Realtime data and execution will drive enterprise strategy in 2014

BELLEVUE, USA: In 2014, enterprise strategies will be shaped by the improved ability to make business decisions and execute based on real-time data, according to Automic, the world's most comprehensive platform in automating businesses.

Automic works with some of the world's biggest retail companies, including eBay and Nike, and is at the forefront of exploring how businesses can revolutionize and innovate the customer experience. Automic shares its predictions, and spotlights the key trends and disruptors that will impact global organizations in 2014 including using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve automation, implementing multi-channel strategies and responding to cross-channel customer demands.

The Need for Speed: Real-time execution will hit its stride in 2014 and touch nearly every facet of the IT landscape. Cloud control and big data digestion have also lost their novelty, but not their endurance.

With heightened customer demands for market defining technologies, next generation strategies such as virtualization, Cloud, and mobile high transactional models means that organizations will continue to juggle more real-time processing than ever before.

Enterprises Will Learn from Government IT Mistakes: With recent government IT ailments and costly redundancies, enterprise IT investments will be under the microscope, making complete end-to-end systems testing a top priority. In such cases, it's necessary to treat the system as one, heterogeneous unit in order to deliver a complete view of formerly siloed systems.

For example, a move to a hybrid cloud infrastructure requires that not one, but all datasets across the complete system of infrastructure in which they reside be fully tested to ensure that all data can move effortlessly and securely in and out of the newly introduced hybrid cloud environment. Anytime a new solution is introduced, the testing can be automated to eliminate risk of disrupting the overall system at large and keep business on track without losing days of productivity due to having to make large fixes months or years down the line.

The CIO Becoming the Chief AI Officer: Formerly known as a topic for science fiction, AI will become an integral part of daily automation and solutions for everyday business. For example, Cloud AI offering scaling will be based on a set of rules determined by the CIO that trigger when traffic spikes or server resource usage increases.

With the CIO managing the resource automation during peak seasons, they will also become the AI officer spearheading all business and technology needs.

Unraveling Mobile IT: Across industries, particularly retail and financial services, routine changes and new functionalities are creating cumbersome, unsustainable environments costing enterprises time, patience and their bottom line.

Multi-channel and multi-platform approaches will become streamlined, cohesive powerhouses, harmonizing disjointed business systems to reap the tangible benefits for both the enterprise and the consumer.

Ringing Up Next Generation Shoppers: Today's shoppers are a part of a new generation that's more demanding, constantly connected and accustomed to the speed and simplicity of mobile and online shopping channels . With the current explosion of data that retailers are collecting from in-store, e-Commerce channels and social media, the process of predicting shifts in purchasing patterns will become second nature.

To cope with the level of information and uncover new revenue streams, retailers will focus more on cross-channel customer consistency, streamline the supply chain, and localized messaging to maintain customer loyalty and stay ahead of competitors.

Cloud Clears Mobile Broadband Storms: The proliferation of mobile devices means data storage and processing capacities are maxed. As such, enterprises will take another look at Cloud alternatives such as over investing in additional storage, particularly as mobile devices increasingly handle compute-intensive tasks.

IoT Gets Real: Much like Big Data, Cloud, and even BYOD, transformative IT trends have been democratized by the mainstream. With that, the fundamental urgency for connectivity and localized marketing has been heightened by customer demands. Yet enterprises are mystified on where to start.

Hyper competitiveness and accelerating customer expectations will continue to drive organizations and the IT behind them such as embedded sensors, image recognition and NFC, to improve customer engagement and personalization. With the information floodgates free flowing, IoT will take actionable shape.

"Ultimately, the question all organizations will ask themselves in the next year is, 'How can we avoid redundancies in our business, while making the most of our time?' " said Craig Beddis, chief marketing officer for Automic.

"With every checked box is an earnest, but tedious, approach and IT delivery paradigms should be simplified, sleek and uncomplicated. Businesses should build the risk out of their systems, and realize that it's what's under the hood that truly impacts demand - it also holds the key to the next generation of innovation."