Share to lead the transformation

In Focus

Rajeev Papneja, Chief Growth Officer

ESDS Software Solution

With cloud at the foundation, AI is the de facto emerging tech.

With the COVID-19 pandemic continue to govern the global economic situation and forcing businesses to adopt digital ways to achieve greater resilience, enterprises are swiftly moving to cloud services, resulting in a stratospheric demand for data center space.

In a recent interaction with Jatinder Singh of Better World, Rajeev Papneja, Chief Growth Officer of ESDS Software Solution, a Nashik-based managed service provider and data center company, outlines the latest data center trends, the company’s focus areas, and new opportunities presented by digital transformation acceleration.

Excerpts of the interview:

Better World: The last twelve months of enforced shutdowns and social distancing measures have silenced digital transformation critics. With a few exceptions, digital transformation is the only way for most businesses to get successful.  In this context, what are the new opportunities that you see in this digital-only environment?

Rajeev Papneja: ESDS is a cloud company, which is now evolving into a digital transformation catalyst. When we say digital transformation, what is happening is that it is no more just a cloud. Cloud is just one essential part of digital transformation. The emerging technologies at the top (such as artificial intelligence) and new business models create a new business way in these challenging times.

During the pandemic, we saw that people want to work more with Indian companies. There is a change in mindset, mainly because India could better navigate the crisis than many countries. Many Indian companies were dependent upon Europe for their data centers and China for manufacturing. As the COVID-19 situation worsened, they witnessed massive upheaval in their supply chains.  When the supply chain got troubled, they realized it is better to work with Indian companies because, from a supply chain standpoint, our country is better shaped now as the government started promoting indigenous manufacturing setups.

While COVID-19 presented numerous challenges for organizations of all scales, they also unboxed an era of new opportunities for many new-age thinking companies willing to experiment and refresh themselves to meet new-age consumer demands.

Many startups are emerging, and customers are now willing to work with them because of this mindset shift. SaaS and IaaS are picking big time, and many of the companies are moving to the cloud for the first time to support their growing digital businesses. This has created new opportunities for us.

Like many other modern companies, ESDS has transformed itself to meet the new-age demands and help its customers win in these challenging times.

Today, we have more than 35 to 40 software offerings for our customers in different sectors. They will keep on growing as we are seeing more demand for SaaS now. Of course, the Infrastructure will keep growing because people have realized that all these big companies who have their own data centers went into so much trouble during the lockdown. People are not going to the offices, data centers and need to adhere to the social distancing guidelines for an indefinite period.  This has made enterprises realize that it is better to be with commercial data centers in India.

Better World: How do you see the role of AI and machine learning evolving in smartening up data centers?

Rajeev Papneja: Artificial intelligence is becoming the de facto emerging technology while cloud computing forms the basis. If you look at machine learning, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and quantum computing, you will see that they are powered by cloud technology. So, fortunately, we were in that space, and our foundation has been solid. At present, the enterprise ecosystem is moving into a very different environment, where a standalone data center cannot provide everything. So, for example, you might want to have, let’s say, vertical auto-scaling for a specific workload and Microsoft 365 for your productivity needs. That is not something that we offer directly. So, you are directly or indirectly working with multiple technology partners for their unique offerings. Similarly, for specific workloads, we are working with Google Cloud or Amazon cloud. 

Rajeev Papneja, Chief Growth Officer, ESDS Software Solution

Rajeev brings to the table vision, purpose, relentless passion for technology, and life of spirituality. He has over 24 years of extensive technology, systems, and software experience on an international scale, including more than a decade of senior management experience in the United States.

He has worked as a senior consultant at major corporations like United Parcel Services, Ernst & Young, Dun & Bradstreet, to name a few, before becoming an entrepreneur.

His longest tenure was with Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, the largest drug manufacturer in the world with its current headquarters in New York, where he spent more than eight years providing enterprise class technology solutions and setting up financial processes.

Awards

  • GEM of India
  • Bharat Gaurav
  • Bharat Ratna Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Excellence Award

Education

  • Doctorate in Business Administration, Frederick Taylor International University, Arizona, USA, 2001 – 2004
  • Masters in Computer Science, KTHM College, Nashik, 1994-96

So, we have entered a different era, where you will see that it will not be about just working with one data center.

