In October 2020, Gartner, Inc. announced its top nine strategic trends for 2021. In Gartner IT Symposium, analysts presented their findings virtually because it is pandemic this year. Interestingly, the findings show that many of them have been reshaped due to pandemics and health crises. 

Here are the top nine strategic technology trends for 2021:

1. Internet of Behaviors

2. Total experience

3. Privacy-enhancing computation

4. Distributed cloud

5. Anywhere operations

6. Cybersecurity mesh

7. Intelligent composable business

8. AI engineering

9. Hyperautomation

Those mentioned above nine strategic technology trends for 2021 do not operate independently. Instead, they build on and reinforce each other.

Additionally, the above trends fall under three themes:

• Location independence
• People centricity
• Resilient delivery. 

Location independence: COVID-19 has shifted the mode of working. Now, most of us work from home, where physical existence does not matter a lot. However, location independence also brought a technology shift which gives a new version of the business.

People centricity: Though the pandemic has changed how people work and how many of them are working. However, they still interact with the organization and are considered as the center of business. As a result, digitization is the urge of the hour.

Resilient delivery: Irrespective of pandemic volatility was always there, and it will continue, maybe due to pandemic or recession. But organizations that can adapt can weather all types of disruptions.

Related post – Top Computer vision trends to look for in 2021

Overview of Gartner Top strategic trends for 2021

Trend 1: Internet of Behaviors 

The Internet of Behaviors (or IOB) leverages data to change behaviors. This brings together data from both the physical and digital worlds to influence behaviors and actions through feedback loops. For example, for commercial vehicles, telematics monitor driving behaviors, including sudden braking to aggressive turns. Later that data is used to improve driver performance, routing, and safety. 

Furthermore, the internet of behavior can gather, combine and process data from many sources that include commercial customer data, government agencies, citizen data processed by public-sector social media, facial recognition, and location tracking. This trend has grown due to the increasing sophistication of technology.

Besides, analysts suggest that depending on individual uses’ goals and outcomes, IoB also has ethical and societal implications. For example, the same wearables used by health insurance companies to track physical activities can also be used to monitor grocery purchases. There is an implicit relationship between the two because too many unhealthy items could increase premiums.

Trend 2: Total experience 

Total-experience combines multi experiences that include the followings: 

customer experience +employee experience +user experience 

The combination ultimately transforms the business outcome. The goal is to improve the overall experience, i.e., technology, employee, customer, and user, at the point where they intersect. Since the experiences are tightly linked instead of improving each one in a silo, they differentiate a business from its competitors in a unique way that is difficult to replicate. In a nutshell, this particular trend enables organizations to capitalize on COVID-19 disruptors. 

For example, one telecommunications company transformed its entire customer experience in an effort to improve safety and satisfaction. First, it deployed an appointment system via an existing app. When customers arrived for their appointment and came within 75 feet of the store, they received two things: 1) A notification to guide them through the check-in process and 2) an alert letting them know how long it would be before they could safely enter the store and maintain social distance. 

The company also adjusted its service to include more digital kiosks. It enabled employees to use their own tablets to co-browse customers’ devices without physically touching the hardware. The result was a safer, more seamless, and overall integrated experience for customers and employees. 

3: Privacy-enhancing computation

Privacy-enhancing computation focuses on three technologies that protect data while its in use. 

• The first is related to data analysis and processing. Hence, it provides a trusted environment.
• The second focuses on a decentralized environment for analysis and processing. 
• The third performs encryption of data and algorithms before analytics or processing.

Gartner highlights that this trend allows organizations “to collaborate on research securely across regions and with competitors without sacrificing confidentiality. This approach is designed specifically for the increasing need to share data while maintaining privacy or security.”

4: Distributed cloud

Distributed cloud is a cloud service that is distributed to different physical locations, while the public provides controls on the operation, governance, and evolution. Since the services are provided physically closer, the latency is reduced so as the costs of data. This helps to maintain compliance with data law. As per Gartner’s prediction, the distributed cloud is the future of cloud technology.

5: Anywhere operations

Anywhere operations facilitate a business being done anywhere. Though this trend has been underscored to date, it will remain after the pandemic is over since the business model has changed a lot. More businesses may continue remotely.

As per Gartner, this is a “digital-first, remote-first” model. The report mentioned that digitalization should be the default for business at all times. This includes physical spaces which need digital enhancement. 

6: Cybersecurity mesh

As the remote workforce increases, so as the threat landscape. So, the cybersecurity mesh offers enhanced security. Such cybersecurity mesh allows recognizing the identity of a person or thing that can define the security perimeter. A more responsive security approach has been orchestrated, and policy enforcement is established through centralized policy.

7: Intelligent composable business

Based on changes to the business, Intelligent composable businesses can adapt and rearrange themselves accordingly. This change is ever-increasing which will drive to continue a faster pace for digital transformation. To maintain agility in the process, data must be available in a timely fashion.

Gartner says, “To successfully do this, organizations must enable better access to information, augment that information with better insight and have the ability to respond quickly to the implications of that insight. This will also include increasing autonomy and democratization across the organization, enabling parts of the businesses to react instead of being bogged down by inefficient processes quickly.”

8: AI engineering

To obtain the most value from artificial intelligence (AI) investments requires a robust AI engineering strategy, scalability, reliability, better performance, and AI models’ interpretability. Not to mention, many companies have already had issues with AI projects due to scalability, governance, and maintainability.

Furthermore, AI is also becoming a part of DevOps rather than being something separate from it. Using a multi-discipline, multi-AI-technique approach, a clearer path to value from AI projects can be achieved. Gartner notes, “Due to the governance aspect of AI engineering, responsible AI is emerging to deal with trust, transparency, ethics, fairness, interpretability and compliance issues. It is the operationalization of AI accountability.”

9: Hyperautomation

Hyperautomation was listed as the number one trend in Gartner’s predictions for 2020, which was offered a year ago. This states that anything that can be automated should be. Without hyperautomation, companies with legacy business processes that are not streamlined will suffer from expensive and extensive issues due to this inefficient approach.

The Gartner report notes, “Many organizations are supported by a “patchwork” of technologies that are not lean, optimized, connected, clean or explicit. At the same time, the acceleration of digital business requires efficiency, speed, and democratization. Organizations that don’t focus on efficiency, efficacy, and business agility will be left behind.”