Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 25 | Page 42

FEATURE: 2020 TECHNOLOGY FORECAST ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// As we start a new decade, we begin to consider what the new year might have in store for business leaders. We hear from a number of experts who offer their suggestions about the trends they expect to develop in 2020. J Josh Flinn, Director of Product Strategy and Innovation at Cybera “2020 will be the year that we see Digital Transformation move from being a widely used marketing term, to becoming something that makes a tangible impact on business. The IoT is the chief driver of this. Businesses will increasingly take advantage of the wide array of connected devices, super-fast connectivity speeds and seamless security to deliver personalised and optimised experiences for their customers.” Richard Buxton, Head of Collaboration at Node4 “The video-centricity of UC has been growing steadily for the past few years and this practice has now become widely deployed in enterprises, not just as a means of social communication. However, it is unlikely that, even in 2020, the days of people hiding from in-room cameras or putting post-it notes over their laptop webcams are over just yet. 42 “A focus on work mobility is something that is driving change with real momentum, with attitudes towards mobile working becoming more positive and many organisations now encouraging people to work from anywhere. This has been and will continue to be enabled by collaboration solutions such as softphone, rich media meetings, video conferencing and platforms that provide seamless transfer of communications between different devices and varying channels. “The surge of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will also continue to make an impact on the industry and AI will increasingly become ingrained in businesses’ UC technology processes across all industries. This is especially prevalent when it comes to customer contact as businesses now understand that AI can help to improve customer experience by quickly and reliably providing appropriate information to their customers utilising things like sentiment tracking.” Jeff Keyes, Director of Product Marketing at Plutora “2020 is when the reality of autonomous teams is going to hit. The majority of enterprises are changing their software development organisations to have durable, multi-year-funded, 2-pizza sized teams that have transformed from project oriented to real product teams. These teams are self-directed with high level goals that they will implement iteration after iteration. That transformation is going to be even more pronounced in 2020. “Managing risk, compliance and governance will create friction to their success. If you want an analogy, this isn’t all that different than giving car keys to a teenager. The goal is that we have to get teams to a place so 20 technology 20 forecast INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com