Artificial intelligence or machine learning, or all these newer technologies, have forced themselves into the system of any enterprise ecosystem that you look at today. The only way for enterprises to survive today is by transforming their business models, understanding their customers’ needs, and providing exceptional experiences. These technologies are enabling enterprises to make that change.

As we advance and AI and ML, robotics will play a crucial role because of companies’ continuous pressure to strengthen processes and deliver exceptional customer experiences.

Better World: Who are your major clients in India?

Rajeev Papneja: Today, ESDS is serving more than 225 governmental PSU customers, the most significant initiatives of the prime minister, and our governments, for example, the Ministry of road transport, right. All the tools we are paying for today across the new range are different from our data center. If we talk about the world’s largest smart meter project, Energy Efficiency Services Limited is replacing 250 million smart meters, all running from our data center.

The banking sector is a big focus area for us. We are working with over 400 banks, many of which are small cooperative banks. We are constantly launching new SaaS and PaaS offerings for government and banking clients. We are integrating technologies such as AI and ML in our data center offerings. None of our customer’s security is ever compromised.

Better World: That’s an exciting statement from you that none of your customers, especially in banking, have ever witnessed a data security breach. How have you been able to secure your customer’s sensitive data consistently?

Rajeev Papneja: Most of the time, you see the security compromises happening in banks. They are on-premise databases. We need to understand security because it is challenging to attack something you don’t know. And that is what cloud technology gives you. You don’t know where your data when you don’t know where your information is; how will you attack something?

Second, the most significant vulnerability today is an insider threat. Most of the threats you would have seen, or the data leaks that have happened are their sheer size.  For us, it is only zero and one. We don’t know what is there. It doesn’t make sense to us.

All these big government customers are utilizing our security operation center (SoC) as a service (SoC), all the cooperative banks are using our SoC as a service. We also have our tools that are used by many of the nationalized banks. For example, our VTMScan tool, which is a complete web scanning tool. It scans all forms of online threats and vulnerabilities.

With ransomware attacks happening with zero-day attacks happening, we use advanced AI-ML based science to deliver actionable intelligence to ensure speedy mitigation for security incidents. Another offering is eNlight WAF, a specially engineered intelligent cloud hosted web application firewall helping businesses filter incoming and outgoing internet traffic and block threats such as injection, cross site scripting and other attacks.

We’ve also launched SPOCHUB, which is a plug-and-play platform providing industry-specific offerings On Click. It enables the ISVs to display their offerings across the Globe with an “Omni Channel Proposition.”

Overall, we’ve at least 10 to 12 integrated tools that are combined. And of course, human intelligence, as I saw, is how we run our security operations. All the services offered within SoC are a service and subscription-based model. They follow an OPEX model rather than CAPEX by cutting down unsolicited costs.

Better World: Which are some of the most significant trends that you foresee, both from a data center perspective and an overall technology perspective, in the post-Covid environment?

Rajeev Papneja: One thing is for sure that people have embraced the cloud entirely. As we progress, software as a service is going to be very, very big. Going by the various market reports, in the next four years, the market for Infrastructure as a service will be $5 billion.

The market for multi-cloud management services is $10 billion. This, this is I’m only talking about India. If you look at security services, that is also around $2 to $3 billion. The digital transformation industry itself is $700 billion. It encompasses all the different applications that will help these industries evolve their business models to make their processes better, such as collaboration tools. We are currently seeing that people immediately flocked to VDI technologies, to web VPN, to CRM applications to Enterprise Resource Planning, and collaboration tools in digital transformation. These are widely accepted. And people have started moving to the cloud. As we advance, you will see that people will start exploring how we can make our business models, something like, you know, they call it everything as a service takes a so I’ll give you a small example, that there is this company, right? It’s from it’s changing the mindset from selling a product to selling a service.

Whatever mindset or analytics on historical data you could do before COVID does not work in the post COVID era. It has an entirely different perspective. But the good news is, all businesses have the same starting point today. No matter where they were in their journey, they are forced to have an identical starting point. Now whoever takes benefit of this digital transformation they are going to be successful.

