Rapid technological developments are changing industry perceptions and India’s technology ecosystem & its ability to generate long-term value for stakeholders. It will be correct to say at this point that India as a growing market and bets are generally made for the long run.
The pandemic accelerated tech adoption has resulted in many start-ups growing much faster than before. Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Blockchain, and internet of things were considered too expensive, too complex, too much for small businesses to consider. But COVID-19, continued innovation, and changing business models now have all but eliminated any barriers to entry, leaving SMBs and the solution providers serving them with plenty of opportunities.
With the rise in the number of cyberattacks around the world, businesses need to detect the rise of malicious attacks in their workforce, identify security misconfigurations in their cloud services, constantly seek opportunities to enhance cyber resilience, perform continuous pen testing, and adopt a zero-trust approach.
As devices get smarter and computers run more complicated calculations and send more data, software defined edge platforms are expected to become more capable and universal. Today many workloads and even public cloud edge are seen shifting to software-defined architectures. For edge deployment in multi-cloud environments, the combination of modern edge platforms and software-defined edge systems therefore will be considered the best method. As enterprises begin to deploy their data, IoT and application pipelines to the edge, software defined edge workloads will help organizations avoid unmanageable edge infrastructure sprawl that could result if each edge workload created its own dedicated platform.
There will also be a rise seen in hybrid cloud adoption that will further enable a hybrid workplace. The hybrid work model commands an infrastructure that can seamlessly manage data, applications, and workloads between connected computing environments; hybrid cloud will therefore provide businesses with this opportunity. A hybrid cloud approach enables businesses to combine several strengths and reduce complexities such as legacy system modernization, limited IT management support, capital expenditure implications, etc., to further deliver an optimum experience.
In the field of telecommunication, 5G is poised to reduce latency by introducing smarter speeds. With positive 5G trials and the urgency to launch it in the region, we are set to witness a new era of connectivity. Coupled with IoT and edge computing, businesses will see new levels.
We bring to you the trends and outlook of the technology landscape for 2022 from the global technology leaders and their insights on what the market looks like this year. Let’s read on further to understand their perspective -
In its statement released by Huawei for the technology outlook for the year ahead, it has forecasted that there will be strong technology movement in several sectors involving application of robotics technology; artificial intelligence (AI) tools, use of cloud technology. “The immediate effect of pandemic was the acceleration of home and office digitization, but its long-term nature changed customer needs and daily lifestyles thus affecting demands on technology. The proliferation of hybrid work models increased Internet reliability, and looking ahead, we believe we are on the cusp of technology transformation. AI tech with its enhanced personalization, device control and automation capabilities, we will see AI everywhere in 2022. There will be immense growth in cloud computing pushed by IoT. 2022 will also be the year when energy saving technologies will see an uptake with the production and usage of solar and wind technology. Storage (battery) technologies will also play a larger role, since there will be an increased need to store renewable energy,” it further said.
KEY TECH TRENDS TO LOOK FOR IN 2022
Metaverse:
One of the hottest buzzwords of the moment, Metaverse is nothing but a virtual world created by combining different technologies, including virtual and augmented reality. It is an ‘extended reality’ that is believed to be the next evolution of the Internet. While it doesn’t technically exist yet, companies like Facebook hope the metaverse will become a place where we go to meet, work, play, study and shop.
Multi-Cloud:
Gartner predicts that by 2025, greater than 90% of enterprises will pursue a multi-cloud infrastructure and platform strategy. While almost all enterprises are now embracing some form of multi-cloud, it remains a challenge for teams to intimately know AWS, GCP, and Azure.
Blockchain/digital-ledger technology:
The financial-services industry is already a big adopter, we expect 2022 to be the year when blockchain is adopted for other use cases (such as supply chain) — fundamentally changing the nature of doing business across organizational boundaries.
Cryptocurrency:
The debate on cryptocurrency still continues to rage, as countries decide whether to embrace, regulate or ban cryptocurrencies. Many countries have chosen to bring them into the financial fold, for eg – El Salvador. The sector has recently come under fire from climate experts as Bitcoin mining is currently estimated to account for about 0.5% of global electricity consumption.
