Top Three Strategic Trends in IT For 2018

The IT industry has seen some enormous changes in the past five years. The increasing adoption of cloud-based services and payment by consumption has seen the industry pivot away from packaged software to complete solutions that can be delivered to any customer with an Internet connection.

But what are the big strategic changes we are likely to see in IT in the year ahead? The industry analyst Gartner has published their own predictions. Here are some of my thoughts on the most important predictions they highlighted in their analysis of the top ten strategic IT trends to watch in 2018.

Blockchain; mostly known at present because of the crypto-currency Bitcoin, there are many other opportunities to use the theory of Blockchain. Many industries require detailed ledgers and records of activity and Blockchain provides a way to detach the ledger from any individual app or platform. The currency applications will also be important if a major global network, such as Facebook or Google, can provide a smoother front-end making it easy to use a new virtual currency. If Bitcoin was easy to use as a currency, rather than just an investment, then would it take off?
Immersion; more and more IT systems will use immersive technologies, such as Virtual and Augmented reality, to blend the real world with information inside the system. This could be used to guide shoppers around a store, help surgeons train to perform a specific type of operation, or improve that way your car GPS system guides you to a destination. Immersion into information will be a major trend across all industries.
Conversation; homes are already going smart with Amazon Alexa and Google Home. These systems are now rolling out into the enterprise. We are already used to voice control on our smart devices. Voice control has been fairly limited so far, but as each year passes there is an exponential improvement in the capability of systems to understand speech and to react and respond.

These are general trends, but all will affect both the home and enterprise environment. Any company involved in delivering IT services today needs to be aware of these wider strategic trends if they want to remain relevant in 2018.

We will continue to see a desire to only pay for services as they are used, but the way that people interact with IT services is also changing. Acknowledging that both methods of payment and channels of interaction are changing will be important in the years ahead – we are now light years away from the days of a client commissioning some bespoke software from an IT supplier and paying for it based on the number of software developers involved.

Take a look at the Gartner list of ten trends and let me know if you think I have focused on the correct top three or if there are other major IT trends that have not been identified here? Please leave a comment here with your thoughts.