Better World: What are your outside India expansion plans for 2021 and beyond?

Rajeev Papneja: Right now, we are already present in the UK. We have two web hosting companies in the UK. We are serving more than 20,000 web hosting customers in the UK. We have a small presence in the US which we never focused on earlier. We will be focusing on the US, also started in the Middle East. We have an office in Dubai we have in Bahrain. We are working on specific opportunities in Bahrain, Dubai, Oman, Egypt, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Utopia. So, there are around 17 countries that we are focusing on. We have already built a data center for unique customer needs. So, what we are seeing is that you know, these countries are where India used to be eight years back. So, for example, if you look at Dubai, they have just started their cloud journey.

Still, companies prefer to use on-premise IT infrastructure. Now, we want to leverage our expertise, whatever we have done in the last eight years for India. We want to make sure that these upcoming countries starting with technology can feel empowered with our unique offerings and technology.

MORE FROM BETTER WORLD

SolarWinds hack: CISOs need to revisit cyber resilience?

SolarWinds hack: CISOs need to revisit cyber resilience?

What many organizations feared came true! The year 2020 brought another shock to the business community last week with discovering a new cyber-attack, SolarWinds hack’ in the United States. The attack is an opportunity for enterprises and CISOs to reflect on their cyber resilience strategies. (See: Top enterprise cybersecurity trends of 2020)

For the unversed, California-based cybersecurity company FireEye uncovered the SolarWinds hack last week and estimated that the cyberattack campaign might have started as early as Spring 2020 and remained undetected for months.

The cyberattack emerged as one of the largest ever targeted against the U.S. Government and several other global companies, threatening organizations’ cyber resilience levels. To date, dozens of emails from the U.S. Treasury Department have been confirmed as compromised.

The attack was hurled by cybercriminals who hacked the infrastructure of an American I.T. Software company, SolarWinds, and then used illegitimate access to insert malicious code in the software updates that the company sends out to its 30,000 plus clients that also includes several departments of the U.S. Government. SolarWinds stated that the updates issued between March and June 2020 were contaminated.

Several industry onlookers have also slammed SolarWind’s lackluster approach to conquer its shortcomings. For instance, the Chief Information Security Officer’s (CISO) longstanding vacant position from its board and notifications issued to customers around deactivating antivirus tools before installing SolarWinds software.

Far-reaching effects

While the timelines of the SolarWinds hack are still unfolding, the SolarWinds breach is disturbing to the whole of the I.T. industry as it can have a far-reaching effect on many big organizations’ networks, questioning their cyber resilience levels.

The SolarWinds breach reflects that most organizations are appallingly unqualified to detect and prevent such kinds of software supply chain attacks. SolarWinds boast that it has been working with 425 of the U.S. Fortune 500 companies and hundreds of universities and colleges globally. This means that the severity of the attack can be severe in the coming days.

Top tech companies, Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, and NVIDIA, have all confirmed their exposure to the malicious software and undertaking necessary investigations to gauge the impact.

In a column published in the New York Times, Thomas P. Bossert, a former domestic security adviser to President Trump, notes that supply chain attacks of such magnitude require significant resources and sometimes years of execution.

Bossart also opined that a foreign state might have launched SolarWinds hack in a well-orchestrated way. These evaluations, if proved correct, can be more hazardous. For instance, in war-like situations, confidential data of governments can be modified or erased by hackers instantly to cause financial loss or take undue strategic advantage.

Stresses lack of preparation of organizations

As we move into 2021, the Solar Winds hack event has once again reiterated nothing is completely secure in this ever-evolving threat landscape. Indeed, no vendor or solution can fully guarantee to protect the networks of an enterprise. Perfect information security is a myth, but the key is resilience. (See: How COVID-19 has changed cybersecurity focus for 2021)

The last few weeks must have been more strenuous for CIOs and CISOs who would need to spend long-hours evaluating the impact on their networks, systems, and data from the SolarWinds cyber-attack. It’s time for enterprises to seek responses to some of the key questions more vehemently:

  • Do you have a contingency plan to combat accidental breaches and unknown threats?
  • Do you depend upon a single security vendor (say, for VPN, network monitoring, and network slicing) or want to onboard different security vendors to safeguard our networks?
  • Can you change our defense approach to strengthen our cyber resilience levels?
  • Are you regularly testing our multiple endpoints and operating systems and keeping them secure?
  • Have you evaluated the risks of third-party software vendors and analyzed their ability to combat sophisticated threats?
  • Is your service-level-agreement updated?

