Telecom major Verizon announced top 10 business
technology trends that affect global enterprises in 2012.
Verizon sees enterprise technology
helping business leaders re-engineer the workplace, power more effective
customer service models, and create opportunities for broad societal
benefit.
Top 10 technology trends that will impact businesses
and their workers in 2012:
1. The High-IQ Network Effect:
With each new smart device or software application added to a network, all
endpoints and devices will become inherently smarter — each benefitting from
additional connections. Whether the connections are
people-to-people, machine-to-people or machine-to-machine, new
opportunities will be created to solve societal challenges such as
employing IT to address the rising cost of health care or deliver smart
energy solutions. Because of the network’s importance, any interruption of
service will have a profound impact. As a result, there will be an even
greater demand for carefully designed and well-managed services at the
core of the global IP backbone and high-speed wireless networks.
2. To the Enterprise Cloud and
Back: The enterprise cloud will finally come of age and deliver
substantial benefits, reducing capital expenditures and creating business
efficiencies and better economics. Cloud services will give companies
powerful new options to move workloads easily between the corporate data
center and the cloud of a company’s choice. Whether a public,
private or hybrid cloud model, the enterprise cloud will play an essential
role in mobilizing enterprise apps that enable both workforce mobility and
new business paradigms.
3. Big Data Equals Big Insights:
Big data will drive innovation, helping to evolve the role of chief
information officer to chief innovation officer. These new thinkers” will
be responsible for determining the quality of data and strategic
applications used to create new business opportunities while empowering
evidence-based decision making for greater success. Predictive
Analytics, based on vast amounts of synthesized data, will become an increasingly
important tool for the enterprise. Companies that harness the
intelligence inherent in their data, secure it and act on it accordingly
can expect to gain a significant competitive edge.
4. The Social Enterprise: The
already Web-centric enterprise will become even more social, and the
ability to tap intelligence at all levels of the organization will become
the new norm. With the right tools — such as high-definition video
for richer collaboration and intelligent crowdsourcing,” (large-scale
collaboration) — enterprises can produce, find and convey information
with much less effort and greater velocity and efficacy than ever before.
This will foster innovation and enhance productivity with exponential
benefits. A multi-generational workforce will employ technology to
truly embrace a borderless workstyle, where work is an activity not a
location.
5. Video is The New Black: Video
is on its way to becoming this year’s fashionable black,” given its popularity
with users and the ease in which it can be accessed on today’s tablets,
mobile phones and laptops. Now, thanks to ultra-high-bandwidth
capabilities and the combination of global IP networks and 4G LTE
wireless, video is fast becoming the pervasive and preferred communication
vehicle for many enterprise activities, from team meetings to quarterly
employee communications to on-demand information about key projects.
And with video-enabled contact centers being the latest
business-to-consumer application, this business trend is here to stay.
6. Service Your Way:
Personalization will continue to be an inspiration for innovation, driving
companies to reengineer their processes and business models. Increasingly,
businesses will look for new opportunities and channels to meet customers
on their terms. Multifunction kiosks located outside of traditional
retail venues, contact center routing and click to chat” windows will
help companies better serve customers. In addition, the enterprise
cloud will enable more application intelligence and the ability to
integrate applications and physical environments, helping businesses
personalize the customer service experience and enhance customer
satisfaction.
7. The Consumerization of IT: Just
as personalization is driving a new approach to customer service, IT
departments are increasingly being influenced by their users. Many
companies are now trying to improve the user experience and enhance
productivity by tailoring their enterprise IT policies to support employees
who bring their own productivity tools — such as smartphones and tablets
— to the workplace. Companies are looking to experts to help equip
today’s mobile worker with cloud-based applications that work just as
securely and reliably on portable devices and are integrated with
traditional desktop applications. Enterprise apps also will become more
widely available via enterprise app storefronts, just as they are in the
consumer space.
8. M2M2P —
Machine-to-Machine-to-People: Machine-to-machine communications will
change the way people manage their world, whether in terms of energy
consumption, product inventory or critical business-asset and fleet
management. But the human factor – – people — will play an important
role in harnessing digital intelligence, inspiring innovation and creating
the next big thing. For example, while portable monitors may keep
round-the-clock tabs on a patient’s vital signs, health care providers
will ultimately use that information to assess patients and provide
treatment.
9. Compliance
Gets Increasingly Commercial: With increasing evidence that companies are
less likely to be data breach victims if they comply with security
standards, such as those promoted by the Payment Card Industry (PCI),
compliance will become a pre-requisite for good business practice in 2012.
In a difficult economic environment and with increasingly more stringent
government regulations, the need for taking full advantage of business
opportunities will increase interest in prudent, holistic security approaches.
Companies and governments will change how they interact with their
extended network of partners, increasingly choosing to do business with
those that can demonstrate a comprehensive multiyear and standards-based
approach to security.
10. Energy
Savings Power Better Business and the Greater Good: Energy efficiency,
especially a reduction in CO2 emissions reductions, will be a key
imperative for many companies — and just in time. In 2012, companies will
take advantage of public-private partnerships to invest in everything from
more efficient lighting to energy-efficient heating ventilation and air
conditioning systems to installing energy-efficient technologies. And they
will investigate flexible computing models that leverage on-demand
capacity for peak loads, while powering down during periods of lesser
demand.
The future has never looked brighter for business and
governments to employ technology to generate growth, solve industry challenges,
and enrich lives and our global society,” said John Samuel, India President,
Verizon Business.
Next year will be pivotal in applying technology
solutions in such areas as health care and smart energy management, while
keeping pace with the borderless lifestyle we’ve come to embrace at work, at
home and everywhere in between,” Samuel added.
By
Telecomlead.com Team
[email protected]
