Trends 2016: IoT, the No. 1 driver

By Sudhir Narang

IoT market is expected to mature and deliver more flexible solutions in contrast to many closed, proprietary first-generation offerings.

The Indian IT industry has seen tremendous growth in the last couple of years. The industry has not only led to the economic transformation of the country but has altered the perception of India in the global economy.

The IT sector continues to develop capabilities around traditional and emerging markets, verticals and customer segments, expand global delivery presence, and increase focus on high value services including product development.

A recent report by Nasscom states that it is India’s largest and most diverse private sector employer, with a workforce of 3.5 million, and effecting over 10 million indirect jobs.

With time, the sector is only expected to evolve further and among a few major trends that are going to define the future include the Internet of Things (IoT), cyber security and enterprises turning into software companies.

Shaping the IT sector

In the year 2016, the Internet of Things market is expected to mature and deliver more flexible solutions in contrast to many closed, proprietary first-generation offerings. According to a report by Cisco, the global IoT market is expected to grow from $655.8 billion to $1.7 trillion in 2020.

As companies continue to invest in the IoT, BT has also been pioneering the Internet of Things revolution and demonstrating how our Cloud of Clouds vision has become a reality for key customers around the globe.

We have leveraged the scale and reach of our global infrastructure to help customers take advantages of technological advancement and make sense of the "big data" being generated by increasing numbers of sources.

While IoT opens new possibilities for companies, it also comes with a risk associated with it. As we become more reliant on intelligent, interconnected many aspects of our lives, the need of the hour is to stay protected from interference and intrusions that would compromise personal safety or threaten public safety.

With digital transformation continuing to grow and more devices connect to the Internet of Things, it is important for private and public organizations to be several steps ahead and IT will need to adopt cyber security trends emerging for the coming year. The use of collective security intelligence, which depends on crowd sourcing in a community, can better secure everyone.

Using secure IT as an enabler is another factor that needs to be considered as modern networks are leading to connectivity and increased mobility is transforming our world. But it is important that everyone takes advantages of these innovative opportunities in a secure way. In case, one person in a group uncovers a previously unidentified threat, sharing the symptoms and remediation allows others to defend better against it.

Another major trend that we witness is how enterprises are today turning away from traditional vendors and towards cloud providers. A recent report by IDC states that by the end of 2017, two-thirds of the CEOs of global 2,000 enterprises will have digital transformation at the center of their corporate strategy.

(The author, Sudhir Narang, is Managing Director, BT India)