with the projected rise of new technologies, e.g. 5G, etc in 2021 and beyond.
"Seasoned cybercriminal groups like Fancy Bear have been observed threatening financial organisations with distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks unless their demanded ransom is paid. Increasingly, hackers are targeting the financial services industry with specialised tools like the EVILNUM malware.
"Financial institutions will need to align cybersecurity to business objectives through prudent boardroom representation. Every new market entry, adoption of new technology and innovation should have cybersecurity assessment done, which will lead to an increased adoption of cybersecurity awareness within the workforce."
- Kumar Ritesh, CEO & Founder of CYFIRMA.
Healthcare
"Ransomware in healthcare will increase significantly. This is driven by a combination of high-profile press on ransomware attacks, which further motivates threat actors, and a very diverse IoT infrastructure, which is fully interconnected to IT and often missing the basic security controls required to withstand a ransomware attack."
- Galina Antova, Chief Business Development Officer, Claroty. IoT stands for the Internet of Things.
"A COVID-19 vaccination passport could finally offer Blockchain the mass adoption effect that it had on the QR code for contact tracing. With so many pharma vendors and an eventual selection of official (vaccine) providers for each country, there will be a huge requirement for authenticated tracking of vaccine batch, process governance, administrator, location and timely boosters. There are lots of minutiae to track accurately like certification of the incredibly cold temperatures needed to transport the vaccine safely.
"This vaccination passport will be as important as your travel passport in most developed countries. Work will still need to be done to harden parts of the supply chain and administration process to prevent fraud. It could also be used to keep offices safe, enabling a single sign-on for employees who do want to move back to working in an office."
- Vic Sithasanan, Chief Growth Officer, Everise DX.
“Over the next year (2021), we will see the accelerated adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) across many areas of healthcare. By applying machine learning to real-time global data sets, healthcare professionals can more accurately track contact between staff and infected patients, enable accurate diagnoses, utilise predictive analytics to track personal protective equipment (PPE), optimise workforce allocations, and develop more effective and lasting vaccinations.”
- Fabio Tiviti, VP of Asean at Infor.
“It’s no secret that healthcare is one of the industries that was immensely disrupted as a result of COVID-19. Routine appointments and all other non-emergency services were converted into telehealth appointments, bringing patient data outside of the hospital's four walls. A lot of healthcare providers are now accessing patient personally-identifiable information (PII) data in remote settings, presenting a number of privacy and security issues since home and public networks are much more vulnerable to malicious actors than corporate networks.
"In 2021, we will see cybercriminals exploit these newly created security vulnerabilities, which could potentially impact millions of patient records and data. Data that cybercriminals are likely to sell on the dark web. With that said, I do believe that healthcare organisations are being heard around the severity of risk they are facing as both patient data and intellectual property become golden opportunities for cybercriminals. Therefore, we will see increased IT and security budgets for these organisations to arm themselves with the necessary tools to combat heightened outside threats.”
- Rick McElroy, Principal Cybersecurity Strategist, VMware Carbon Black.
Hospitality
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| Source: SensorFlow. Ranganathan. |
"As health and safety remain top priorities for hotels to continue operating safely and sustainably, AI and big data will be significant in 2021 as remote working and making data-driven decisions become the norm. AI and big data enable the smart automation of historically manual processes and provide insights on guest behaviour to hotel operators. They help hotels save energy costs and reduce their carbon footprint through the intelligent automation of lighting, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning for maximum efficiency without sacrificing comfort or safety. They also lead to better operational optimisation as housekeeping and engineering teams can use guest behaviour data to better plan their cleaning or maintenance routes to have minimal guest contact."
- Saikrishnan Ranganathan - CEO & Co-Founder of SensorFlow.
Manufacturing
"A growing remote workforce will fuel IIoT which will require enterprises to deploy intelligent equipment to effectively manage manufacturing and factory operations from a distance. As a result, we expect:
"- Increased investment in automation and use of robotics and machine learning to manage facilities, as well as a growing acceptance in leveraging the cloud to automate production lines.
"- New solutions for manufacturing automation, testing and analytics for all components as automotive and other facilities ramp up.
"Greater investment in IIoT functions for real-time, predictable control, which will require an increase in the number of machines and sensors, and a network infrastructure that can manage this growing number of devices."
- Keysight. IIoT stands for the industrial Internet of Things.
Transportation and logistics
"The rise of attacks in the transport and logistics industry is inevitable, as more controls are digitised and become Internet-facing, and integrations across systems become a norm. In the past year, we saw many instances of sensor and IoT vulnerabilities and exploitations.
"Most of today’s vehicles are equipped with modern sensors like fuel temperature sensors, engine speed sensors, voltage sensors, coolant sensors, and mass air flow sensors, which keep track of different functions in real-time or near real-time. For example, the failure of mass air flow sensors in a vehicle would stop the automobile, and a non-functioning voltage sensor would derail it as it controls the speed of the vehicle.
"An increasing number of cyberattacks were directed at public transit systems, or mass transportation solutions. The attackers were intent on causing interruptions that would hold a wider social impact, or simply for financial gains where ransomware attacks were concerned. Additionally, security specialists have recognised the potential for cyberattacks against nascent intelligent transport systems infrastructure.
"Organisations will need to implement robust security protocols and encryption, including authentication or access credentials configurations, to secure critical information stored in databases/servers. Most importantly, businesses will need to embrace cyberthreat intelligence to move from event-driven reactive cybersecurity to intelligence-driven predictive cybersecurity, aimed at strengthening their cyber posture management in 2021.”
