Jeff Orr's Analyst Perspectives

Ventana Research recently announced its 2024 Market Agenda for Digital Technology. This agenda is designed to provide expertise to enterprises across various industries, helping them prioritize technology investments that enhance workforce effectiveness, customer engagement and enterprise agility. Digital Technology is especially important for CIO and Chief Digital Officers looking to rationalize and modernize their IT portfolio. Our expertise will see a significant expansion on this topic in 2024. Digital technology has proven to be a business necessity, as demonstrated during the pandemic. It enables enterprises to operate across various channels and with the speed and flexibility that today’s customers demand. In 2020, however, many enterprises found themselves unprepared for the sudden shift to remote and hybrid digital operations. This was due to a variety of factors, including a lack of secure and accessible infrastructure, digital skills and data security measures. The key lesson from this experience is the need for continuous refinement of digital transformation initiatives. Looking ahead, it is crucial to develop an effective digital strategy that enables enterprises to compete for and retain customers in an increasingly digital world. This includes staying abreast of emerging trends such as intelligent automation, AIOps and observability. Our 2024 Market Agenda focuses on critical areas of digital technology using insights and best practices to help enterprises ensure optimal outcomes. We continue to track cloud computing as a focus since the complexities in managing applications and systems across hybrid and multi-cloud environments have introduced new challenges. In addition, the convergence of collaborative and conversational technologies supports a new generation of digital technology for enterprises. We assert that by 2026, more than one-half of enterprises will have invested in newly formed digital platforms to unify collaborative and conversational technology and simplify the work experience. Digital technology helps enterprises gain intelligence and launch automation that ensures ongoing levels of effectiveness for the overall business and within specific processes. Our Digital Technology expertise includes nine focus areas: Business Continuity, Cloud Computing, DevOps and Platforms, Digital Security, Intelligent Automation, Internet of Things and Edge Computing, IT Service Management, ITOps and Observability. Business Continuity Business continuity and resilience are crucial in the use of software technology, such as cloud platforms and digital security, to define a strategy to successfully weather any market disruption. Enterprises must control strategic outcomes, such as minimizing downtime and maintaining data integrity, by ensuring continuous reliability with software technology. This makes certain that ongoing operations occur across every line of business, not just the IT operation. However, this has created challenges. We assert that by 2026, one-quarter of enterprise CIOs will realize that overinvestment and complexity in the business continuity plan hinders rather than enhances operational resilience. Cloud Computing Enterprises continue to migrate toward computing technology operating outside of the traditional data center or internally managed servers. Our focus on cloud computing covers aspects such as data security, cost management and growth of hybrid and multi-cloud environments. We assert that by 2026, nearly one-half of enterprises will have started implementation of a secure access service edge (SASE) strategy due to increased adoption of hybrid and multi-cloud environments. SASE combines network security and wide area networking capabilities in a single cloud-based service. Unlike decades past, today’s challenge is managing the operation of applications and systems across noncorporate-owned environments. For instance, an enterprise might use a combination of on-premises, private cloud and public cloud services. This may require enhanced governance of service-level agreements necessary for reliability and security. With potentially dozens of cloud service providers, an enterprise may find it necessary to integrate and adapt applications to broader, enterprise-level requirements to achieve workflow and efficiency. This could involve using middleware to allow different software applications to communicate with each other. In 2024, our Cloud Computing Buyers Guide research will examine how the portfolio of digital technologies operate across hybrid, public and private cloud service providers, with the aim of helping enterprises make informed decisions about cloud strategies. DevOps and Platforms The market for DevOps is dynamic and evolving. As we move into 2024, the focus of our firm’s agenda will be on the intersection of DevOps and software platforms. The shift in the enterprise IT landscape is palpable. More enterprises are realizing the immense value of integrating operations and development teams as a critical component of a successful enterprise IT strategy. However, the journey to successful DevOps implementation is fraught with challenges, and not all enterprises are equipped to navigate this transition smoothly. By 2027, 1 in 6 enterprises will fail to implement secure application development forcing a strategy change to integrate security into DevOps pipelines or adopt infrastructure as code. This market assertion underscores the importance of security in the DevOps pipeline, a factor that cannot be overlooked. Considering this, we will be producing a Buyers Guide for both application development and DevOps software platforms. Our aim is to provide research and perspective to help enterprise IT leaders navigate these challenges and capitalize on the opportunities presented by DevOps and platforms such as application development and maintenance, low-code/no-code application tools and container orchestration. Digital Security An effective digital security strategy unifies the bifurcated approach to cyber and information security that exists in enterprises. For example, integrating cybersecurity measures with data privacy policies can help achieve this unification. These security processes, such as encryption and multi-factor authentication, need to be embedded and governed across all digital technologies. Our market agenda focuses on the importance of comprehensive digital security, which is essential to protect the people, processes and assets—including intellectual property—of an enterprise, from threats like data breaches and cyberattacks. Our examination of digital security will explore aspects such as threat detection and incident response. Dedicated software technologies have evolved to ensure the proper governance and risk mitigation necessary to support distributed enterprises with disparate supporting systems operating across hybrid-computing environments. The effective use of best practices, such