IDC's 2021 top digital trends for Australia

Global research firm IDC has released its top ten digital trends for Australia, examining the impacts of COVID-19 to the IT industry and the trend predictions over the next five years.

The report, IDC FutureScape: IT Industry 2021 Predictions – Australia Implications, provides strategic direction to Australian organisations on investment priorities as they move toward COVID-19 impact recovery.

“The pandemic impacts pushed companies over the digital transformation tipping point. In 2021, Australian organisations will solidify gains made during the height of the pandemic,” IDC ANZ research manager Neha Ralhan said.

“While the level of digital maturity will largely determine agenda, a strategic push to shore up digital resilience is at the forefront across industries. Hybrid working models, innovation at scale, training and addressing skill shortages, reallocating resources, and building up digital elasticity are key areas that Australian organisations will be focusing on to ensure they are ready for the new normal.”

IDC said digital transformation in 2021 will be redefined as organisations and digital maturity adapt to an environment where building resilience to thrive in the next normal becomes a priority.

IDC predicts by 2022 that enterprises focused on digital resilience will adapt to disruption and extend services to respond to new conditions 50 percent faster than ones fixated on restoring existing business and IT resilience levels.

"The leveling up of lagging technology systems and processes has been the silver lining for many organisations in 2020. Forward thinking organisations and those looking to cement their competitive advantage will continue on the path of reconfiguring, and often reimagining, business models to better meet market needs and demands with technology underpinning offerings and operations," Ralhan said.

"It is also important to note that the largest changes made by organisations, including cultural shifts and digital buy-in, are the ones that are more likely to last and deliver the greatest benefits longer term."

Click through the arrows to swipe through IDC's ten trends for Australia.

Cloud-centric IT

By the end of 2021, based on lessons learned, 80 percent of enterprises will put a mechanism in place to shift to cloud-centric infrastructure and applications twice as fast as before the pandemic.

Edge acceleration

Through 2023, reactions to changed workforce and operations practices during the pandemic will be the dominant accelerators for 80 percent of edge-driven investments and business model changes in most industries.

Hybrid by Design

By 2023, 75 percent of G2000 companies will commit to providing technical parity to a workforce that is hybrid by design rather than by circumstance, enabling them to work together separately and in real time.

Remediate technical debt

Through 2022, coping with technical debt accumulated during the pandemic will shadow 70 percent of CIOs, causing financial stress, inertial drag on IT agility, and "forced march" migrations to the cloud.

Digital resiliency

In 2022, enterprises focused on digital resiliency will adapt to disruption and extend services to respond to new conditions 50 percent faster than ones fixated on restoring existing business/IT resiliency levels.

Automation platforms

By 2023, an emerging cloud ecosystem for extending resource control and real-time analytics will be the underlying platform for all IT and business automation initiatives anywhere and everywhere.

Opportunistic AI extension

By 2023, driven by the goal to embed intelligence in products and services, 15 percent of ASX companies will acquire at least one AI software start-Up to ensure ownership of differentiated skills and IP.

ICT ecosystem

By 2024, 75 percent of enterprises will overhaul relationships with suppliers, providers and partners to better execute digital strategies for ubiquitous deployment of resources and for autonomous IT operations.

ICT joins circular economy

By 2025, 85 percent of ASX companies will mandate reusable materials in IT hardware supply chains, carbon neutrality targets for providers' facilities, and lower energy use as prerequisites for doing business.

People still matter

Through 2023, a third of enterprises' hybrid workforce and business automation efforts will be delayed or will fail outright due to underinvestment in building IT/Sec/DevOps teams with the right tools/skills.