Why Today’s Megatrends are the Technological and Business Future

By Andras R. Szakal, CTO, The Open Group

Last year, the Open Group celebrated its 25th anniversary, and over that time, it has played an important role in shaping and sustaining the technological web that we now navigate on a daily basis. This vendor-neutral technology consortium is now so important that it seems like an oak tree: robust, dependable, and part of the landscape. Its contributions range from standardizing UNIX to establishing the world’s most commonly used Enterprise Architecture framework.

But, like an oak tree, The Open Group has survived by continuing to develop in new ways, rather than rejecting change. A quarter-century is a long period, especially when technology and society advance at the rate they do today, and The Open Group has triggered and adapted to many commercial and technological trends throughout that time.

Today, there is a slew of trends on the horizon that will not only change certain industries or ways of doing business but will also change the way major segments of the economy operate. Emerging technologies like quantum computing and robots are joining business imperatives like supply chain transformation and climate action to create a difficult collection of megatrends to manage in the coming years.

Understanding Megatrends

The potential energy embodied by these megatrends is amplified, of course, by the fact that we are recovering from possibly the most dramatic and wide-ranging global change in recent memory. Although much has been written about the pandemic’s effects, it is worth noting that many of the measures we utilized to limit its effects – from remote working to quick vaccine and medicines research – would not have been conceivable even five years ago.

Many assumptions were shattered, and many patterns were altered, maybe permanently, as a result of the disturbance. When we look at workforce changes, for example, we see that the ‘great resignation’ of people changing careers during the pandemic represents more than just aimless churn, but a clear shift away from jobs that require more basic human interaction, such as hospitality, and toward areas that are looking to digitally transform. Furthermore, these career changes frequently describe the nature of the work as their primary motivator, rather than their capacity to find work.

This tendency has been helped by the fact that, as a result of the pandemic’s driving impact, a greater amount of labor may now be done remotely. Skills can frequently be matched to company demands regardless of region, thanks to a suite of tools that organizations have employed over the last decade. Indeed, many businesses are reconsidering what kind of work is genuinely required of local residents.

The story is shaped by a number of megatrends, including the ongoing evolution of SaaS to offer new, more powerful services; working from home maturing from a temporary strategy to a permanent strategy; and, as career preferences shift, the opportunity for robotics and automation to fill gaps in the human workforce. That is to say, this recent example demonstrates how business and technological megatrends should be seen as separate entities.

Navigating the Megatrend

In a world where customers are becoming increasingly concerned about how their data is utilized, we might create a similar tale about how quantum computing will interact with security and privacy. Or how augmented reality will help to break through geographical barriers in sectors like online education. Or consider how artificial intelligence is being used to both assess and cut emissions in the quest to tackle climate change.

The challenge is how we should prepare to handle trends that will have a substantial impact on the human condition – especially considering the connectedness of these trends.

We believe the answer is found in technological architecture. Because they are cross-sectoral in nature, these megatrends will bring sectors of life into contact with one another that have never been required to share information or processes before. We will discover that systems as diverse as healthcare, supply chain logistics, and AI development will suddenly need to communicate effectively and reliably as a result of this cycle of business demands and technological advances igniting one another across vast areas of the economy.

Without a comprehensive architecture to govern that communication, the final consequence would be chaos; many firms are still trying to pay off technological debt incurred as a result of inadequate overnight modifications to working procedures in response to the pandemic.

When we think about technology architecture, we typically think of it only in terms of IT, of how systems may be supplied and data routed to them. To develop and adapt in the face of the next wave of change, which blurs the line between technology and business pressure, that way of thinking will need to be elevated to embrace a larger, clearer picture in which ongoing digital transformation is at the heart of the strategy.

We achieve this at The Open Group by continuously developing long-standing solutions, such as The Open Group’s TOGAF® Standard, to provide clearer methodologies for applying Organization Architecture concepts to the digital, Agile enterprise. We’re also doing it by developing new solutions, such as The Open Group Open FootprintTM Forum, which is positioned to standardize how environmental data is assessed and shared in the business.

It is no exaggeration to claim that these predicted megatrends will have a profound impact on human life. We must plan for them now in order to maximize their good impact, or risk being buffeted by unforeseen disruptive forces.

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