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While 2014 has remained quite an eventful year in terms of adoption of new technologies, it will also go down in history as a year when some of the most exciting and new-edge technologies have come to rule the heart of enterprises. Lets have a look what the industry has to say -
In today’s age and time, both technology and business landscape are rapidly changing and the endeavour has been to make technology and business inter-related to each other to such an extent that running a company in all its scale and complexity would be impossible without IT. In fact, in the beginning of this year, Gartner while defining the top technology trends for 2014 has coined the term strategic technology, which it defined as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Technology has thus become indispensable, in the absence of which no business can survive.
“Technologies that are changing the nature of enterprise working across the world are mobility solutions, cloud computing and collaboration technologies. The next three to five years will be decisive as universal computing becomes mainstream. Leaders and decision makers across various industry verticals that will implement this shift should focus on answering the crucial questions today that will position them as leaders of tomorrow,” suggests Ambarish Deshpande, Managing Director-India, Blue Coat Systems.
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Organizations are also working towards deploying sophisticated data management solutions to tackle mountains of unstructured data, which are mostly machine generated.
In the printing space, multi-function printers are catching up tremendously. “Increasing demand to achieve higher efficiency and its capability to integrate various solutions has led to its popularity. Colour printing is rapidly growing and is a lucrative market in India. Cloud usage and concepts like BYOD are also catching up,” says V. Balakrishnan Executive General Manager Konica Minolta India.
The industry has witnessed steady rise in demand for new technologies such as social, media, analytics and cloud (SMAC). These technologies, along with some others such as virtualization, business intelligence and 3D printing have the potential for significant impact on enterprises.
SMAC steps in...
SMAC is currently one of the most widely mentioned topics in the IT sector. Currently, SMAC technologies account for less than 10% of the total revenue of IT companies, but according to IDC’s estimate, Indian IT vendors will generate at least $225 billion in SMAC-related revenue in 2020.It is the new basis of competition which would help organizations build new business and operating models.
“The adoption of SMAC is bound to impact highly competitive industries such as banking and finance, telecommunication services and retail. Customer focused interactions, optimizing enterprise risks, and increasing flexibility are the primary results expected from the SMAC adoption," Abhijit Potnis, Director Technology Solutions - India and SAARC, EMC observes.
“Retailers are strategically deploying the SMAC stack across key business processes to combine the best of virtual and physical retail shopping experiences. Now a customer’s mobile device can signal store management while they’re shopping. Advanced analytics arm associates with the right knowledge about that shopper so they can provide more valuable assistance,” views Vijay Mhaskar, Sr. Director and Site Leader at Pune R&D, Avaya, India.
“The adoption of SMAC in the last three years and its success in many countries is making the adoption faster and easier. With the broadband and FTTH (Fibre to the Home) network expanding, India will be in a good position to develop smarter solutions and enable the evolvement of some of the large smart city projects through the much possible use of SMAC, Internet connected Devices and Software managed Data Centers,” remarks Sandeep Agarwal, Senior Vice President, Engineering R&D Services, Happiest Minds Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Many still believe that adoption of SMAC is in its growth phase, which will continue growing for the next 3 to 5 years across all aspects. According to Nitin Mishra, Senior Vice President, Product Management, Netmagic, an NTT Communications Company, even analytics is not yet matured and recognized well amongst the Indian markets. "Enterprises need to recognize the prospect analytics represents and should adapt their IT strategy to capture such opportunities. However, the undeniable power of cloud computing to foster innovations and improve productivity is now accepted by both IT vendors and their customers,” he admits.
At the same time it is true that the use of social media by businesses to reach out to their targeted audience has become a thing of the past now. The newer business models demand Social media to be used as a reservoir of information, which can help track a potential customer’s likes, dislikes, etc. The only way to use this information is when statistical and mathematical analysis is used. “The World of Business Analytics (Business Intelligence) is taking o
n newer dimensions. The convergence of Analytics and Social media is giving rise to business models that take the user’s profile by behavior or by temporary events and carry out predictive consumer buying analysis. This will continue to not only improve the sales but also efficiencies and product logistics optimization. This in a nutshell will allow the possibility of the anywhere anytime business services model,” suggests Bhaskar Bakthavatsalu, Regional Director - India & SAARC, Check Point Software Technologies.
