The economy and smart IT investments – Today's economy is driving businesses to adopt a cautious yet strategic stance on technology investments. This year, companies will prioritise initiatives that show clear ROI and enhance productivity. Automation, AI, and platforms will lead in interest as businesses aim to streamline operations and reduce costs. There's an increasing focus on gaining a granular view of IT asset utilisation to minimise expenses and avoid unwarranted investments. As the era of cheap money and ultra-low interest rates impact all businesses, projects to achieve more with less will gain even more popularity. Technology built with AI and ML, especially those demonstrating tangible benefits, will be top priorities for IT leaders.
Road to simplicity - Years of investment in hybrid clouds, new infrastructure and applications have complicated IT environments and obscured visibility. Using best-in-class tools for various challenges has burdened IT teams and complicated the integration of tools from multiple suppliers. Even observability, meant to simplify IT professional's work, has become overly complex with fragmentation across different providers. Companies now seek to shift from multiple disparate tools to a unified approach, focusing on seamless application, network, and infrastructure operations. The goal is to allow IT teams to focus more on core business operations and objectives. In 2024, we will see a stronger movement towards platforms and architectures that manage complex environments, such as multiple cloud systems or observability.
Cost, user experience and results - In just a year, ChatGPT has brought generative AI, and AI more broadly, into the daily lives of tens of millions. Beyond the hype, companies are scrutinising how to leverage the plethora of tools and solutions from the recent AI surge. While the primary filters will be costs and addressing IT staffing shortages, delivering on user experience is also key. Although digital transformation and implementing digital solutions have risen in the past decade, yielding high productivity and results from these investments has often been elusive. The expectation is that AI will soon bring automation and tangible benefits across various sectors. In IT, for example, many patterns and behaviours can be automated by artificial intelligence, which can be applied to identify these patterns and respond to them, reducing the number of IT help desk required responses. This saves valuable time for experts and resources, provides a better digital employee experience, and lets IT focus on bigger priorities. The future promises more sophisticated models capable of handling complex tasks with greater accuracy, efficiency, and tangible results.
Employee as a customer, but... - Despite ongoing tensions between those who favour a pre-pandemic work environment and those who advocate for total flexibility, work environments are unlikely to revert back to pre-pandemic times. The concept of IT departments serving employees as customers - continuously providing better tools - will also continue. However, there's a caveat: IT leaders are under immense pressure to balance delivering optimal solutions, controlling costs, and achieving organisational goals. This year's looming employment uncertainty will alleviate some pressure on IT leaders by reducing some of the demands, and it will be easier to strike a balance between offering necessary tools and maintaining budgets under control.
Protecting What You See - Observability is increasingly critical in cybersecurity. By monitoring every transaction and asset, observability platforms can detect anomalies and alert security teams in ways that traditional cybersecurity tools cannot. The vital link between observability and cybersecurity is often misunderstood or understated, especially by non-security-focused companies. However, growing cyber threats will likely enhance awareness and understanding of observability's role in cybersecurity. Beyond cyber risks, the reliability of digital services will increasingly be viewed as a real-world security concern.
It's clear that the IT landscape is undergoing significant shifts, from economic factors influencing investment strategies to the integration of AI in daily operations. These trends are shaping the future of IT, and companies that adapt to and embrace these changes will be better positioned to thrive in the market.