- Ritesh of CYFIRMA.
“As a direct result of COVID-19, we are going to see the acceleration of digital supply chains in 2021. While supply chain leaders have traditionally viewed digital transformation in the context of efficiency and cost, the focus will now be on agility and resiliency. That’s where digital technology comes in.
"A multi-enterprise, digital supply chain enables better end-to-end visibility, better predictive analytics, and better and smarter automation. Leaders will be able to customise and flex their supply chains based on market demand and make better use of ecosystem partners.
"These digital tools are as far ranging as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and robotic process automation and are expected to shift early promises to impactful value propositions.”
- Tiviti of Infor.
W is for wireless wide-area networks (WANs).
"Wireless WAN access technologies have the advantage of being ubiquitous and quick to deploy. However, the traditional option of 4G/LTE has been expensive and offered lower bandwidth in comparison to wired technologies. This has limited deployments to use cases where existing services are unavailable and time-to-deploy is critical, including construction sites and popup shops, and for backup where LTE connectivity is utilised as a last resort. As 5G is rolled out more broadly, improved performance and cost-competitiveness may see 5G adopted for primary connectivity.
"We are also witnessing early trials of low earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband service, and we expect that later in 2021 a new race will emerge between 5G and LEO broadband, with the latter promising blanket coverage to all parts of the globe. This will be a boon for businesses that require connectivity in remote locations, adding LEO broadband to the list of SD-WAN connectivity options."
- Hughes of Aruba.
X is for UX, or user eXperience.
"With 2021 primed to grip the world’s attention with several major events, such as the Summer Olympics in Tokyo and the Wimbledon Championship, cloud technology is poised to completely reinvent what we know about fan experiences today. The potential for using cloud technology to transform events is enormous — think real-time crowd excitement analysis to optimise highlights and advertisements, extremely low-latency live feeds, and moderated crowd interaction — all hosted on robust cloud platforms.”
- Tiviti of Infor.
"User experience or UX will continue to grow in importance for both customers and providers of software solutions of all types due to the increased role such solutions play in professional and personal contexts, and the ever-increasing expectations resulting from frustrations with mediocre experiences."
- Keysight.
Z is for Zero Trust.
"As hybrid working arrangements gain momentum in 2021, the lines between different security environments such as home/work, inside/outside will continue to blur, becoming even more fluid. As more personal apps such as WhatsApp are installed on corporate devices and more personal devices being used for corporate access, the challenge will mean a higher potential for an employee to bring security risks into an organisation, thereby making the endpoint one of the weakest links in an organisation.
"Previously-held notions of inside/outside will need to be discarded, and IT professionals will need to treat every environment with the same level of protections, irrespective of where or who a user is. With a Zero-Trust access approach, security becomes more dynamic and adaptive to meet the changing needs of companies well beyond the next year.”
- Fernando Serto, Director, Security Technology and Strategy, Asia Pacific at Akamai.
"The global Zero Trust security market, in terms of revenue, was worth of US$15.61 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach US$94.35 billion in 2027, growing at a digital transaction management CAGR of 19.71% from 2020 to 2027, says Brandessence.
"Digital transformation is driving a proliferation of IoT devices, which, in turn, is creating new security challenges. A Zero-Trust framework that limits device connectivity to just what is required will become essential to contain threats and prevent lateral movement following a breach. While end-point agents can be used to provide Zero-Trust access for users and applications, agents cannot be installed on most connected devices such as printers, cash registers, cameras and sensors."
- Hughes of Aruba.
"In 2021, a stronger Zero Trust focus will be put on segmentation and filtering to improve control over which devices can access which apps, domains and services. Enterprises will introduce more granular control, filtering at the client level to give only specific users access to selected apps. The pivotal role of DNS will enable new methods for controlling this access early in the traffic flow, helping to reduce exposure risk and thus protect vital infrastructure and apps."
- Nick Itta, VP, APAC, EfficientIP.
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| Source: One Identity. Cetin. |
"The industry-wide adoption of Zero-Trust architecture will make it even more challenging for cybercriminals to execute the 80% of breaches that still involve compromised or weak credentials. The final publishing of NIST SP 800-207 will enable more enterprises and government agencies to adopt the concept of Zero-Trust architecture. This shift will move enterprises away from the basic ideas of persistent permissions and the uncontrolled access of both humans and computers.
"Privileged access will no longer need to be persistent or permanent, but assigned and access granted on a per- session basis, taking the old idea of 'least privilege' a step further to protect sensitive data. Through zero-trust architecture, the coveted privileged accounts, that are commonly targeted, are more effectively 'managed', making them simply not valuable to the attack process."
- Serkan Cetin, Technical Director, APJ, One Identity.
"A new study by Enterprise Management Associates revealed that, given the rise of remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, 60% of IT buyers have fast-tracked their deployment of zero-trust polices and technology over the last seven months.
Take, for instance, an employee who is requesting to have data recovered from their laptop. What are the real-time credentials certifying that this particular employee can restore a specific machine? What permissions were contained in the backup image, and do those permissions need to be changed to reflect current requirements? If IT is restoring a machine that was set up a month ago, who is ensuring that no one else has access to that machine?
A Zero Trust approach to data backup and management will help answer these questions while further protecting enterprise data."
- Leo Lynch, Director, Asia Pacific, StorageCraft
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