Over the last few months, the world has changed significantly. A lot of the changes that both Avanade and our clients have had to implement were already underway the massive shift towards remote working. Meanwhile, increased insecurity and declining results have meant that changes to platforms and ways of working that would otherwise have been carefully considered and implemented over a period of several months or even years, were implemented in a matter of weeks.

Now that the dust has settled a little bit, businesses everywhere are trying to plan ahead. Knowing that the situation is still precarious, and things could change again in a matter of weeks. In this post our four go-to-market leads talk about the trends and their expectations for the coming year.

Data & AI - Ryan

As we are about to start our new fiscal year in September, there are a number of key Data & AI key themes that are resonating with our clients and trends we see developing in the market. Covid-19 is driving business leaders to relook at how they can reduce costs and increase efficiencies to achieve EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) improvements. This can be realized by reducing spend, improving sales (eg. optimizing pricing), increasing growth and optimizing operational, supply chain and employee efficiencies. Additionally, we see demand to improve competitive differentiation by exploring where intelligence and algorithms can be infused in their business processes and customer and employee experiences. There is a trend to seek new business models and companies are using data as an asset and applying data science and AI at scale to drive new types of revenue to expand their business.

We also see companies looking to free data from legacy systems to provide the business with high quality and reliable data in a centrally managed location. Self-service capability is also important so people can have quick and efficient access, without the delay that is often seen as IT bureaucracy.

With these trends we are seeing increased demand for best-in-class automation, robotics, speed of data ingestion, data virtualization, self-service BI, speed for AI model deployment, citizen BI and workplace analytics.

Modern Workplace - Bart-Jan

Due to Covid-19, a lot of customers have reimagined their digital workplace to enable their employees to remain productive and healthy, while working remotely. After massive Microsoft Teams deployments, companies now want to fully leverage the platform to gain operational efficiencies and optimize the new way of working. By using the PowerPlatform to integrate backend processes, workflows and data, Microsoft Teams becomes the central hub for teamwork and enables employees to work much more efficiently.

Not only teams are working remotely, COVID-19 also requires virtualization of social interaction with clients, patients and citizens. New use cases and requirements for tools and widgets are discovered on a daily basis. Interactive virtual workshops using virtual whiteboards, doctors doing virtual consultations and remote shareholder boards are only a tiny sample of the possible scenarios.

Companies are increasingly using analytics to adopt a data driven approach to continuously adapt the workplace to the needs of their employees and clients. Not only to drive productivity but also to focus on maintaining a human connection and monitoring wellbeing. The new way of working means that companies don’t just have to worry about protecting and securing their corporate networks. With so many people working from home the attack surface for security breaches has significantly increased, requiring companies to re-evaluate their security posture and adopt a zero-trust approach.

Cloud Computing for Apps & Infra - Jeroen

In the upcoming year, we see a couple of trends developing with regards to Application and Infrastructure. Business leaders are looking to reduce costs, increase earnings in an unstable market and drive talent transformation. The use of Cloud Services supports this and will be adopted in a higher pace than ever before.

Integration Services

As more applications will be based in the cloud, the need for connecting multiple independent systems will grow rapidly. This will also further develop the need for enriched data to manage data and information across these systems and drive the use of Integration Platform (iPaaS).

Serverless Computing

To ensure that maximum flexibility in the uncertain future that companies are facing, we will see an increased use of serverless computing. Cloud serverless is a technique for implementing functions in the cloud on a as needed basis. Many enterprises will start to rely on serverless computing as it provides the space for working and the flexibility on the core product without the stress of operating or managing the servers.

Kubernetes and Containers

For years, containers have been the standard for application development in the public cloud. Containers provide increased security, flexibility and predictability by isolating applications from the host system and from each other. These have been solid drivers for the growth of the use of containers for a while now, but as the need for flexibility and security increases, we will see even more focus on this approach for packaging applications.

AI in Datacenters

The use of AI in data centers will is critical for success. In 2019, Gartner predicted that data centers that fail to effectively implement AI would no longer be economically viable by 2020. As more enterprises increase their usage of cloud services the use of AI in data centers becomes even more important. AI, in the form of predictive analytics, should be used to ensure optimal performance by distributing workloads effectively across hardware in the data center. This is also one of the tasks where AI can help to alleviate the shortage in specialist skills by increasing the use of automation. Machine learning algorithms can be used for minimizing energy usage for data center cooling while AI can also support more sophisticated solutions to data security without the need for human intervention.

Bizzapps - Terry

COVID-19 is the greatest challenge the world has faced in decades. It has transformed people’s lives at unprecedented scale, impacted every industry and co-opted enterprise’s ambitions for growth and innovation. Businesses must innovate for today’s needs, but also for the long-term, post-pandemic world.

To succeed in a world where digital is everywhere, companies need to reimagine their fundamental technology approach and align with customer and employee values and expectations. Microsoft’s Business Apps platform, Dynamics 365, can drive those innovation needs for businesses. Dynamics 365, including its enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) applications in the cloud, is part of an enterprise push encompassing Office 365 for desktop productivity, Azure cloud services, and the Power Platform.

Dynamics engagements are now no longer just standalone ERP or CRM deployments; their scope is transformational and extends across the Microsoft stack. Dynamics365 is a driver to realize and enable some of the trends that we foresee in the business applications market.

The most important impact that we expect to see in the near future are:

• The shift towards a more digital Customer Journey due to COVID (B2B);
• Intelligent automation in Marketing & Sales;
• Intelligent Contact and Services centers;
• (Further) Personalization of omni channel Customer experiences;
• Industry-template based implementations to speed up ROI and journey to the cloud;
• ERP as the core of digital business;
• Operations automation based on AI and ML;
• Data Intelligence in the heart of every process.