A Year of Change a Future of Transition
When we look back historically at the year that was, I believe 2016 may go down as one of the most divisive and controversial in two generations. In my lifetime, I cannot remember a year with so many major events that will have far-reaching impact for decades to come.
From a political perspective, two major upsets highlighted with the United Kingdom opting out of the European Union via the Brexit Vote, and the stunning victory by President Elect Trump over Hilary Clinton. In Great Britain, the vote was expected to be competitive, but most pundits thought the UK would remain in the EU. However, as push came to shove, the young and less educated voted against propping up the poorer and less productive economies. The fallout from Brexit will be determined in 2017 as Britain’s departure could be a catalyst to strengthen the EU or it’s ultimate demise, only time will tell.
Trump over Clinton was an upset along the lines of Truman vs Dewey in 1948, totally unexpected and one that pitted change vs the establishment. On the day of the election, Clinton held a 7-10 point lead in most polls. So what happened? It is easy to say red states out-voted blue states but I believe it was much deeper than that simple explanation. Whether you were a proponent of either candidate, most Americans were fed-up with the current state of affairs, from a dysfunctional Congress, an inefficient Government, and an America, viewed in the eyes of many nations on the back-side of it’s preeminence.
A month after the election, with most of the Trump cabinet selected, we know the trend will be pro business, as his cabinet (if approved) has the most operational business experience since the Reagan days. Business should be a big winner, especially small business with the declaration by Trump to overhaul the Tax Code. However, the Trump Administration may not be all roses as much of the technology sector including Silicon Valley were very much against Trump and some are still defiant in their stance. The job of American Society as a whole and especially the powerful business constituency is to get behind the Administration. I am confident come January 20th, our technology leaders will work with the Trump Administration on the issues that matter including the H1B Visa situation which is vital to the hi-tech industry.
From a technology standpoint, 2016 was the year of the Cloud and the Big Three – Amazon, Microsoft and Google. We are beginning to see some of the larger players of recent technology stardom get left behind. Anyone that says Cloud is not much different from a technology standpoint than On-Premise is overlooking the downstream impact on individuals- tell that to the millions of US Information Technology workers that have yet to sharpen their skill-set in the newer technologies. We see this every day at JetSweep as we engage with customers as they want to review and refresh their IT Infrastructure – cloud is almost always in the conversation. Some clients may wait for the next cycle for cost, security or compliance purposes, but do you really believe in 2-5 years, most clients will re-order another set of servers?
2017 will be the year Cloud goes mainstream with some of the largest organizations making the switch like Capital One did in late 2016. I also believe 2017 will be closely tied to the promise of Analytics as new emerging ways of building and provisioning systems are replacing the traditional Data warehouse and Business Intelligence systems. Platforms that limit the need and build-out of star schemas and traditional ETL will be the big winner. Over the next several years we will also see a marked increase in Big Data (not necessarily Hadoop) but faster processing, in memory and advanced analytics leveraging some of the newer platforms that AWS or others may offer.
What does this mean for Enterprise IT and the CIO? Never before will advisory relationships be more important as the speed of change has increased exponentially in the last 2-3 years. The technology landscape is changing so rapidly most organizations will require an advocate with deep Subject Matter Expertise in these emerging areas. 2016 was a year of change and 2017 will be a year of transition that may surprise many as to what gets accomplished in this resilient place we call America. Email me with your thoughts at cbarbanti@jetsweep.co
Chris Barbanti is a Co-Founder of JetSweep. JetSweep www.jetsweep.co is a Strategic IT and Analytics Advisory Organization that provides transformative business and information technology solutions in the areas of Business Analytics & Big Data, ITSM, Cloud Enablement & Management. At JetSweep, we work with our clients to help them visualize and prepare for the challenges in the changing technology landscape and provide clear and concise strategic roadmap solutions.