According to an IBM IBV study titled customer activated enterprise, two-thirds of the organizations that outperform their peers, are not just managing customer experiences but also reorienting their organizations, strategies and investments to cultivate contemporary relationships across all manner of customer interactions. “Businesses in the region have been proactively building innovative business models around digital technologies, and they are using newly found digital capabilities to enhance consumer experiences,” said Sandesh Bhat, Vice President, India Software Labs, IBM India/South Asia.
One of its new innovations includes IBM Analytics that allows a bank to track its ATM network to help predict outages due to cash shortages or maintenance issues. Predictive analytics can help suggest cash refill and ATM maintenance strategy.
However, emerging technologies such as Social Media, Mobility and Cloud are seen as disruptive forces that are radically changing enterprise technology today. It is true that as IT infrastructure becomes more complex and with information dispersed across devices, apps, and locations - physical, virtual and cloud, attackers have new avenues and gaps to exploit. “As per the Norton Report 2013, 29 percent individuals in India and 24 percent across the world are already practicing this trend. With the rise in usage of platforms such as cloud for both personal and official information, it is highly likely that we will see this as an easy target for cybercriminals to penetrate these data-rich cloud platforms for profitable motives,” asserts Tarun Kaura, Director – Technology Sales, India, Symantec.
Reiterates Bhaskar, “The information gathered from social media sites to be analyzed is also susceptible to various threats as this information can be easily misused by attackers. Hence the right levels of security along with the best practices frameworks (sometimes claimed as Compliance) need to be part of the security architecture of all business models.” Bhaskar points out the two areas where India need to emphasize are – (a) More Service Providers & Technology Innovations to help Govt. & PSU organizations to embrace Mobile Cloud as the technology and (b) Compliance framework/regulatory requirements.
While many businesses lack holistic IT security practices and technologies to deal with the new set of challenges, it becomes absolutely important for CIOs, CXOs to understand their business and how security can be built into their IT practices to effectively manage the ecosystem.
Unwrapping Internet of Things (IoT)...
Internet may be termed as one of mankind’s finest inventions and ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) could be pitted as the optimal enablement of this invention, owing to its scale and utility. Internet is visibly making every object or machine smarter. While on the consumer front wearable devices are bringing the IoT phenomena to life, different vendors observe how organizations and governments are set to demonstrate this in a completely different avatar.
“IoT will be realized in India in a much bigger way with the roll out of the ‘Smart Cities’ initiative by the Central Government. As from an infrastructure standpoint, smart cities will require smart grids, intelligent transportation, connected healthcare, public safety and security along with wireless communications and hotspots. However, owing to limited security air-cover IoT as a concept is battling security challenges and India is no exception,” says Tarun.
Srinivas Tadigadapa, Director – Enterprise Solution Sales, Intel South Asia points out that five sectors – Transportation, Industrial consumer electronics, Security & Surveillance and energy & utilities - have emerged as front runners in IoT. Government focus on digital infrastructure with emphasis on smart cities, smart grids and broadband connectivity to villages will further enable a very strong eco system for IoT in India. "Government of India’s recent budgetary allocation of Rs. 7200 Crores for smart cities will enable IoT technologies help provide sustainable living in our fast growing cities across India. The thrust on digital India will enable India towards leading the world in implementation of IoT,” says Tadigadapa.
Fortinet has conducted a survey sometime back in India that probes home owners about key issues pertaining to IoT. The survey titled, “Internet of Things: Connected Home,” gives a perspective about the IoT, what security and privacy issues are in play and what home owners are willing to do to enable it. “The survey point out that a connected home is likely to happen in the next five years. Homeowners are more concerned about data breaches – a majority of all respondents voiced their concern that a connected appliance could result in a data breach or exposure of sensitive, personal information,” says Jitendra Ghughal, National Channel Manager, India & SAARC, Fortinet while referring to some data from the finding.