Data protection & Digital Transformation:
In 2022, security will be one of the most emphasized aspects of technology and business transactions. Security-by-default will become a need as organizations recognize that their applications and automation must be secure to gain consumers’ trust. You can expect to see a high value placed on transparency and safety in the coming year.
5G implementation is playing a vital role in edge data center investments in India
Srinivas Rao
Senior Director, System Engineering - Dell Technologies, India
“The ‘do anything from anywhere’ economy requires a highly complex IT system, capable of managing the exponential data that it generates. Emerging technologies like Edge computing, 5G, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are accelerating both the discovery of insights from data and the digitization of key business processes. In the modern era of Edge Computing, compute platforms at the Edge will provide lightweight designs that can be successfully deployed despite spatial, environmental, power, and connectivity constraints. These designs can be secured and can support applications that require insights in real time, enabling businesses to provide enhanced experiences to their customers. 5G implementation is also playing a vital role in edge data center investments in India, and in 2022 we expect to see consumption-based models, edge computing, and a multi-cloud environments flourish. As IT infrastructure becomes more distributed, Dell’s focus will remain on simplifying and modernizing, while reducing infrastructure costs. As digital transformation continues across industries, modern data management is set to change. We anticipate that the entire data management ecosystem will develop and utilize edge IT capacity at the ingress and egress of their data pipelines, and remotely process and digest data on the edge.”
Data protection must be the foundation of any data management strategy
Puneet Gupta
Managing Director & VP India/SAARC, NetApp India Marketing and Services
“Businesses will need to reorganize their corporate structure and capacities based on emerging disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML). With data growing exponentially, an enterprise’s ability to derive value from it to provide unique personalized customer experiences will determine its success.
On the cybersecurity front, cybercrimes are getting more sophisticated with each passing day. It is even more concerning in the current context of the hybrid work environment. Sensitive data with respect to employees and customers, is taken beyond traditional organizational boundaries. Along every step of the data management journey – from prevention to detection and response – there are some key aspects to ensure the protection of business-critical data. These include knowing where your data is, how to extract it, and how it interoperates across and beyond organizational boundaries. Data protection must be the foundation of any data management strategy and therefore it is important to opt for solutions that address the full range of cybersecurity threats.”
Technology adoption will evolve with hyper automation, AI, metaverse and de-centralization
Parag Arora
Vice President & Managing Director, Southeast Asia, Korea and India subcontinent, Citrix
“Organizations this year will continue their journey into a technology-driven future. 2022 will see technology adoption take a more evolved form with hyper automation, artificial intelligence (AI), metaverse and de-centralization, etc. coming in the picture. Hyper automation will be significant as it will give a new outlook to business processes. Rise in remote work has also raised challenges with respect to management of virtual desktop infrastructures (VDIs). To ensure optimum security, organizations can simply use secure remote desktops employing desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) capabilities and sophisticated DaaS security in the cloud. There has also been a growing interest in decentralized apps (dApps), which are digital applications or programs that exist and run on a distributed ledger and are outside the control of a single authority. Metaverse - a mix of virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality will allow us to collaborate and communicate through worlds along with letting us immerse ourselves in a series of digitally twinned, photo-realistic worlds is all set to change the way we perceive the world.”
Convergence of digital technologies such as IoT, AI, ML, 5G will redefine work
Rajesh Chandiramani
Business Head, Communications-Media-Entertainment, EMEA and APJI - Tech Mahindra
“COVID-19 has heralded a new era of technology adoption. Enterprises are increasingly leveraging new-age technologies and automation to streamline business operations, resulting in greater speed, less waste, and enhanced focus on making the lifestyles of consumers more seamless. Now, as the digitization and virtualization of business and society continue to accelerate, convergence of digital technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), 5G, etc. will redefine work from home practices, enhance customer experience, and boost innovation ecosystem.
With steep rise in Omicron cases, and imposition of fresh restrictions, people function will take the lead, resulting in the roll-out of new policies and guidelines that will prioritize physical, mental, and financial health of professionals. We expect the trend of hybrid working to continue and in line with this, cybersecurity will be an indispensable part of our everyday lexicon.”
