In 2020, digital transformation enabled businesses to quickly adapt to a new way of working. But, in the year ahead, we expect technology to play an even bigger role in advancing our IT infrastructures, helping companies to emerge from Covid-19 with greater connectivity, productivity and security. 

So, how will businesses utilise technology to their best advantage this year? We look at the biggest technological trends of 2021. 

Adopting cloud platforms 

Updating legacy IT systems and adopting cloud services will be at the top of many digital transformation agendas in 2021. This is because the flexibility and reliability of a cloud solution has proved beneficial in improving productivity and communication for businesses, especially when employees are working from home.  

A cloud based digital infrastructure allows some or all of an organisation’s applications and data to be hosted in a public, private, or hybrid cloud platform. It allows businesses to digitise processes. Furthermore, it enables employees to access the organisation’s server and internal documents, from any location.  

Utilising remote working tools 

With a third lockdown in place across the UK, employees are once again required to work remotely from home. Last year, as a result of lockdowns, many businesses implemented video conferencing tools such as Microsoft Teams to enable greater communication from any location. Cloud platform, Microsoft 365 also improved productivity, enabling staff to securely share and edit documents remotely. This year, these companies will be looking beyond the lockdown. They will identify how they can utilise these remote working tools, to encourage working from home initiatives for employees post-Covid.  

For those businesses that haven’t implemented these solutions, the third lockdown would have brought into sharper focus the need to consider such tools to ensure staff can work safely and productively from home. This is because they speed up time to resolution and cut down long processes, despite not being in an office.  

Cyber security 

Cyber-attacks will continue to be an alarming concern for businesses in 2021. Cyber criminals will target business systems and adapt their approach to take advantage of change and disruption. In fact, recent reports have highlighted that manufacturing and retail sectors will be most at risk from security breaches. 

Therefore, the adoption of managed detection and response services, phishing prevention, web security protection and multifactor authentication, all with a distributed workforce, will prove vital in reducing business risk. Therefore, we expect to see an increased uptake of cyber security solutions in 2021. 

SD-WAN capabilities 

 SD-WAN will continue being an important consideration for businesses. It is a connectivity solution which supports cloud capabilities as well as the growing demand in service requirements, which may have risen as a result of Covid-19. Increased data usage and cloud-based applications can all overwhelm a WAN, increasing the risk of significant downtime if the solution is not executed properly. 

An SD-WAN (Software Defined Wide Area Network) solution is the next generation of WAN technology. It is an overlay to an existing network that provides complete control and visibility regardless of where the traffic originates. It provides accurate data that enables decision makers to steer the organisation towards greater efficiency. Another benefit of SD-WAN is the ability to prioritise network traffic at the application level. This in turn, reduces overheads and increases productivity. 

If you would like to speak to us about your digital transformation requirements, sign up for a free consultation today.