The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world has been seismic. Even Oxford Dictionaries expanded its traditional ‘word of the year’ to encompass multiple ones in what it described as an ‘unprecedented year’. This need for multiple ways to describe the current environment is one that will be familiar to CIOs, who find themselves facing challenges from a multitude of angles, while at the same time trying to drive innovation and accelerate their digital transformation strategies.
The pandemic has clearly driven a fundamental shift in the way IT decision-makers are operating and working, with the main thrust being that if it can be digital, it must be digital.
Garsen Naidu, general manager for Cisco Sub Saharan Africa, points out seven key IT trends driven by the ‘new normal’:
- Adoption of a cloud experience;
- Applications are the lifeline of every business;
- Shift to hybrid work;
- Security moving to the cloud;
- Transition to 5G and WiFi6; and
- Apps and workloads moving closer to users and devices.
Several of the key trends are focusing on applications, which until recently, were seen as extensions of a business. Today, they are the business. And what this, in turn, means is that from a customer experience point of view, it is crucial that whatever interaction they have with an app today, the experience simply has to be very good. Similarly, employee productivity these days is relying on well-functioning applications.
“In a world that is becoming increasingly hybrid – where we will need to accommodate both office and home workers, for example – it is vital to ensure effective participation, and this is why application experience is so vital,” he says.
Naidu suggests that as more businesses adopt software as a service (SaaS) and cloud to enable business agility, they become reliant on networks and services that sit outside their control, such as the public Internet. This puts the need for good visibility, beyond the corporate network, front and centre for CIOs, creating yet another challenge for them.
“Since they cannot not directly control these domains, but are still responsible for service delivery outcomes, they need tools that deliver actionable insights into external networks and services in order to ensure seamless digital experiences for their customers and employees.
“In this hyper-connected digital era, management solutions that enhance visibility and control across both internal systems and external services have become absolutely critical to delivering the best possible user experience, resource use, threat protection and digital readiness.”
Most of all, he adds, CIOs and IT decision-makers are focusing on accelerating digital agility for their teams. This they have to do to ensure their employees have the speed, flexibility and choice to consume services across both via traditional and cloud environments.
“The majority of CIOs believe it is important to empower a distributed workforce with seamless access to applications and high-quality collaborative experiences. At the same time, maintaining security, control and governance across user devices, networks, clouds and applications is now absolutely essential,” continues Naidu.
“Yet another focus that has been brought into stark relief is the fact that the user experience should focus on delight – beyond mere satisfaction. To deliver such an experience, it is necessary to ensure a consistent application performance across both the application and infrastructure, which is why the infrastructure needs to be as dynamic as the application software.”
A final area of concern for CIOs is the rising demand for digital skills. This is something that many CIOs realise they will have to invest in and focus on developing extensively if they wish to remain leaders in their field.
“Ultimately, CIOs and IT decision-makers are now recognising the absolute importance of agility, flexibility and scalability. The real challenge is accommodating the need to prioritise the demand for this, while at the same time adapting to the challenges of the ‘new normal’ by making collaboration, cloud and security their highest priorities,” he concludes.
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