Techaisle Blog

Internet and the web are the navigation routes that we have been developing since the 1970s; the always-on, everywhere-connected Interwork platform is the destination that we will be creating in 2018 and for years to come.

As we enter 2018, it seems that online capabilities and activities are entering a new era. There are still advances to be made in the ‘net’ realm: there is constant pressure to expand the speed of the Internet, enabling it to handle the voracious demands of unstructured content like video, and the rise of IoT portends a coming tsunami of data from billions of connected devices. However, the key focus of web-based business investment is now less about the ‘net’ and more about the ‘work’: the ways that an increasingly-connected world supports pursuit of previously-unattainable objectives. The most important IT-related development in 2018 will be this focus on connectedness – connected cloud, connected edge, connected applications, connected security, conected collaboration, connected workspaces and connected insights. (Download your free white paper here)

Techaisle calls it the “Interwork platform” (as described in Techaisle's latest white paper). This refers to Techaisle’s belief that 2018 will mark a transition point at which corporate focus on developing and deploying systems that offer the capacity to connect diverse resources (the Internet platform) will be surpassed by a focus on capitalizing on the benefits of connected information, assets and users and teams – the ‘Interwork platform’ - to deliver on the four pillars of digital transformation: operational efficiency, customer intimacy, employee empowerment and innovation.

In the early 1970s, computer science pioneers Vint Cerf and Robert E. Kahn developed the networking protocol TCP/IP – Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol – which enabled interconnections between networks to form a ‘network of networks’. Fifteen years later, in 1989, Tim Berners-Lee developed the World Wide Web, allowing browsers to follow hypertext links to far-flung resources. The Web was released to the general public in August 1991 – and businesses and individuals around the world have spent more than 25 years developing a vast array of content, process and interactive capabilities that are set within and rely on the network of networks.

Techaisle’s position is that from the perspective of the technology world, 2018 – and quite possibly, several years following 2018 – will be defined by the benefits arising from the interconnection of all types of resources: platforms/environments, information, devices and applications. With the connective fabric now (or rapidly becoming) ubiquitous, businesses of all types and sizes will move beyond a focus on network access, and concentrate instead on using Interwork technologies to drive progress across the four pillars of digital transformation: operational efficiency, customer intimacy, employee empowerment and product innovation.

Techaisle’s recent point-of-view on the Interwork platform highlights seven key areas and trends playing out across seven key technology areas:

1. Connected cloud, which provides the foundation for Interwork, the bedrock on which Interwork platforms are built
2. Connected edge, which completes that foundation and will work with connected cloud to deliver the ‘yin and yang’ of the Interwork platform’s infrastructure
3. Connected applications, that represent the best path forward for corporate workloads and processes – and represent a critical component of the Interwork platform
4. Connected security, is an essential property of the Interwork platform as security strategies no longer resemble a ‘wrapper’ around assets
5. Connected collaboration, as it becomes part of the fabric of business activity, rather than as a means of enabling connections between discrete tasks
6. Connected workspaces, which draw together assets and users, delivering increased benefit within each category while simultaneously extending and strengthening the core of the Interwork platform; and
7. Connected insights, the information gained/accessed through the platform, which enables businesses to address constantly-advancing expectations for speed (of operational decisions) and completeness (of strategic decisions).

Business and IT executives who are able to grasp the benefits associated with these seven key areas – and who are able to profit from the points at which multiple connected business resources combine to build the broader Interwork platforms – will emerge as leaders in and beyond 2018. Their organizations will participate in shaping rapidly-evolving business and consumer expectations for responsiveness and agility. Businesses that capitalize on Interwork capabilities will capture preferred positions within their markets, and within the millennial labor pool that defines a key area of near-term competition.

There are many powerful rationales for investing in each of the seven components of an Interwork platform, and as Techaisle's white paper demonstrates, each component in turn delivers greater value when it is connected with the other links in the Interwork chain.

Download your free white paper here

December has traditionally served as the occasion for the publication of New Year forecasts. It’s understandable that we want to look ahead to the sources of opportunity that lie ahead. But in the business world, December also marks the beginning of the review season. And while detailed forecasts focus on the next twelve months, the planning horizon needs to look a little further, so that tactics provide support for business strategies, rather than simply delivering a series of course adjustments.

This is a two part blog article. The first part, below, reviews the predictions we made for 2015. Second part will focus on outlook for 2016 and for the longer term.

A look back – what was it we said was right around the corner, again?

Here are the issues we highlighted, “Ten predictions for 2015 – and five issues to keep an eye on for 2016 and beyond” and how we think we did in our prognostication.

The Top 10 for 2015

1. Hybrid arrives – not as a strategy but as the result of many discrete decisions

With the benefit of today’s perspective, we might fairly say that in 2015 and for several more years to come, a more apt description of hybrid is journey rather than destination. Digging into the detail, though, we believe our prediction that “an ability to manage hybrid infrastructure will become a key corporate IT requirement in 2015” has been borne out by the focus on tools and strategies (ranging from Docker to Agile) that we saw throughout the year. In Techaisle’ SMB Cloud adoption studies, there was a sense of growing ubiquity in the usage and plans for private, hybrid and public cloud. Use of hybrid cloud continued to increase as both a conscious strategy and as a reaction to use of both public and private resources within a single infrastructure; by the end of 2015, two-thirds of companies with 100-999 employees were using hybrid models.