as regular security audits and timely patch management, can guide the integration and interconnection of these digital security operations, while mitigating risks through use of technological advancements. Our market research on digital security will examine lessons learned from 2023 and earlier that still plague digital technology across the enterprise. We will create a Buyers Guide to assess software applications for protection of data, email and endpoints. We will also create a Buyers Guide to evaluate new methods for human-to-machine and machine-to-machine verification for identity management. We assert that by 2026, over two-thirds of enterprises will have adopted digital identity platforms that unify digital security to protect enterprises’ intellectual assets. Intelligent Automation For many enterprises, the disparate operation of software applications that support processes must be augmented to enable automation—and hopefully intelligence—for increased efficiency in digital business. Our focus on intelligent automation will cover aspects such as robotic process automation (RPA), AI and ML. The technology that orchestrates the workflow of messages and transactions supporting activities and tasks, such as business process management (BPM) and workflow automation tools, is critical, but also needs to balance the workload of resources across the enterprise. We assert that by the end of 2026, more than 3 in 5 enterprises will have deployed automated virtual agents for efficient customer and worker engagement and operational effectiveness. Advancements in RPA, such as cognitive automation and intelligent document processing, have evolved to facilitate next-level operational effectiveness in business and IT processes. Our goal is to help enterprises prioritize the technology and software providers supporting people and systems that operate across cloud-computing environments. Our market research in 2024 will generate Buyers Guides for automation platforms, conversational automation and process mining, examining how automation and intelligence are best instrumented to meet both front- and back-office requirements for workflow and workloads across the enterprise, such as using AI to automate data entry tasks or using ML to predict workload patterns. IoT and Edge Computing Innovative enterprises are adopting intelligent automation strategies, capitalizing on the broader digital business opportunities arising from data in motion. The internet of things (IoT) encompasses a range of devices and sensors that transmit data through events and messages, unlocking new computing and monetization opportunities. Through 2025, the zettabytes of data generated by IoT devices will motivate software providers to offer data management tools incorporating ML and GenAI capabilities that help enterprises extract meaningful insights. Event and messaging stream technologies are enabling continuous operation, supporting a broader agenda from sustainability to business continuity objectives and business processes. Real-time data from machines and sensors, delivered by IoT devices, enables the monitoring and adjustment of machine and workforce operations, providing intelligent responses to situations that require action. IT Service Management The market for IT Service Management software is rapidly evolving, blending seamlessly with the strengths of digital enterprise IT strategy. The efficiency gains from intelligent automation and AI software technology, such as GenAI and NLP, are revolutionizing traditional ITSM practices like ticket management and workflows, enhancing employee engagement and experience. Digital workflows are not just a trend, but a transformational force reshaping enterprises. We assert that through 2025, the creation and maintenance of digital workflows will remain the leading transformative activity for enterprises to create new business processes, culture and customer experiences. These workflows are integral to the ITSM pipeline. Our 2024 research will include a Buyers Guide of ITSM software and providers. ITOps The ITOps software market is currently experiencing a transformative shift driven by the integration of advanced technologies such as AIOps, NLP and ML. These technologies are not only streamlining workflows but also enhancing application performance management. As we move into 2024, our research focus will be on these emerging trends, providing a comprehensive perspective on the evolving landscape. By 2025, the desire for a holistic view of IT operations will lead 60% of CIOs to include AIOps on technology priorities to help manage hybrid infrastructure and optimized workloads. This assertion underscores the strategic importance of AIOps in the future of ITOps software platforms. Our 2024 research will include a Buyers Guide for ITOps software platforms and providers. Observability The IT software landscape is being transformed by the rise of data observability, logs, traces, metrics and open-source tools like OpenTelemetry. The spotlight is now on monitoring both application and network performance, with the integration of AIOps and observability pipelines in an event-driven architecture becoming increasingly prevalent. By 2026, the limitations of data source discovery and the growth of IT blind spots will result in nearly one-half of enterprises investing in new observability platforms and tools to maintain visibility across all systems. This market assertion demonstrates the urgency and necessity of investing in advanced observability platforms. The growth of IT blind spots is a pressing issue that can be mitigated with the right tools and platforms. In 2024, our research will concentrate on providing a Buyers Guide for observability data software platforms and providers. We will also delve into the role of AI model observability, a relatively new aspect that holds significant potential for enhancing IT operations. Improving the digital experience across the workforce as well as for customers, partners and the overall supply chain has become a business imperative for 2024. Enhancements to the digital workflows of processes and activities can improve enterprise readiness to support the objectives and intentions of everyone in the workforce. Optimizing the path forward in 2024 will require a heightened sense of the purpose and operation of digital technology as well as an understanding of expected outcomes for enabling business continuity and performance. Establishing a priority focus for digital technology investments will ensure appropriate rewards for the time and resources dedicated to this necessity. Subscribe to our Ventana Research community at no cost to stay current on our 2024 research efforts. Explore our Digital Technology expertise and focus areas for more on the detailed research agenda and continuously updated 90-day calendar as well as expanded research facts and best practices. Regards, Jeff Orr

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