Breaking Down the Biggest Enterprise Tech Trends

In today’s world, a successful enterprise isn’t measured by its size, but rather the proficiency with which it’s able to leverage the tools available to them. In today’s digital age, organizations have access to more technology than ever before, resulting in unparalleled efficiency, knowledge, industry advancement and profit maximization.

With an abundance of tech trends for enterprise leaders to choose from, it can be a challenge to determine what will persist and what might ultimately become irrelevant or outdated within a couple years (or even months) after adoption.

As one of the world’s leading wholesale service providers, we make it our business at Verizon Partner Solutions to stay highly knowledgeable about the current enterprise technology landscape, and identify trends that are shaping the future of business.

Read on as we break down five of the biggest enterprise tech trends.

Enterprise IoT

The Internet of Things is perhaps the largest and fastest-growing enterprise tech trend, due to its broad applications throughout several facets of an organization. In fact, Bain & Company anticipates that business-to-business IoT segments will generate more than $300 billion annually by 2020.

Verizon Partner Solutions’ ThingSpace IoT platform seeks to maximize the power of this incredible technology, offering developers the tools needed to create successful Internet of Things solutions for their organizations. ThingSpace consolidates essential functionalities—including devices, connectivity, cloud services, data/device management and development kits—into a single access point.

SD-WAN

SD-WAN, or Software-Defined Wide-Area Network, has been growing over the years and in 2018, those trials have begun moving into production.

The rise of SD-WAN can be attributed to a number of factors, including data security, adoption of IoT, traffic growth, sustainable WAN costs and the need for higher control over the WAN. Enterprises are beginning to transfer increasingly larger percentages of IT infrastructure into the cloud, making the need for a more reliable, secure and higher-performing WAN much greater.

In today’s world, SD-WAN—combined with a quality, hybrid core infrastructure—is required to deliver the application and user experience your enterprise needs. As one of the leading providers of SD-WAN and Managed WAN services, Verizon Partner Solutions provides customers with a variety of cost-effective benefits.

5G

5G technology—the successor to 4G LTE—seeks to transform enterprises as mobile devices and demand for data becomes more important. When released, 5G is expected to provide much faster Internet connections, a reduction in latency and increases in bandwidth and device access—all while keeping your data protected.

One of the biggest benefits of 5G will be its effect on the Internet of Things. With the number of IoT devices expected to grow to the hundreds of billions over the next decade, networks will be overwhelmed with their high speed connections and heavy data processing. 5G can provide the network strength and bandwidth size necessary to support this technology and much more.

As the leader in the race to make 5G a reality, Verizon is committed to bringing customers the best possible service. That’s why we’re on track to be the first to deploy 5G fixed broadband services and a 5G mobile solution in the U.S. Once released, this technology will quickly prove to be a major competitive advantage for enterprises in any industry.

Big Data

Big data plays an immeasurably valuable role in enterprise decision making and planning. In 2017, 53% of companies adopted big data, up from just 17% in 2015, according to a report from Dresner Advisory Services. This boom can be attributed, in part, to the rise of IoT and the vast amounts of big data connected devices generate.

While big data is relatively easy to collect, enterprises have been having a tougher time analyzing and gleaning insights from the massive amounts that come in. When executed successfully, though, a big data analytics program helps organizations devise valuable strategies and make more efficient business decisions that positively impact their bottom line.

Innovations in artificial intelligence are taking some of the challenge out of big data analytics, but enterprises usually require significant help in navigating the complexity of such a technology. At Verizon, we have a number of groups focused on developing big data and AI solutions for our customers, in an effort to simplify the road to adoption.

Data Security

Data security is one of the most concerning technology trends facing enterprises in 2018. In the 2018 Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report, we analyzed more than 2,200 confirmed real-world data breaches—a statistic that shows just how unprepared many organizations are in the face of cybercrime.

Ransomware—found in 39% of cases where malware was identified—is the top variety of malicious software due to its ease of deployment and unfortunate effectiveness. While the time it takes a cybercriminal to compromise a system is a matter of minutes, it can take organizations weeks or months to discover they’ve been breached.

Enterprises can take several proactive measures to keep their data secure. This includes encrypting sensitive data, using two-factor authentication, restricting those who have access to sensitive data and systems, and educating employees about how to spot different types of cyberattacks and how to react

Interested in learning more about how you can strengthen your IT mix to capitalize upon today’s biggest enterprise tech trends? Send us a message!