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SharePoint • Office 365 • Microsoft • ECM
The year of 2019 is behind us, which makes a good opportunity to review what we’ve accomplished so far, but more importantly - to explore what lies ahead.
As you may know, we at Share IT are specialized in creating custom enterprise software solutions. Aside from our expertise and continuous professional development, working closely with our clients is what helps us to better understand how their business needs change through time. This is particularly important in the field of information management.
You see, designing tailor-made solutions for effective data management is a delicate process. Whatever management system we come up with, it has to fit in perfectly with existing policies and established processes of that particular enterprise client.
New technological breakthroughs and advancements of services are what shape this industry. And needless to say, the changes happen fast.
Today, we decided to share some predictions regarding enterprise information management trends for 2020.
With Office 365, One Drive, and of course SharePoint, Microsoft took a fair share of the information management market. It’s a well known fact that Microsoft invests huge amounts of its budget into improving their products and services, and extending their functionalities. Plus, they do so by continuously asking feedback from their users.
This is a great tactic because it shows the company is agile and light at their feet, which allows them to launch new features and add new offers rather fast. Just look what they’ve achieved in 2019.
Office 365 has been improved and they’ve introduced **Azure Information Protection, a cloud-based solution which helps businesses organize, classify, and protect their files using a labeling system. AIP uses advanced protection technology** based on encryption, identity, and authorization policies, and this multi-level security is something enterprise level businesses tend to appreciate.
Microsoft is taking huge steps toward becoming a one-stop store where corporations can get everything they need. Some may argue that the company has already accomplished that. With such a well established reputation and unrivaled quality, Microsoft products are the products of choice for a majority of CIOs: 9/10 choose to trust Microsoft, and we can only expect an even greater success for this tech giant in 2020.
By 2022, the global ECM (Enterprise Content Management) market is expected to reach the value of around $67 billion. Compare this number to 2017, when the worldwide value of the market was $31,6 billion, and you don’t have to be a genius to conclude it’s expanding greatly. However, the dominance of the main market players is shifting from one side to another.
First notable changes began about seven years ago, when Microsoft announced their partnership with Nimble and hit the 2 million subscriber mark for Office 365. But what’s fascinating is that they’ve reached 1 million new paying users in less than 4 months. The company’s dedication to make their customers’ lives easier and the use of their chosen products simpler is really something. Numerous integration and customization options enable their users to shape their out-of-the-box solutions into something that suits their businesses perfectly.
Names such as IBM, Hyland, OpenText, Oracle, Alfresco, and a few other providers remain relevant, but they will have to invest more in innovation and providing convenience for their users to keep their market positions in 2020.
In 2020, we can expect enterprise-level companies allocating more chunks of their budgets into creating custom ECM solutions, especially because they are well educated and therefore - aware of the long-term benefits such as reducing storage, operational, and distributional costs, saving time, boosting productivity, increasing system security, and more.
If there’s one buzz-phrase that never seems to go out of fashion, it’s Big Data. However, the biggest challenge in this area is to separate the wheat from the chaff, i.e. to manipulate the data effectively, organize it and store it in a way that will save employees’ time, and extract valuable and actionable insights from the data.
The power lies in data, but it’s no use if the data cannot be easily reached or interpreted. In addition, data systems that are not well thought out and don’t have organized accounts and permissions - can cause chaos.
People might lose their focus, get overwhelmed with the amount of data or maybe see confidential information which they shouldn’t see. It’s not just about the lost productivity, but also about the missed business opportunities that could have been spotted if only the data was properly organized and utilized.
This is why more enterprises will try to rethink and reform their data systems in 2020 in a way that allows people from different positions to access data that is truly useful to them. Providing access to relevant data and creating a company culture in which the data freely flows essentially means democratizing one’s business organization.
In 2020, CIO professionals will invest more effort in strategically handling the data and educating non-IT professionals about useful data tools so that they can truly maximize each individual’s impact and drive better results altogether.
In 2020, scalability and flexibility will become even more important for enterprises that are going through a digital transformation or optimizing their existing data management systems. This means that, even beyond the cost issues, C-level professionals will focus on choosing custom-made IT solutions that can easily support their growth without disrupting their business operations.
That being said, microservices as a software development technique, will take the central stage. In layman’s terms, microservices imply building large applications as a suite of modular components or services. Specific methods and modalities are used for defining and building the supporting applications.
So, why are microservices a great weapon when it comes to ensuring scalability and flexibility?
Microservices allow developers to find and address minor problems directly, without affecting the functioning of the application itself. In addition, microservices are great for coming up with new, lightweight MVP solutions and independent development of smaller components. Last but not least, microservices enable agile and iterative development, which is definitely a huge plus.
In addition to the above-mentioned scalability and flexibility, privacy will remain among the top priorities for enterprise-level companies. Legislations such as the GDPR in EU or California’s CCPA in the US only underline the necessity of proper data management and data protection for large businesses.
Bearing that in mind, we shouldn’t be surprised when cloud adoption rates increase in 2020. Different cloud solutions (public, private, hybrid) offer different levels of protection, and the choice of provider plays a key role.
When it comes to security, **Microsoft’s Azure remains unrivaled**. Through the Project Cerberus, Microsoft deployed advanced security measures that effectively protect from malicious insider attacks (i.e. internal misuse of data by people who are employed in the organization and have access to files and hardware), external attacks (for instance, attempts of data interception), and hacker attacks and malware distribution attempts.
Azure, AWS, and Google are the top players that added High Performance Computing (HPC) to their services, which allows users to buy cloud computing power and use it only when they need to. According to Forrester's report, the use of HPC will increase by 40% in 2020. Distributed cloud, hybrid cloud offerings, and new managed services that emerged from strategic partnerships (such as the one of Azure and Cray) will all positively affect the growth of cloud adoption rates.
When you work in IT, it’s basically in your job description to commit to life-long learning and adopting new technologies. You have to continuously feel the pulse of the industry. The industry is fast-paced, competition often fierce, it can get hectic - but we at Share IT simply love it.
So, what do you think of our predictions for the enterprise information management market for 2020? What are your forecasts for the year ahead?
If you happen to be a business owner or a manager, and are looking to optimize your organization’s information management system, contact us today. We’re always happy to hear from you!