2022 will see cybersecurity becoming a mainstay
Rajiv Bhalla
Managing Director – Barco
“Following the pandemic, technology adoption accelerated at a never before seen pace and we expect this momentum to carry us through 2022 and the years ahead. This is likely to be a highly disruptive year, with trends such as AI, machine learning, cybersecurity, cloud technology and automation gathering strength and transforming the tech space. Indeed, cybersecurity is one trend which is essential in this digital era – it is, now more than ever, imperative that we safeguard organizational and personal data. 2022 will see cybersecurity becoming a mainstay.
In order to avoid compromising on safety standards, organizations must choose only the best and most secure systems and tools while enabling collaboration in the hybrid ecosystem, especially since the hybrid work culture is here to stay. With newer variants leading to curfews and potential lockdowns, and employees now more comfortable with the hybrid workstyle, we believe that hybrid is the present and the future of work and organizations must gear up for the transformation.”
Companies aim to achieve new levels of investment, digital adoption, and deployment in 2022
Anshuman Rai
Area Vice President, India and South Asia - Commvault
“Today, collectively we are all trying to navigate the wear and tear of the pandemic. Digital transformation continues to expedite the need to engage a real-time workforce, connect teams, and drive collaboration. This is driving demand for key technologies to better monitor, control, and protect against failures, ensure high productivity, protect, and upskill personnel, and do all this while leveraging enhanced cybersecurity architectures.
As we embark on a new year, companies aim to achieve new levels of investment, digital adoption, and deployment. Moving into 2022, C-suite executives will mandate periodic "fire drills" to strengthen and augment their cyber defence mechanisms. Fire drills discover weak points in the defences that might be exploited by cyber criminals.
Enterprises have already rounded second base in their cloud journeys by outsourcing management of the infrastructure to SaaS and other public cloud service providers. In 2022, this adoption will continue to grow where enterprises are expected to partner with cloud Managed Service Providers (MSPs). It will help them manage the set-up, customization and optimize costs.”
Simple data platforms are the first step for overcoming resurgence of ransomware
Ramanujam Komanduri
Country Manager, India - Pure Storage
“Digital Transformation will not only accelerate in 2022 but will also focus on finding those competitive differentiators that will allow companies to stand out from their competitors. One way they will do this is through greater investment in technologies such as containers, Kubernetes. These technologies will enable them to develop bespoke cloud-native modern apps and containerised microservices.
Over the past two years, one of the fastest growing forms of cyberattacks is ransomware. Ransomware attackers increasingly are targeting backup solutions and systems, the last line of defense for an organization. The ability to avoid business continuity disruptions and a negative financial impact is most essential to any business, thus the ability to restore data quickly in the event of a cyberattack is a critical component of an organization's IT strategy today. The unpredictability with COVID-19 and the shift to remote work has made navigating these concerns more complex, but advancements in back-ups and high-speed restore, as well as predictive analytics are helping organizations avoid devastating data breaches.”
The pandemic set in motion an accelerated adoption of new age technologies
Praveen Arora
Vice President - Internet of Things (Business Unit), Tata Communications
“It is true that the pandemic threw business operations out of gear, but it also set in motion the accelerated adoption of new age technologies, like IoT. Enterprises had to be agile and resilient to protect their people and maintain operations. There was also an evolving need for ensuring productivity with reference to demand in material or machinery and hence it was important to look at the most efficient way to utilise resources. Hence, it is vital for IoT players to evolve and provide a full suite of solutions which help deliver superior customer value focusing on scalability without compromising on security.
Frost & Sullivan noted the Indian IoT market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.8 per cent moving from CY 2020 to CY 2023. To support the market demand and growth, IoT solutions need to provide a next-generation approach to include a larger ecosystem participation as that is the need of the hour in this new world of work.”
