Technology services: 2020 technology trends

The rise of everything-as-a-service

To meet demands for innovation and growth in organizations, service providers must deliver everything as a service. 

Efficiency and scalability are standard; innovation and growth are essential

Many organizations are seriously re-evaluating the way they deliver services and solutions to internal and external stakeholders. This has given rise to the everything-as-a-service (XaaS) model, where every aspect of a service provider’s engagement is delivered as a service.

Platform-enabled tools and a standardized set of building blocks allow service providers to create an end-to-end managed services solution that delivers efficiency, reliability, security and scalability. From consulting through to design, tech supply, installation and support, the XaaS model has become vital to any approach – but XaaS goes beyond that.

Technology is now so integral to business strategy that service providers must clearly demonstrate how the fundamental redeployment of IT operations resources and cost savings will fund innovation and growth in your business.

Align services outcomes with business value

While there’s a move to a standardized approach, that doesn’t take away the need to work with vendor partners at every stage of the process to deliver against a specific set of needs. They need to articulate how platform-enabled tools will generate outcomes that align with strategic initiatives:

• Proofs of concept must have clearly defined success criteria to show how a platform-delivered service enables your organization’s strategic initiatives.
• Technology is now so integral to business strategy that metrics have to be clearly defined in a way that measures business value.
• The impact of any change, both upstream and downstream the business, has to be clearly understood, with plans in place to ensure the business strategy is not affected.
• A roadmap of future features and capabilities is a must, along with the outcomes they deliver – such as reducing outages in the network, leading to improved network availability and reduced costs over the term of the contract.

Turning technology services data into business insights

Insights and analysis from data are essential to drive innovation in business models and strategy.

Data currently has a fairly rudimentary focus: storing it, securing it, backing it up and making it available. In the past, only operational data may have been interrogated to improve and automate internal processes.

With an increasingly broader scope of technologies and platforms deployed in a hybrid environment, extracting value from the data these technologies generate is vital in driving innovative change in business models and strategy. And, for the most part, many global CEOs are confident they can do so.

But gathering, processing and accessing this data to turn it into valuable information requires help. Navigating challenges such as poor data reliability, scarce analytical talent, data held in silos and an inability to address new regulations for data protection and privacy all contribute.

Advanced analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities are all required to extract value and insights for driving technological and operational transformation.

Interrogate data for information and insights

With IoT set to thrive over the next five to ten years, data volumes will only increase.

Work with your service provider to tap into a variety of structured and unstructured data from both internal and third-party sources. They can help you aggregate and analyse the data to produce meaningful insights for automation, process improvements and, most importantly, innovation to inform business strategy.

IT services are now everybody’s business – but only co-development will deliver true organizational value

Co-creation, platform innovation and joint delivery models with strategic partners will deliver a competitive advantage.

Failure to co-develop will more than likely mean project failure

Gartner forecasts that by 2023, USD 415.7 billion¹ will be spent on managed services alone, which means everyone’s in on the action. Technology vendors are delivering support services, cloud service providers have grown their service offerings, while Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers have expanded into managed services.

More services from a growing number of sources means greater choice in the management of your IT environment. But these environments are also increasingly complex to manage. Your biggest concern is getting multiple partners to work together for the greater good. That means co-creating joint offers, along with using platform and API-led operating models to spur innovation, gain a competitive advantage and ensure collaborative partnerships will flourish.

Start with the end-to-end solution in mind

Getting started means having a clear vision of the end-to-end solution and how your provider can deliver it:

• Do they have the skills, platforms and multivendor expertise to deliver end-to-end solutions across the enterprise?
• Do they have the insight, understanding and ability to be a strategic partner to your organization?

Working in cooperation with other vendors and partners is likely the most prominent factor in successful services delivery for your organization.

The time for ego has unquestionably disappeared.

¹ Gartner Forecast: IT services worldwide, 2016-2022, 4Q18 update