As my team gently hinted towards in our last article, 2020 has been, undoubtedly, a year of extremes. While we gained a number of new clients and delivered successful projects, we also had clients experience significant COVID-related disruptions. With 2020 now behind us, 2021 is filled with innumerable opportunities, some easy to recognize, and others a bit murkier. We sat down as a team to look deeply at the big trends we see happening in 2021. Yes, I have a positive outlook for 2021, but there are some big questions and trends that are worth flagging early. Below are four trends that the Promethean Analytics team identified for 2021. Let’s get started.
Pivoting to Cloud ASAP -100% or Hybrid? – If we got a quarter for every article predicting the rise of cloud computing in the 2010s, we could stack them to the moon. But the timeline for true cloud adoption was way off, particularly given recent events. No analyst could have foreseen how quickly an entire nation, facing a global and local crisis, can pivot to cloud computing in less than a month. Startups and enterprises embraced cloud platforms of all kinds to keep their momentum going through the pandemic, shedding their office space for the (dis)comforts of the home offices. With such a move to the cloud comes inevitable risks for the ill prepared, particularly in security and data management.
Companies that relied on their on-premises data centers are facing a difficult choice: Do they rely on their data centers and software they have had for years, or do they migrate and move their assets to powerful cloud solutions, or… do they do both? 2021 may force a reckoning with various organizations approach to the cloud, particularly as more employees and clients become remote.
Forecasting Stability… Eventually – Equally as unforeseen as the rise of cloud computing was how quickly the major pharmaceutical companies developed and, as we write this, rolled out a vaccine. With hospital staff getting inoculated daily, there is light at the end of the tunnel. But between here and the end of the tunnel are plenty of obstacles along the way, like a recent surge in infections, an economy on the verge of capsizing, and the eventual roll out of the vaccine to the general populace. Oh, and on that economy. While analysts are suggesting that federal stability will help stimulate growth in the next 4 years, on the other hand, the incoming administration may be less business friendly as the outgoing one.
Navigating these waters certainly won’t happen overnight, and the unknowns make it tough for businesses and organizations to properly forecast into 2021 on multiple levels. Big questions, like personnel changes or inventory orders, require powerful planning tools like EPBCS that can handle massive variances and plot multiple pathways to success. Having a team ready to handle that is another question, but if you are reading this, you probably know who can help.
Lean and Mean Projects – Given how most businesses have been pinched by the economic impact of the pandemic, new projects seem like the last thing an organization wants to undertake. Being lean, agile, and focused is a fundamental requirement for each new technology project. Speed is essential, and so is accuracy. To no surprise, we’ve seen customers flock to our Solution Accelerators as a way to bypass the cumbersome red tape and oversized project scope. The beauty of our Accelerators is not that they are quick to spin up (which they are), it’s that they lead to accurate, rapid answers that can help an organization focus on their next big goal.
Tear Down to Build Up – In many cases, 2020 projections, plans, and solutions may be set with the best intentions, but quickly fall off the rails. For many organizations, we’ve seen that the mid-year pandemic pivot has led to a critical decision: Do pre-pandemic projects get preferential treatment in 2021, slide into 2022, or simply get cancelled all together? And those projects we hit “pause” on, do they need to be resumed or require a post-pandemic reboot?
Obviously, each project is a case-by-case basis. Teams that found their objectives derailed by the disruptions that affected 2020 may be raring to make up for lost time. Others may have found themselves in the unenviable position of looking at a lost year with more red X’s than green, with most of those red X’s looking hopeless. Many of these projects will require a true 360* assessment, with detailed evaluations of roadblocks and contingencies for a realistic timeline for success. If our expertise in Project Rescue has revealed anything, it is that a transparent and realistic assessment is critical to take a project from defunct to functioning, and with our Accelerators, we can get you there quickly.
We hope you have a safe, and great, New Year’s Eve, and let’s get things done right in 2021.
Best Regards,
Gerry Villamil
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