With rise of Cryptocurrencies, Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies will see increased adoption
Huzefa Motiwala
Director - Systems engineering for India and SAARC, Palo Alto Networks
“The last two years have accelerated the pace of innovation and digital transformation. In 2022, we will see this pace being sustained as organizations continue to navigate the effects of the global pandemic. In terms of technologies becoming mainstream this year, IoT is undoubtedly one of the most important application developments in recent years. This year will see increased adoption of IoT and will continue to penetrate our daily lives.
With the meteoric rise of Cryptocurrencies, Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies will see increased adoption by businesses. They will help organizations reimagine management of tangible and digital assets. We will enter the era of Web 3.0; the spatial web will be brought to the forefront. We will be interacting with smart devices that have intuitive and sensory triggers such as geolocation, computer vision, and biometric or commands. Digital information will exist in physical spaces, meaning that security breaches of such devices could lead to far-reaching consequences in the real world.”
Emerging areas including 5G, AI, and smart technologies will rule the new year
Anku Jain
Managing Director, MediaTek India
“We believe that the pandemic-fuelled technological innovation witnessed in 2021 will gather further pace in 2022. Semiconductors will alter the entire technological landscape and we at MediaTek are primed to be at the forefront of this transformation. With semiconductors powering the ongoing technological revolution, MediaTek foresees a sea-change in the way we looked at chips in the previous years. Many disruptive technologies are gaining momentum and we see emerging areas include 5G, AI, and smart technologies ruling the new year.
Going ahead, we expect tremendous growth and expansion in the smart devices ecosystem, powered by 5G, AI, IoT, and other new-age innovations.”
Coforge continues to sustain business growth providing great value to clients
Vic Gupta
EVP, Digital - Coforge (Formerly known as NIIT Technologies)
“As we commence 2022, we face a similar challenge to what we faced a year back. However, the learnings from the past, our preparedness and the widespread availability of vaccines offers some hope that 2022 might also be the year in which we start seeing the gradual ebbing away of the pandemic. Despite these challenging conditions, Coforge continues to sustain business growth providing great value to clients, interesting deployments of partner products and a great place to work. In 2022, we foresee new heights in our engagement with our three key stakeholders – our Clients, our Partners, and our Employees.
From providing seamless & liquid experiences for wealth managers at a leading wealth management company in the USA to providing connected & integrated payment processing for large digital bank and financial services company in Europe and to Web 3 apps powering next generation provenance - blockchain based counterfeit drug detection; Coforge is working on some emerging technologies projects worldwide.”
Indian CIOs are expected to focus their cloud investment on cloud system infrastructure services
Ripu Bajwa
Director and GM, Data Protection Solutions, Dell Technologies, India
“In the coming year, we see three trends that will cement the course for the cybersecurity and data protection landscape.
. Increase in cloud services and corresponding data protection threats: The necessity to adapt to post-pandemic, remote working conditions has heightened the requirement for cloud-based services and infrastructure. According to Gartner, Indian CIOs are expected to focus their cloud investment on cloud system infrastructure services (IaaS).
. Increase awareness around SOAR: Businesses are looking at ways to transform how they respond to threats and cyber-attacks in real-time. The industry is pivoting from automated detection to prevention and response with a focus on applying AI and machine learning to speed remediation. Mature businesses are adopting a single security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) platform, and working with security service providers to improve their security operations.
. Need for Unified Visibility and Control: In 2022, enterprises will increasingly look for unified and proactive security measures to defend their landscape of technology assets, spanning legacy endpoints, mobile, and cloud workloads without overburdening staff and in-house management resources.”
The industry will continue to see an acceleration in digitization and virtualization of business and society
Vivek Sharma
Managing Director - India, Lenovo ISG
“The business and consumer landscapes have majorly evolved over the last two years, especially from the way consumers interact with businesses to how organizations manage operations and deliver value in today’s remote environment. The acceleration in the adoption of digital technologies is a result of increased demand by businesses prioritizing streamlined operations, better speed to market, and seamless digital experiences for customers.
