Top Predictions for Global Digital Transformation in 2019

The race to accelerate, reinvent, and innovate the future of enterprises has begun. In order to lead in the competitive data-driven economy, enterprises have to be front runners in adopting agility, adaptability and be cognizant to market and customers trends, business models and technologies.

International Data Corporation (IDC) has come up with predictions that will lead to a global digital transformation in 2019 and beyond. The premier global Intelligence firm believes that the digitalized economy will intensify competition especially in times where the digital disruptors are heavily penetrating into the world market.

Calling for the rapid digitization of competitors and industries the need of the hour, IDC advises enterprises that if they do not digitally transform their operations aggressively, they will lose out in the competition. IDC believes that for organizations who do not act urgently will lose just over two-thirds of their total addressable markets by 2022.

Here is the research and advisory firms' key drivers and top 10 predictions for the global IT industry over the next five years.

Prediction 1: Economy will become digitized

IDC believes that by 2022, 60%+ of the global GDP will be digitized. The growth will be seen in every industry which will be driven digitally with digital operations, relationships and enhanced offerings. This belief can be ascertained by the fact that almost $7 trillion in IT-related spending is projected in 2019–2022 with an aim to transform the markets and reimagining the future through digitally enabled products and services and new business models.

Prediction 2: Digital native IT environments to rule

IDC predicts that by 2023, 75% of all IT spending will be on 3rd Platform technologies. Over 90% of the enterprises will build on digital native IT environments to adapt to the digital economy and that by 2022, the CDO title will be in decline with more than 60% of CEOs having spent part of their careers leading digital initiatives.

IDC sees a spate of digital transformation with 3rd Platform technologies dominating enterprise IT spending in five years. Legacy systems will be selectively used to support distributed cloud, AI at the edge, AI-powered voice UIs and hyper-agile app technologies and architectures will become an integral component explaining how enterprises will deploy 3^rd party support to digital transformation.

Prediction 3: The Edge Computing Expansion

IDC estimates that by 2022, over 40% of organizations' cloud deployments will incorporate edge computing and 25% of endpoint devices and systems will execute AI algorithms. This paramount importance of customer advocacy will lead to 60% of the B2C brands embracing net promoter score as their leading success metric by the end of 2020.

Prediction 4: Microservices Architectures will be the New Normal

IDC predicts that by 2022, 90% of all new apps will feature microservices architectures that can improve the ability to debug, design, update, and leverage third-party code. In addition, the global Intelligence firm opinions that 35% of all production apps will be cloud-native. This will lead to a proliferation of a new, internally-generated app that can scale faster with business models that existing methodologies and development tools allow.

Prediction 5: Emergence of the New Developer Class 

IDC forecasts that by 2024, a new class of professional developers working on code without custom scripting will increase the developer population by 30%. The emergence of the new developer class will accelerate digital transformation which will enable flatter organizations and one-third fewer knowledge workers.

Prediction 6: Digital Innovation Explosion

IDC expects that in the coming years, organizations must prepare for digital innovation. The forecasts estimate that from 2018 to 2023; 500 million new logical apps will be created with new tools/platforms, more developers, agile methods, and lots of code reuse. A mammoth number equal to the number built over the past 40 years.

Prediction 7: Growth Enabled by Specialisation

According to forecasts, IDC estimates that by 2022, 25% of public cloud computing will be based on non-x86 processors which will include quantum computing. The estimates believe that by 2022 organizations will spend more on vertical SaaS apps than on horizontal apps.

Prediction 8: Artificial intelligence (AI) will be the new user interface (UI)

IDC sees an exponential increase in natural language understanding (NLU) technologies to dominate the UI as illustrated by the popularity of Microsoft Cortana, Amazon's Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri as the future of AI-driven interfaces.

Prediction 9: Blockchain Services will witness new Heights

IDC numbers project that by 2021, about 30% of manufacturers and retailers across the world will be building digital trust with their customers taking the support of Blockchain Technologies. This move will enable supply chains to allow consumers to access product histories.

Prediction 10: Consolidation versus Multi-cloud hosting.

The forecasts estimate that by 2022, the top 4 cloud "mega platforms" will host 80% of IaaS/PaaS deployments. By 2024, this figure will increase to 90% of Global 1000 organizations all set to mitigate lock-in through multi-cloud/hybrid technologies and tools.