The SolarWinds hack event could be a catalyst for technology leaders to rethink and analyze all their security solutions and potential gates of network vulnerabilities in the context of modern-day technologies. There might be many undisclosed portions, and more details around the impairment from the breach is likely to continue to come out in the next few weeks.

 

 

 

Cybersecurity threats loom larger on e-tailers this holiday

Cybersecurity threats loom larger on e-tailers this holiday

Cybersecurity threats are looming large to get the advantage of homebound shoppers, who are mainly relying on virtual shopping this holiday season to prevent coronavirus spread. From great shopping days to Black Friday sale, every year, the entire December and January month help retailers generate huge revenues and buyers getting deep discounts.

This year, there is a reason for e-retailers to be more vigilant against cybercriminals who could take advantage of the massive human traffic on their sites to conduct fraudulent online transactions.

According to the latest security report on the 2020 Holiday Season from McAfee, a global computer security software company, there were 419 threats per minute in Q2 2020, increasing almost 12 percent over the previous quarter. It notes that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has compelled more people to opt for online shopping this year. Over 68 percent of Indians have increased their shopping activity this year. These threats are likely to scale new heights during the ongoing holiday season.

The spike in web traffic can be a source of joy for many e-retailers who have been hit hard due to the pandemic’s driven economic instability. However, it has also expanded threatening surfaces that could lead to cybersecurity disasters.(See: How COVID-19 has changed cybersecurity focus for 2021 and Combating cyber threats in the new normal)

Threats in the era of new behavior

It is evident that with increased e-commerce operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, the retail sector has become very lucrative for cybercriminals. This is primarily because these sites retain sensitive customer information such as name, contact details, and credit card/ debit card numbers.

According to findings by cybersecurity firm Imperva Research Labs, the volume of attacks on retailers’ APIs has far exceeded average levels this year. While the majority of the attacks occurred from bot activity, leading attack vectors for retail API attacks in 2020 to include cross-site scripting (XSS) (42%) and SQL injection (40%).

DDoS attacks, phishing, and emailer frauds have also peaked at new scales this year. Imperva observed an average of eight-layer attacks per month against retail sites, with a significant peak in April 2020 as lockdown measures led to an increase in demand for online shopping. It is, therefore, essential for e-retailers to devise a robust strategy to address these cybersecurity threats.

In April this year, Japanese multinational consumer electronics and video game company, Nintendo, suffered a massive cyberattack on its official website, leading to data theft of over 300,000 Nintendo customers.

Many of these accounts were put in jeopardy and used as unsolicited purchases. Cybercriminals also leaked sensitive customer data such as name, password, date of birth, and payment information on the Dark Web, making a loss of brand reputation and goodwill of the Kyoto-based society. With the number of transactions witnessing a steep hike, both consumers and organizations are seeing the rise of holiday cybersecurity threats and need extra surveillance in order to stay secure.

Fraud prevention strategy

Regardless of what many industry observers say, e-retailers continue to hurt most by cybersecurity threats. For them, the only way out of cybercriminals’ grip is by employing the best class identification solutions that can fully secure their cloud infrastructure without impacting convenience.

E-retailers need to keep their cloud infrastructure up to date and proactively explore intelligent cybersecurity solutions to prevent their websites from hijacking.

Some of the best cybersecurity practices that e-retailers can espouse through advanced security solutions:

Address verification service (AVS): One of the most prevalent measures to keep fraudsters at bay is AVS. It’s an automated mechanism that matches the billing address with the payment instrument’s address, say, a credit card, to identify suspicious transaction activity.

Location monitoring: Those transactions where the shipping, billing, and the IP address are in proximity are usually safer transactions. If there is a significant remoteness between those addresses, the account or transaction must be supervised more closely. Various solutions are supported by advanced AI and analytics technologies available today that can help e-retailers monitor transactions on their sites and check for suspicious behavior.