IT spending is projected to grow to $4.5 Trillion in 2022, which is a 5.5% increase from 2021 - which is also said to be the highest YoY growth in the last decade. In 2022, we will continue to see an accelerated rate of digitization and virtualization of business and society. As the world continues to undergo a rapid digital transformation within society and business, the potential for India to become one of the leading digital players is both exciting and believable. India Inc.'s overall focus will be to integrate digital technology within businesses and the society to make a significant impact on future digital world trends.”
AV will prove to be a powerful way to deliver innovative customer experiences
Vineet Mahajan
Director-India Business, Unilumin
“As enterprises look at opportunities for digital transformation, Display technology, Video conferencing equipment and its platforms like Zoom, Cisco etc should be a big part of their thinking. While artificial intelligence, intelligent apps and blockchain might be the trending technologies but good audio-visual (AV) has proved again and again to be a powerful way to streamline operations, spur collaboration and deliver innovative customer experiences.
Display technology has advanced rapidly in the past five years with new solutions that are smart, connected, interactive and more immersive than ever before. Looking at the new opportunities for innovation across multiple industries, the next several years promise to be a golden age for display and digital signage technology.
Work from home or from anywhere will become an accepted norm. Various studies have shown that a hybrid approach that combines work from anywhere and traditional office based work will become the preferred approach.”
Cloud models including Hybrid and Multi-cloud will witness higher acceptance
Sanjoy Mukherjee
Senior Director - Technology Alliances & Channels, Oracle India
“In the current year, cloud is expected to continue to be at the core of every business where organisations will also leverage technologies like AI, ML, Blockchain, digital assistants, chatbots. According to Gartner, end-user spending on public cloud services in India is forecasted to total $7.3 billion in 2022, an increase of 29.6% from 2021. Cloud models including Hybrid and Multi-cloud will also witness higher acceptance as the early adopters of cloud will now understand the importance of more evolved methods to ensure scalability.
The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team India witnessed 6 lakh+ cyber security incidents in the first six months of 2021. Also, companies today hold massive amounts of data and seek technologies that reduce time, cost and effort in ensuring returns on their data. Aligned with the current landscape, companies are required to move on to more sophisticated cloud native environment managed offsite. The providers of these have the required security know-how and resources to ensure their data is protected.”
We will see AI, ML, and cloud technologies being incorporated into many industries
Vishal Agrawal
MD, Avaya India & SAARC
“Recovery from Covid-19 has resulted in quick technological advancements and a dramatic transformation of digital experiences over the last several months. As organisations and lifestyles change swiftly, reliance on technology has increased, and radical alternatives have replaced traditional technology. Organizations no longer compete just on the basis of products or services; instead, they compete on the basis of seamless, personalised, connected, and intuitive experiences that are remembered.
Going forward, we will see greater emphasis on AI, machine learning, and cloud technologies being incorporated into many industries such as healthtech, edutech, fintech, and others, as well as automated contact centres that will further enhance customer experiences. Large firms will also make small infrastructure expenditures as they prepare their organisations for a hybrid workforce by digitally transforming their workforce and developing future workspaces.”
There will be a renewed focus on the governments prioritizing cybersecurity initiatives
James Forbes - May
Vice President, Barracuda Networks APAC
“Ransomware would continue to dominate the news for being the most lucrative way of making money for the bad guys. However, there will be a renewed focus on the governments prioritizing cybersecurity initiatives, building alliances with vendors, and sharing data with other countries. This level of collaboration will help improve security for everyone.
With security now starting to be prioritized, the reporting structure will depend on the organization's maturity and the leadership they have in place, such as if there is a CISO involved. Many of the IT teams won't naturally be reporting to a CISO because
their approach to security is event-driven. By being predictive and preventative and having the right tools and resources, one can have plans and programs to prevent incidents. So instead of having an event-driven approach to security, organizations will need to proactively shift to putting the measures and stopping those attacks from ever happening or stopping it earlier in the attack chain, so there's less damage. Without a security practice at the very top, it will be challenging to bring this kind of change.”
As we embrace 5G, we must carefully consider the resilience and security of the systems
Dick Bussiere
Technical Director, Tenable APAC
“5G roll-outs in APAC will bring with them an exponential increase in our ability to interconnect intelligent devices reliably and at high speed. This will lead to a rapid acceleration of e-commerce and the emergence of intelligent cities and infrastructures.
