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Tech Trends 2019 Beyond the digital frontier Oracle PerspectiveEXPERIENCE in the moment, their promise seemed less clear. It is, therefore, remarkable how quickly organizations across industries and regions navi- gated the so what? and now what? for these trends and went on to successfully traverse the new digital landscape. This journey from uncertainty to digital transformation informs our latest offering, Tech Trends for Oracle report. A persistent theme of every Tech Trends report has been the increasing, often mind-bending, velocity of change. A decade ago, many companies could achieve competitive advantage by embracing innovations and trends that were already underway. Today, this kind of reactive approach is no longer enough. To stay ahead of the game, companies must work methodically to sense new innovations and possibilities, define their ambitions for tomorrow, and journey beyond the digital frontier. But the question remains: How can we sense and act upon a future that remains unclear? The good news is that much of the tech-driven disruption each of us experiences todayand will likely experience going forwardis understandable and knowable. Today, the most promising technology trends are grounded in simple yet powerful macro forces that form the backbone of technology innovation, past and present. In this version of Tech Trends for Oracle report, we examine how once-disruptive trends such as cloud, analytics, and digital experiences have been embraced to become foundational components of business and IT strategy. We also discuss how reengineering technologys full life cycle, reimagining core systems, and elevating cyber to a strategic function are now critical elements of digital transformation. And finally, we examine the latest trends that are poised to become macro forces in their own right. Those feeling overwhelmed by change may take some comfort in the fact that all of these trends are grounded in the nine macro forces. As in chaos theory, patterns and structures eventually emerge from perceived disorder. So heres to the next decade of opportunity, whatever it may be. Along the way, embrace that queasy feeling of uncertainty. Be excited about it. Because what you are actually feeling is tremendous, unimaginable 2Introduction 3 Pavel Krumkachev Chief technology officer, US Oracle Practice Deloitte Consulting LLP pkrumkachevdeloitte Twitter: krumkachev John Liu Chief innovation officer, Global Oracle Practice johliudeloitte Twitter: johnliu88 Scott Buchholz Emerging Technologies research director and Government over time they evolved and expanded across industries and today are considered founda- tional components not only of enterprise IT but of corporate strategy. In the context of emerging technology trends, then, is there anything left to say about digital, analytics, and cloud? Yes: Despite their ubiquity and proven value, these technologies full potential remains largely untapped. Investments in them are often departmental and limited in scope. Likewise, in some companies, initiatives driving analytics, cloud, and digital are disjointed, even competing efforts. And even this old guard of emerging technol-6 Oracle perspectiveTech Trends 2019: Beyond the digital frontier ogies continues to evolve at an astounding pacein capabilities, in business models, and across broader marketplace dynamics. Meanwhile, three newer trendsdigital reality, cognitive technologies, and blockchainare growing rapidly in importance. In the last several issues of Tech Trends, we discussed how virtual reality and augmented reality are redefining the fundamental ways humans interact with their surroundings, with data, and with each other. We tracked blockchains meteoric rise from bitcoin enabler to purveyor of trust. And as cognitive technologies such as ma- chine learning (ML), robotic process automation, natural language processing, neural nets, and AI moved from fledgling siloed capabilities to tenets of strategy, we have explored their profound potential for business and society. These three trends, though still emerging, are poised to become as familiar and impactful as cloud, analytics, and digital experience are today. Of course, any pursuit of tomorrows promise should start from the technical realities of today. Three formative macro forces have proven essential in the pursuit of digital transformation past, present, and future: modernizing core systems, guiding how (and if) existing assets can serve as a foundation for innovation and growth; elevating cyber and the broader risk domain from a compliance-based ac- tivity to an embedded, strategic function; and, in a world where the only constant is constant change, reengineering an organizations technology func- tion to quickly and impactfully deliver against the promise of technologies emerging and existing. Previous editions of Tech Trends have discussed how the business of technology, core moderniza- tion, and cyber became trends in their own rights. CIOs and business leaders recognize that in a mar- ketplace being disrupted by rapid-fire innovation, IT must also fundamentally disrupt itself and make strategic decisions about its underlying assets or risk failing at its mission. Taken together, these nine trends are the macro technology forces that matter. When we talk about technology trends, it is tempting to dismiss broader, more lasting truths and pursue the latest shiny ob- jects. True, today there is nothing about these nine areas that screams “stop the presses!” But just be- cause they are no longer particularly novel doesnt mean they are not vitally important. In fact, one of the most pressing challenges that technology and business leaders face is how to excavate and harness the value these macro forces can deliver collectively. For example, the factory of the future needs to bring together next-gen ERP, machine learning, embedded sensors across the production floor, aug- mented reality training, mobile visualization and predictive flow scheduling, secure networks, and cloud-based tools for managing workflow across the supply chain. Not to mention the need to retool workers and cross-pollinate between traditional in- formation and operational technology (IT and OT) roles and skills. Through their collision and the innovation un- leashed, these forces will likely dominate enterprise IT, business, and markets to an even greater extent than they have as individual technologies. With macro forces, its the controlled collision that leads beyond the digital frontier. Exploring the forces at work IN THE BEGINNING . . . First, there was digital experience, analytics, and cloud. Of the nine macro forces, these three have consistently captured the most mindshare (and investment dollars) over the last decade, and with good reason. Today they are the pillars upon which With macro forces, its the controlled collision that leads beyond the digital frontier.7 Macro technology forces at work many ambitions for the future are built. And were far from done. Digital experience When the term digital entered the business- technology lexicon roughly seven years ago, it was used as shorthand for customer-facing sales and marketing with an emphasis on a specific channel, be it social, mobile, or web. Today, digital is increas- ingly used in tandem with experience, to describe all the ways organizations, customers, employees, and constituents engage and carry out transactions within digital environments. Its not only for the front office but for the entire enterprise. Think, for example, of how health plans are deploying new tools to simplify the preauthorization of claims. Behind the scenes, cognitive algorithms, robotic process automation, and predictive analytics tools are approving more of the simple and rote use cases that used to dominate many employees workdays. Instead, workers can spend more of their time on nuanced, complex cases with an opportunity to more directly affect the health and wellness of their member population. Or how leading fast food and convenience restaurants are adopting mobile apps for remote ordering, not only transforming the customer experience but redesigning retail, prepa- ration, and delivery operations. Human-centered design and user engagement have become center- pieces of business strategyemphasizing how work gets done, how business gets conducted, and how meaningful memories and experiences are made. Analytics Data and its underlying complexities have been an enterprise narrative since the earliest days of technology investment. The promise of analytics has been its close and even more tantalizing spiritual successortaking advantage of that data to gen- erate insights about customers, citizens, markets, operations, and virtually every facet of how an en- terprise runs. Most analytics efforts have struggled to deliver on the simplest version of that potential: the rearview mirror describing what has already happenedor, for the advanced few, presenting real- time views into what is currently happening. In the science of analytics, this is valuable but insufficient. Today companies need the ability to predict (I have a good idea what will happen next) and prescribe (I can recommend a response). But this is no simple undertaking. Though analytics engines, algorithms, and supporting infrastructure have grown more powerful, the amount of data available for analysis has grown exponentially. Organizations should consider information beyond the well-formed data that lives within traditional IT systems. How can a company leverage machine logs and sensor data, still images, video, audio, biometric information, government research, and sentiment from social feeds? And how does it tap into data across its own boundaries, as well as data sources that live outside of its four walls? For many companies, remaining competitive in the marketplace depends on their ability to answer those questions. And to move core data management and data architecture capabilities from flights of fancy to foundational forces. We are already shifting our focus from what has already happened to what will happen in the future. Through a collision with cognitive, analytics may soon tell us how to act on our insightsand better yet, automate those actions. Cloud One could argue that during the last decade, no single technology trend has so dominated the arena of enterprise IT as cloud. During this time, it emerged from modest discussions of, “What is cloud and why does it matter?” to the next phase, which emphasized, “Where and when do we use cloud to lower costs?” to clouds status today: “Why not cloud?” Cloud moved from low-level technology cost arbitrage lever to a means for delivery model optimization to a driver of business transformation. Simply put, cloud is increasingly the foundation upon which innovation is built. As macro forces go, cloud is unparalleled in importance and likely will remain so for some time. And despite its ubiquity, cloud too has yet to
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