IP address legitimacy: Fraudsters often mask their IP address to place orders with online retailers to avoid being tracked. Using cutting-edge technologies such as zero-trust and cryptographic network protocols, online retailers can prevent and mitigate such spoofing attacks. (See: Covid-19: Reimagining work with a zero-trust lens)

Multifactor authentication: A robust multifactor authentication protocol ensures digital users’ authenticity and provides secure access.

Keep your users informed: All e-retailers must keep their customers up-to-date on the latest cyberattacks and measures to navigate with caution. Information about how to keep a strong password and secure their information should be communicated frequently to customers.

There are many other modern-day tools available that can help e-retailers secure their networks from holiday cybersecurity threats. They should consult with their cybersecurity partner to ensure a secure online retail experience and prevent cybercriminals from taking unassailable advantage.

 

Signs that show 2021 will be the year of rebound!

Signs that show 2021 will be the year of rebound!

The year 2020 has likely been among the worst in the history of humankind. At the start of this year, no one expected us to devote the entire year fighting against a deadly virus with no escape path. Everything was unprecedented, whether it was nationwide lockdowns, restrictive travel, widely implemented social distancing measures, and mass working-from-home. In recent months, however, there have been some strong signals in the rebound in 2021. (See: Growth of Indian IT sector set for revival in 2021)

It was not as if things were going great from an Indian economic standpoint in the pre-Covid normal. However, sound fundamentals maintained macroeconomic stability before the pandemic.

The pandemic has been a blow for many companies, mainly brick and mortar businesses, who now face an existential threat. This grave situation also caused so many job losses, making a devastating impact on millions of people’s livelihoods.

Despite these setbacks from the COVID–19 meltdown, the pandemic also brought few silver linings, such as the increased adoption of digital technologies and robust business continuity planning. The pandemic has unleashed a new era of thought process and cast away everything for granted theory.

As we are embarking on 2021, here are some of the significant signs that indicate that the next year will the year of transformation and rebound!

Acceleration of digital transformation

Amidst adversities, technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning models, cloud, and predictive analytics have helped the world move forward, harness human potential, and augment our capacity to partner virtually. This is one of the foremost factors that indicate 2021 as the rebound year.

Digital technologies emerged as a new force of change amidst the unstable equilibrium. For instance, telemedicine and online consulting have become more common; mobile payments and e-banking transactions have surpassed all previous record levels; e-learning has become widely accepted, and virtual recruitment is the new norm. (See: CIOs’ digital transformation focus accelerates recovery for IT firms)

Many skeptics who earlier questioned these technologies’ roles and called them a substitute for human potential have suddenly become the most prominent adopters. Not only these technologies helped maintain business continuity for enterprises, but they also facilitate COVID-19 preparedness and enable countries to contain the spread of the infection. (See: It’s time to invest in a Chief Transformation Officer!)

According to Fitch, a global rating agency, the Indian IT services sector is expected to resume high single-digit revenue growth in 2021-2022 due to a higher demand for digital transformation. The coronavirus pandemic’s impact is seen to be only moderate and short term, as customers focus on transforming their businesses digitally, moving services and work platforms online, and minimizing spending on legacy services.

In 2021, these technologies will further enable organizations to respond to challenges with agility and resilience. Over the next twelve months, new technology shifts are expected to fast-track the Indian e-commerce sector’s growth, remote education, and virtual healthcare support.

The continuous aggregation of data by enterprises and their meaningful interpretation will elucidate consumer behavior and influence business decisions. Contactless technologies will make the reopening of offices smooth and safe.

Improved investor sentiments

A critical positive that has emerged in the last three months is that foreign investors improved sentiments in the Indian market. Capital inflows to India’s Foreign direct investment (FDI) surpassed US$ 500 billion in September, restoring the country’s credentials as a key investment destination.

US technology firms such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon have all pledged large new India investments this year. Early rebound in investment activity indicates that country can accelerate its growth prospects in H2 2021. (See: Will FB–Jio deal create magic?)

There have also been several revisions by global rating firms such as S&P and Fitch in India’s growth projections for 2021. India’s road to recovery is faster than the previous estimations due to rising demand and declining COVID-19 rates.

