It is expected that 2020 will see a myriad of innovative technologies starting to enter the mainstream. And while many of them have been around for a while, Ian Jansen van Rensburg, Lead Technologist for Sub-Saharan Africa at VMware, says that South African companies will only now start realising the potential benefits they can unlock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Operations and development<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Any\nbusiness, irrespective of size and industry sector, focuses on two things \u2013\nselling more and reducing costs. Critical to both is an operational strategy\nreflective of the digital environment and application development that can\nadapt systems to become more agile in meeting changing customer expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Operationally,\nit comes down to employing the right people and putting them in positions where\nthey can deliver the most business value. These employees are willing to\ncontinuously learn and embrace new technologies to do their work more\nefficiently. However, insofar as these digital workers are essential for a\nrapidly evolving environment, so too must management be willing to embrace this\nshift. Simply maintaining the status quo will no longer be good enough. To be\ncompetitive, a business must take a digital-first approach throughout\noperations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Part\nof this entails collaborating between departments as the means to gain a more\nunified view of the data at their disposal. Having better insights across all\ndivisions will help optimise cost efficiencies. Using mobile devices to access\nback-end data will become even more vital in 2020. As data points increase, so\ntoo must the company\u2019s ability to capture and analyse that data to deliver\nmeaningful insights. This is where automation will play a significant role in\ntaking care of much of the menial administrative-intensive work, leaving employees\navailable to deliver higher cognitive value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Application\ndevelopment will act as the glue tying all these components together. It is a\ncase of ensuring code is not only optimised but can also leverage automation, Artificial\nIntelligence (AI) and Machine Learning to provide applications that can harness\ndata insights faster than before, resulting in more customised products and\nservices for customers. Development must also be cognisant of how other\ntechnologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Edge Computing, Blockchain\nand the hybrid cloud will impact on operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nInternet of Things and Edge Computing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\nis anticipated that there will be around 29 billion connected devices by 2022,\n18 billion of which will be directly related to IoT. Companies are therefore\nfaced with a surge in remote devices generating data further from the \u2018central\u2019\ncloud data centre. These devices must be secured as any compromise could have\nsignificant consequences for the data integrity of the organisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Furthermore,\nthe reliable connectivity of these IoT-enabled devices must also be taken care\nof. Whether this is through 3G, 4G, or even 5G technologies, companies must\ncontinually review and assess how the information is getting back to the\ncentral hub. In many respects this will result in the growth of Edge Computing\nin South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Essentially,\nthe Edge will create better ways to maximise the efficiency of IoT devices. It\nwill deliver data processing capabilities at the source (i.e. the Edge) where\nthese devices operate reducing the latency and cost involved in getting that\ninformation back to the organisation. Identifying problem areas quickly (think\nmining) can often mean the difference between life and death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Inevitably,\nAI will start playing more of a role to introduce machine learning capabilities\nto these edge devices. IoT will start becoming increasingly autonomous thanks\nto the availability of more powerful computing capabilities at the edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nBlockchain<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\nis anticipated that the Blockchain will return to prominence next year,\nespecially in developing markets. It will become less about the technology and\nmore about the potential of cryptocurrencies in volatile countries where\nexchange control, difficult economic conditions, political instability, and\nother contributing factors make traditional payments a challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In\nAfrica, it is especially cross-border payments of vendors and partners where\nthe Blockchain will start coming into its own. The simplicity (and lack of\nmiddle-man) means transactions can be processed in near real-time with security\nbeing inherently stronger thanks to how the Blockchain is designed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally,\nverifying everything from identity to transactions will become increasingly\nimportant in a high cybersecurity risk environment. As malware continues to\nincrease in its sophistication, so too will companies opt for blockchain\ntechnology as a reliable delivery mechanism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hybrid\ncloud<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally,\nthe hybrid cloud will become an essential building block of the digital\norganisation in 2020. While many local companies rushed to move to the public cloud\na few years ago, they are now realising that fundamental aspects around the\ntransition were not put in place. From security to backup and recovery, it was\nmore a case of being first to market than looking at the practical realities of\nthe cloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next\nyear will see a \u2018correction\u2019 in the sense that these companies will take their\nlearnings and move into a hybrid environment. Furthermore, the arrival of\nmultinational data centres will see most new migrations focus on going the\nhybrid route instead of being completely public. Certain workloads will always\nremain on-site while the high-performance computing capabilities of the cloud\nwill deliver the potential of AI, Machine Learning, automation to organisations\nof all sizes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is expected that 2020 will see a myriad of innovative technologies starting to enter the mainstream. And while many of them have been around for a while, Ian Jansen van Rensburg, Lead Technologist for Sub-Saharan Africa at VMware, says that South African companies will only now start realising the potential benefits they can unlock. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":30901,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4950,19,9059,10675,13,262],"tags":[1063,165,871,676,7366,532,8589,155,390,453,94],"class_list":["post-30900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-regional-news","category-south-africa","category-thought-leadership","category-top-stories","category-used","tag-3g","tag-4g","tag-5g","tag-blockchain","tag-edge-computing","tag-hybrid-cloud","tag-ian-jansen-van-rensburg","tag-internet-of-things","tag-iot","tag-south-africa","tag-vmware"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30900"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30911,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30900\/revisions\/30911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}