With the potential outcomes and threats of connected smarter systems, it is obvious that there are few things yet to be understood and shaped when we look at Internet of Things. "2014 would continue exploring greater possibilities and the areas of applications for IoT. IoT, in its core, is about getting most of things by tying them together through a network i.e. internet. In times to come, there would be choice of network and secured gateways which would allow the connected devices or things to be operated out from Internet in more secured way," says Amit Dubey, Principal (Development Services) at Advaiya.
Software-defined Networking gaining momentum…
Software defined networking (SDN), another technology that used to be a relatively new term a year back is slowly attracting the attention of customers who are looking for scalable data centers and mobility though its adoption rate is still not the highest. In terms of market size in India, Gartner states that server, storage and networking market amounts to approximately INR 15,300 crores, out of which at least 5-10% must be SDN centric decisions.
Sajan Paul, Director Systems Engineering, India & SAARC, Juniper Networks observes that Indian business today is now accepting SDN as a serious investment decision. "We have done a number of sessions for the CIOs and teams. The feedback we received showed that it is a great technology but people preferred to wait and watch. This approach has changed over time and we are seeing some real deployments happening now.”
"Software-defined Networking (SDN) is enabling opportunities that develop new applications which shape how the network functions are secured for end user or mission critical business applications. Along this are the opportunities for network integrators and system integrators to put together complex networks that are becoming platforms for next-gen enterprise applications," replies Prakash Krishnamoorthy, country manager, HP Networking, HP India.
VMware believes in the software-defined data center, where infrastructure is virtualized, delivered as a service and controlled by software. Opine BS Nagarajan, Director – Systems Engineering, VMware India & SAARC, “We believe that the
power of software, decoupled from hardware, is the way forward. Whether you are building out a new data center or updating an existing data center, you are making an investment in your business.”
Says Manish Gupta, Director – Enterprise Group, Dell Enterprise Solution Group, “Today the server is evolving considerably with the rise of software defined infrastructure and the rules of IT are being rewritten. Dell’s future-ready IT model includes technology solutions that brings server, storage and networking closer together that are more tightly integrated, modular to scale to meet business demands, and software-defined to automate and simplify IT operations and service delivery.”
The all-pervasive Cloud...
The good news is that globally, the use of cloud computing is growing and by 2016 this growth will increase to become the bulk of new IT spend. 2016 will be a defining year for cloud as private cloud will begin to give way to hybrid cloud, and nearly half of large enterprises will have hybrid cloud deployments by the end of 2017. Companies across industry verticals are considering moving to the hybrid cloud and there is definitely immense scope for the market to grow in India as well.
A few of the recent reports suggest that cloud has a bright future in India, and it has moved to the adoption stage. “A Gartner report suggests that 2014 will see India registering a growth of 30% in the cloud segment, touching a total value of around $550 million. To add to this, 20-25% of large outsourcing deals in India already involve the cloud,” observes Yogesh Sawant, Director, Partner Sales and Field Alliances Organization, India, Hitachi Data Systems.
“While many organizations have taken a step toward the public cloud, a public cloud scenario is still a rarity among Indian enterprises due to cost variability and agility, vendor lock-in, security and audit issues remain unaddressed. But, India remains poised to take advantage of the remarkable efficiency and operational advances made possible by cloud computing,” compares Ambarish.
Enterprises are going all out to replace traditional data center infrastructure technologies and management processes to adopt cloud computing. Companies in particular will shift massively from "purchasing" to "pay per use" model in Data Center architecture and this will mean that datacenters will rapidly shift to co-hosting.
Agrees Amod Ranande, General Manager - Data Center Business Development, Schneider Electric, "80% of datacenters will be outsourced in another 10 years. The main change will stem from the probable generalization of Cloud computing. This is not simply a technological upheaval; it is first and foremost a change in business model for players in the IT landscape."
Among the Cloud types, SaaS &IaaS primarily generate the maximum amount of revenue, PaaS contributing a comparatively smaller percentage to the revenue. The Government of India itself is taking more initiatives of adopting cloud. Enterprises are finding the utility of tapping into the trend, replacing expensive infrastructure and assets with discrete service purchases, especially in software solutions and IT infrastructure.
But regardless of which Cloud computing model is deployed, companies are looking at adapting to a very different business model where Service on demand, Service Level Agreements (SLA), speed,