Robust business continuity models

While the pandemic scars may take some time to heal, the disruption has sparked a global awareness around the importance of firm business continuity models.

Many of the insights gained from the pandemic have translated to create systematic business continuity plans, contactless behaviors, dynamic processes by organizations of all scales. As we advance, this will enable businesses to improve their ability to combat similar disruptions and rebound with more confidence and skills in H2 2021.

According to a report, COVID-19: Implications for business, by Mckinsey, there is now better awareness around risk preparedness and governance. Corporate decision-makers introspect which protections and technologies are worth the investment and can translate into long term solutions.

Salary hikes

Many employers are rolling-back salary cuts and hiring freeze that they enforced in April this year after the pandemic due to increased uncertainty. Many of the IT companies have also announced salary hikes in response to growing optimism. (See: Salary hikes at IT firms on cards as COVID disruption eases)

According to LinkedIn statistics, hiring has improved by 30% in September. There has been a significant rebound in the sectors such as construction, services, logistics, and retail.

The remote workforce trends mean that many opportunities have lost geographical barriers, allowing people from different countries to compete for an opportunity.

Salesforce fills compliance gaps with Hyperforce cloud tool

Salesforce fills compliance gaps with Hyperforce cloud tool

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) major Salesforce has recently launched Hyperforce solution in India. The new architecture will enable Salesforce’s customers to run all existing Salesforce solutions on the public cloud and select where their data is hosted.

Some of the platform’s key features are: higher compute capacity, ease of cloud resources deployment into the public cloud, minimize the implementation time from months to weeks, and backward compatibility.

With a backward compatibility feature, every Salesforce app, its customization, and integration, regardless of cloud, will run on Hyperforce. 

Enabling digital transformation goals

In 2021, when technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning will be heavily tested and deployed by organizations, businesses would need the agility and ease to utilize various clouds’ competencies the way they seem fit.

Salesforce Hyperforce will enable users to leverage Salesforce’s CRM tools via cloud infrastructures of other cloud service providers, such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

While Salesforce has not shared whether it has already signed-up with any cloud service providers to offer a hosting option to its customers, it is likely that it will take advantage of its strategic partnerships with AWS and Google. Microsoft’s Azure onboarding seems like a certainty due to Salesforce’s recent acquisition of Slack. (See: Salesforce buys Slack to expand its cloud footprint)

Salesforce’s new approach is in line with meeting the growing enterprise digital transformation roll-outs requirements and bring flexibility to businesses to move their apps and infrastructure the way they want it.

Data compliance

For many years, Salesforce hosted the data of its customers in its own cloud. However, with changing times, governments worldwide have begun to stiffen data security laws to address privacy-related concerns in the economy. And businesses have been demanding more control of their data and decide where it gets hosted — on-premise or cloud.

With Salesforce Hyperforce, the San Francisco-based company will let its customers choose to store data in a particular location or a country to support mandatory compliance and regulations applied to that region, company, and industry.

“One of the broader global trends that have impacted India and also the world, there’s a proliferation of data privacy laws, of compliance requirements around data residency. This platform will enable our customers to respond to this (requirement) whether they operate just within India, whether they’re a multinational with customers in multiple countries,” said Salesforce President and COO Bret Taylor in an official statement.

Hyperforce will also enable Salesforce to tap sectors such as banking and finance, telecom, and government enterprises in India that follow strict data compliance policies. The new architecture is currently available to users in India and Germany. Salesforce plans to unveil the offering in ten more countries by 2021.

Top technology trends to look for in 2021

Top technology trends to look for in 2021

Not only has 2020 been one of the most challenging years in the history of humanity, but it has also completely transformed our way of thinking and working. Many of the top technology trends help us navigate the crisis.

Throughout the year, COVID-19 has hurt all areas of life, causing businesses to close, economies collapse, and people to be anxious. Amid panic and uncertainty, technology and connectivity have become vital elements that have given people and companies hope, courage, optimism, and the competence to continue. (See: Technology trends for businesses in 2020)

The year was marked by many technological trends surrounding the cloud, robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), and augmented reality (AR), leading companies through the crisis. As the year concludes, organizations in all sectors have realized the importance of a scalable and secure network, superior connectivity, and advanced analytical tools to enable their people to meet new challenges while working from anywhere.