2. Collaboration becomes a much bigger concept

In 2015, collaboration began to expand beyond file-sharing to become a necessary tool for driving decision-based agility, fostering innovation and extending customer intimacy. Collaboration is a process rather than a discrete outcome. Our key notion that collaboration “extends beyond the corporate staff (and as a result, beyond large enterprises) to include customers” clearly did reflect strategies and investments in 2015. Within the SMB segment collaboration is increasingly becoming a central component to virtually all business activities rather than a means to enable connections between discrete tasks. Other changes in this area will further reshape collaboration, but you’ll need to refer to the “forecast” part of the blog for that discussion.

3. Collabmobilicloud becomes a management reality

The core concept explained that despite vendor tendency towards defining collaboration, mobility and cloud as separate domains, both enterprise and SMB users have started viewing them as integrated components of business solutions. The user belief that collaboration, mobility and cloud should all be attributes of modern applications has become clearer, and even suppliers are starting to recognize the importance of an integrated collabmobilcloud approach.

Techaisle’s SMB & Midmarket Collaboration adoption survey research shows that collaboration is already entrenched within many midmarket businesses. While the creation of a central information repository was the most important business driver for collaboration solutions adoption to the “first wave” of midmarket users, it is not so for the new buyers. Leadership’s desire to move forward with collaboration initiatives was the second most important driver for first wave of adopters, the need to meet leadership expectations is widespread within future adopters as well but this issue has been surpassed by the need to enable faster innovation within the new adopter group.

Key business drivers for collaboration are changing within SMBs and midmarket businesses. Specifically, within midmarket businesses, future collaboration adoption efforts will be driven by demands for decision agility, speed of innovation, customer intimacy and faster time to market.

Early midmarket collaboration solution users tell Techaisle that they were frequently investing in these solutions because a lack of teamwork was impacting productivity. New adopters are saying that they are having difficulty coordinating meetings (as a consequence of increased employee mobility, dispersed team members, ad hoc scheduling), and that they need to address slow decision-making within their organizations. In the Techaisle survey midmarket businesses also rated “need for faster innovation” as the third most prevalent driver for collaboration solutions.

The figure below shows the changes in adoption drivers from early adopters to the new wave of adopters for whom collaboration is one of the top IT priorities for business success.

The first wave of users focused on asynchronous file-sharing cloud services. Looked at as a whole, there are several distinct generations of collaboration solution drivers within midmarket businesses. The first wave, reflected in the early users within the midmarket business segment was reacting to a requirement to create a central repository of information, to leadership mandates and to the need to coordinate geographically-dispersed teams. The next generation of midmarket business collaboration solution adopters will emphasize collaborative responses to specific pain points – slow decision making, difficulty in coordinating meetings, faster innovation – more than their predecessors.

A deeper review of the midmarket data in the Techaisle study provides additional context for the discussion of collaboration solution benefit metrics. Speed of customer/prospect response is very firmly positioned as a key determinant of solution success, and the importance of meeting deliverable timelines and decision accuracy are also underscored. Data also shows that businesses with 100-249 employees view a reduction in the cost of collaboration as a key success metrics.

The type of collaboration solution adoption data shows that the next stage in the collaboration platform/framework is the ability to enable richer online interaction by allowing simultaneous sharing and editing of files from PCs and mobile devices, to enable multiple simultaneous communication modes, mobile video collaboration and to integrate social networks thereby extending collaboration initiatives from file sharing to more interactive solutions.

Mobility is a key driver and a key support requirement for collaboration. There is a sound basis for believing that mobility has extended demand for collaboration solutions and collaboration investment priorities emphasize inclusion of mobile devices. It is expected that mobile video will drive the highest proportion of new technology needs. Data also shows that enabling teamwork and dealing with new mobility/geographic challenges will be a key investment driver and that individual employees will have a greater voice in shaping solution demand. For the IT staff deploying support for multiple simultaneous communications modes (text, chat, voice, and video) will be a key technology requirement.

Techaisle believes that this reflects a couple of broad trends: the initial centricity of file sharing to a more interactive communications in collaboration strategies, a recognition that there are now many different ways to connect midmarket employees beyond email and a move away from collaboration solutions as a stand-alone platform (like email) and towards collaboration solutions as a framework for integrating multiple capabilities.

Staffs within IT suppliers often like to remind each other that “people sell to people.” Generally, this is said to remind IT suppliers that marketing programs alone won’t (generally) make a B2B solution successful, that sales staff are important as well. The other side of the equation is important too, though: who within the SMB should IT suppliers target for collaboration solutions?

In SMB Collaboration Adoption Tends survey, Techaisle asked ITDM and BDM respondents, “who is the primary advocate for your organization’s collaboration efforts?” Looking at collaboration today, executive leadership is the key driving force behind collaboration solution investments. In many ways, this makes sense: collaboration has been positioned as a platform, and as a result, represents a major investment; and collaboration platforms become a central, every-day resource touching all users within an organization, meaning that senior leadership’s influence may be needed to align all stakeholders behind a single course of action.

Current vs. Future SMB Collaboration buyers
When we compare current users vs. future SMB buyers, though, we get a different perspective on this issue. Executive leadership will continue to be the primary driver of collaboration solution initiatives, but new solution initiatives are increasingly being driven from other quarters.