We're told the IBRS report, titled Trends for 2021-2026: No new normal and preparing for the fourth-wave of ICT, "outlines misconceptions businesses have regarding the timeline of the pandemic and that a new, fourth-wave of ICT architecture is emerging in response to the challenges that will linger after the vaccine rollout."
It's more of a powerpoint-style presentation, nevertheless with great and pertinent info, than an actual detailed report, but clearly the highly-respected IBRS, short for Intelligent Business Research Services, which describes itself as a "boutique Australian ICT advisory company", in business since 2002, has plenty more information (and the full report) to share to companies willing to engage it for those services.
The firm's "Future of Work" expert, and IBRS advisor, Dr. Joseph Sweeney said improvements in IT departments were required because customer organisations will remain threatened by sporadic coronavirus incidents for some time yet.
“Even though we have vaccines, COVID-19 will continue to pop up unpredictably for another two years at least, causing organisational disruptions, supply chain interruptions, financial uncertainties and employment risks wherever it rears its head.” Dr. Sweeney said.
“IT organisations have a critical role to play to help businesses survive, by changing the way they operate. Essentially they need to overcome the inability to react quickly to change, do away with long implementations and launch business performance improvement initiatives.”
Fourth-wave ICT will comprise a number of changes geared towards increasing efficiency and response times while reducing risks. These changes include:
- Prioritising business performance over delivery perfection
- Throwing out excessive controls in favour of efficient ones
- AI disappears as a topic for businesses, but gets embedded in SaaS solutions
- Low-code goes beyond just software development
- In total, the report includes eight principles of change, some of which Dr. Sweeney said were more complicated than they appeared at first glance.
“Many CIOs are under-estimating the long-term changes to expectations of ICT groups. In particular, non-staff are increasingly engaged in the process of digitisation of all aspects of the business. This is not just ‘low-code’ software development.
"It’s low code integration, analytics, and even machine learning. Low-code everything - operating as shadow IT.
"The coming wave of ICT will shift from monolithic solutions, be they in the Cloud or locked away in data centres, to a blend of core systems sitting within a low-code fabric. The change for ICT groups is tectonic,” Sweeney concluded.
The key findings of the report may be downloaded here.