For technology leaders, this new approach has led to the accelerated execution of digital transformation efforts, the review of their IT budgets, and the redesign of their future business continuity frameworks.

At Better World, we expect businesses to continue focusing on cutting-edge technologies in 2021 and upgrade their networks to equip themselves to deal with any future barriers fully.

top technology trends

Let’s look at some of the top technology trends that will be key to delivering business transformation in 2021.

5G adoption to take off in 2021

One of the most anticipated wireless technologies of the modern era, the fifth-generation technology standard for broadband cellular networks, is likely to pick up pace in 2021. The technology would match or even exceed the speeds of physical, optical fiber connections under most conditions, strengthening many it-based deployments soon.

5G has already been introduced in many countries by select telecommunications companies in limited locations. It is likely to be available for approximately 15% of the world’s population by the end of 2020. By 2021, there will be more dynamic deployments and expansions worldwide, making them available for at least 70% of the global population.

For successful 5G rollouts, telecom operators will focus on robust network planning and monitoring tools to offer new monetization opportunities and control operating costs.

In India, Reliance Jio has been working closely with numerous national equipment makers to lead the 5G race. The telecom operator has put aside the ambitious 5G rollout schedule for the second half of 2021, depending on spectrum availability. Once available, the technology will bring more incredible automation benefits to the manufacturing and logistics process. It will enable enterprises to control mission-critical devices remotely in real-time and drive innovative customer experience.

The explosion of customer-data-platforms (CDP)

The COP ranks second among the major technology trends for 2021. While the pandemic put most businesses under enormous pressure in 2020, there has been high interest and investments around CDP. The CDP is a collection of software that retrieves dispersed data, let’s say, from a single client, from multiple sources in a single organized and central location.

Compared to conventional customer relationship management (CRM) systems, CDP allows companies to give their customers a consolidated view from broader contact points. It helps strengthen customer engagement by enabling organizations to track customer profiles through their lifecycle and interactions.

Technology majors such as Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Salesforce, Treasure Data, and Adobe are investing heavily in CDP deployment. By 2021, businesses will see a more significant amount of data from data lakes and other sources. This will speed up the demand for automated tools and technologies that allow companies to intelligently analyze data, benefit customers, and generate new opportunities.

Hybrid cloud to occupy center stage

Although there are no crystal balls to precisely forecast enterprise cloud strategy, it is clear that hybrid cloud technologies will substantially grow in popularity among CIOs. In the post-pandemic era, organizations realized the importance of a modern hybrid multi-cloud architecture. They had to amplify their collaboration activities across their business functions in a work-from-home setup.

A greater realization came around managing IT resources through a combination of on-premise cloud computing services and third-party services to reduce the chances of network downtime, eliminate data silos, and help scale business with agility.

From 2021 and throughout the next few years, hybrid cloud is expected to be one of the top technology trends. Most young enterprises and organizations who plan to migrate to the cloud in 2021 will be looking to take the hybrid cloud route to exploit business opportunities and provide an exceptional consumer experience.

Acceleration in AI deployments

In 2021, organizations will rely heavily on artificial intelligence (AI) to improve resilience, rapid computer operations management, decision-making, maximizing resources, and improving supply chain efficiency. According to Better World, at least 70 percent of enterprises across all sectors have adopted some form of AI-based technologies this year. A majority of them will pledge aggressive AI-based production deployments during the next twelve months to establish a competitive edge.

Some of the leading examples in the AI-space are Chatbots, intelligent analytics, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), driverless vehicles, contactless technologies, digital assistants, and location finder apps (such as Google maps).

The next year will see several AI-based use case studies, which will also be driven by 5G rollouts. In a fast-growing virtual environment, technology leaders would require intelligent models to manage and use enormous data wisely. AI-led solutions will enable organizations to derive concrete insights and break down the data smartly with a tremendous speed. (See: Enterprises in India leading AI adoption globally)

Greater emphasis on cybersecurity and cyber resilience

While in 2020, enterprises were largely focused on adjusting to the crisis, 2021 will see the aggressive implementation of robust digital transformation initiatives that can expand businesses’ remote workforce capabilities and strengthen corporate resilience. This unparalleled workplace transition also requires businesses to build newer strategies to protect employees’ networks by augmenting their cybersecurity architectures.

