C-Suite roles will evolve
Specific technical roles, such as software testing, have historically sat in the realm of the IT department only. However, with digital transformation underway in most enterprises in 2018 – not to mention the explosion of IoT devices and the data derived from them – focus will be shifted to the quality of applications as well as customer experience overall.
Consequently, traditional IT roles such as testing and monitoring will be higher on the C-Suite agenda within businesses, resulting in a more rounded team for IT operations, with team members contributing from different departments within the organisation.
User experience will become even more important
We’ve witnessed our fair share of major outages across 2017 – involving household names such as WhatsApp, Ryanair and Virgin Money Giving, to name a few. The importance of creating a great UX experience has never been greater, and to be able to do so, all businesses need to get a grip on performance issues.
Looking ahead to the new year, businesses will need to address the overall quality of their services to survive in an increasingly saturated landscape. As a result, we’ll see a shift in focus to monitoring the customer experience and to the need for extensive end-to-end testing embedded within delivery lifecycles.
Although some organisations are leading the way in terms of ensuring optimal user experience, for example through ongoing monitoring and effective testing of their websites and applications, many are still disproportionally focused on factors such as speed instead of quality, security and resilience.
Availability will help set organisations apart
How will consumers decide where to spend their money if 2018 sees all vendors offering similar capabilities? Factors that organisations will need to address to ensure differentiation of services include availability, ease of use and consistently delivering a high-quality experience.
We rely heavily on IoT devices, their data and management. This will fuel increasing demand for high availability of the API services that these devices interact with. Monitoring the availability of these APIs will be critical to ensuring companies can continue to run (particularly manufacturers), as well as to guaranteeing the trustworthiness of business intelligence data.
Companies will capitalise on AI opportunities
In 2018, we will see enterprises really capitalise on the opportunities that artificial intelligence presents, and machine learning will become mainstream – if organisations haven’t begun utilising these technologies already, they will soon wake up to its essential role in gaining a better understanding of their data.
It’s often difficult to see the physical manifestation of concepts such as AI, but we can look to physical, ‘intelligent’ objects or things to bridge that gap. Previously in the world of IoT, connected devices sent data for limited processing. Today, machine learning enables devices to transform that same data into actionable insight, and real-time feedback looks set to change the behavior of our IoT devices for good.
With increasing adoption, businesses will face challenges: new ways of testing and validating the results from AI need to be sourced, and embedded within development lifecycles.
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Despite being confident in these predictions for 2018, there will undoubtedly be digital developments – and disruption – that no one, regardless of business acumen, can predict. However, the most forward-thinking organisations will look forward to the challenge. Here’s to a successful new year!