Within Australia, we also see intelligent devices being connected to utilities - for example, solar cells reporting to the operator how much power they are injecting into the grid. The benefits are very tangible, as are the enhanced risks. 5G increases our dependence on our digital infrastructures, amplifying the negative impact on society when this infrastructure malfunctions or is the victim of a cyberattack.
As we embrace 5G, we must also carefully consider the resilience and security of the systems that will utilise this game-changing technology.”
Cloud technologies will continue to evolve as they adapt to new developments
Kulmeet Bawa
President and Managing Director, SAP Indian Subcontinent
“I am certain the growth and innovation witnessed in 2021 will continue into the new year and drive the IT industry forward. With 82% of Indian enterprises prioritizing cloud investments in 2022, the industry is poised for exponential growth. Cloud technologies will continue to evolve as they incorporate and adapt to new developments such as 5G and Wi-Fi 6.
The advent of these new technologies will speed up the migration onto cloud platforms. Sustainability will be the other key trend as enterprises continue to embed it into their business to address the climate crisis. Organizations will rely on technology to ensure zero emissions, zero waste, zero inequality and thereby make sustainable business decisions”
Swarm learning technology is a decentralized ML framework that will gain adoption
Dr. Eng Lim Goh
Senior Vice President and CTO for Artificial Intelligence - Hewlett Packard Enterprise
“Data that is collected, processed and managed at the edge is expected to grow to more than 50% by 2023, according to Gartner. Edge-driven data helps make decisions faster, leading to better experiences and outcomes. By sharing learnings from one organization to another, various industries can unite and further improve intelligence that can have a tremendous impact for the greater good.
We predict that swarm learning technology, a decentralized machine learning framework that enables organizations to use distributed data to build machine learning models, will gain adoption as it allows for only the learnings captured from edge data to be shared rather than the data itself through Blockchain technology. Having this capability to learn in an equitable way, while gaining data governance, is critical to industries that handle sensitive data. Taking a swarm learning approach can also deliver great benefits to other industries, such as the banking and financial services sector, where organizations can fight the annual credit card fraud of $35 billion by sharing fraud-related learnings privately.”
Together with global SIs, we continue to build a robust ecosystem in the US, Europe, and Australia
Virender Jeet
Chief Executive Office, Newgen Software
“In 2021, we witnessed a spike in our cloud revenues. Compared to last year, our total income increased by 22% in Q2 2021-2022, and we saw growth across all geographies with significant contributions from the US, EMEA, and India. Furthermore, we increased our engagements with global system integrators for building a robust ecosystem in the US, Europe, and Australia.
Additionally, all our platforms continued getting recognized by leading industry analysts. Other than that, Newgen has filed 44 patents till date, out of which 21 have been granted in India and the US. Annually, we invest 9-10% of our revenue on research and development and have a dedicated team of nearly 500 people with deep domain expertise. NewgenONE, our natively built comprehensive digital transformation platform, continues to enable enterprises to leverage low code for developing and deploying complex, content-driven, and customer-engaging business applications on the cloud.”
Today is one of the greatest times to be in the knowledge industry
Piyush Jha
Senior Vice President, Strategy & Technology APAC, GlobalLogic
“If 2021 was the year for novel technologies that took a leap of faith in enabling our fight against Covid, 2022 will be the year where it’s ubiquitous influence will transform our lives to make it more seamless and connected. Like the internet of the yore and SMAC of the last decade, the DARQ and digital twin stacks will no longer just stand when called out, they will simply live and evolve with us every moment.
One area I believe is expected to benefit the most is ‘education’. The immersive stack - rapidly mainstreaming as meta and omni-verses - will help make education more experiential, like how it should be - budding engineers will be able to dis-assemble and re-assemble parts of an automobile, and vocational training will become twice as efficient with the availability of right tools. At the same time, with virtual and real models, it will be possible to take quality education to the remote and under-privileged at a fraction of the cost it is today. This is perhaps one of the greatest times to be in the knowledge industry!”
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