In 2021, a significant focus on cybersecurity will be looking at IT security areas that are too expensive to implement. With the upcoming expansion of IoT connected devices, networks will be more vulnerable to large-scale multivector cyberattacks.

In the second half of 2021, organizations are expected to focus on cybersecurity and accelerate their deployment efforts around advanced solutions to protect their networks and clouds and improve security controls.

Technologies that could drive the adoption of secure cloud solutions will be much in demand. (See: How COVID-19 has changed cybersecurity focus for 2021).

Additionally, there will be a continued emphasis on remote monitoring capabilities, automation, and zero-trust models for robust user access patterns. (See: Top enterprise cybersecurity trends of 2020)

Inroads into quantum computing

Another top trend of 2021 will be a stronger focus on quantum computing. A lot of industry viewers believe that next year might be the year of quantum computing planning. Several algorithms will drive the quantum computing performance, and those will be seriously looking at making inroads into IT use case workflows.

Several vendors such as IBM, Google, Honeywell, and DWave have showcased their quantum solutions scale. While quantum computing still has a long way to go, in 2021, several use cases are expected to be deployed.

 

Enterprises in India leading AI adoption globally

Enterprises in India leading AI adoption globally

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated AI-focused transformations in Indian companies, according to the latest report from PwC India.

The report, AI: An Opportunity amid a Crisis, found that AI in India had greater adoption and usage than other major economies, the USA, the UK, and Japan.

It is interesting to mention that over 70% of Indian businesses, according to the PwC report, have implemented AI in one shape or another, in one or more functional regions, compared to about 62% in 2019.

The result is fairly consistent with Better World’s projections that at least 70% of companies across all sectors will likely adopt some form of AI-based technology and adopt aggressive AI- Production deployments based within the next 12 months to build a competitive edge.

AI India

PwC India survey results, which include responses from more than 950 corporate decision-makers, also show a massive increase in AI optimism since last year. Amongst Indian companies surveyed, the positivity around AI rose from 72% to 92%. Forty-five percent of Indian organizations made greater use of artificial intelligence after COVID-19, and 94% of those interviewed stated that they have implemented or plan to implement AI within their organization.

Why is AI on the rise?

Artificial intelligence is the science behind intelligent machinery. It allows computer systems to sense their surroundings, analyze, learn, and make the necessary, evidence-based decisions, just as a human brain does, at times, much faster.

The technology has been deployed rapidly in the enterprise ecosystems as it enables organizations to make informed, data-driven decisions and forecast the potential outcome of those decisions. The recent pandemic has proven to be the worst order crisis in recent times and has had a spiraling impact on consumer and corporate sentiment. (See: How artificial intelligence is transforming Indian retail sector and AI in banking now geared for a takeoff)

During the pandemic-induced nationwide lockdowns, organizations were quick to realize that they had to move away from traditional ways of working faster to stay relevant in the market. Since virtual has become the new mainstream, much data is generated and can be harnessed by technologies like artificial intelligence to improve the user experience.

From new customer acquisition to retention and enabling them to resolve grievances in an automated and quick way, AI-led solutions can automate the processes to a greater extent. Leveraging AI, enterprises can derive concrete insights and break down the data intelligently with a tremendous speed to improve their customers’ life-cycle value.

Some of the prominent examples in AI-space are Chatbots, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), driverless vehicles, digital assistants, and location finder apps (such as Google maps).

Trends 2021

In 2021, Indian businesses are expected to witness a significant transition. There will be continuous traction around remote working environments. Consumers will also remain committed to spending a large proportion of their purchases through online channels or apps.

This will compel businesses to step-forward their AI-based strategies to retain and provide an exceptional consumer experience.

Nevertheless, companies considering deploying AI applications will face challenges such as data quality, limited success models, and staff inexperience to get the most from their AI investments. (See: How will AI impact enterprise ecosystems in 2021?)

 

 

0 Comments