The 5 Top Digital Transformation Trends of 2021

Digital Transformation Trends April 02, 2021

Mary Kate Morrow

Writer

5 Digital Transformation Trends for 2021

Digital transformation is fundamentally shifting how businesses operate across industries and all around the world. Transformation trends sparked changes ranging from consistent business process updates to emerging technologies with real time impact. Digital transformation is increasingly prominent in everything from services business professionals offer to case studies published.

Transformation initiatives are fundamentally evolving both the customer experience and employee work experience. With the sharp increase in remote working needs, business leaders are increasingly utilizing emerging technologies for solutions. As a result, customer experiences and customer service initiatives have also radically transformed. Many business leaders are wisely turning to case studies and thought leadership publications for transformation trend predictions. The 5 top digital transformation trends that businesses should pay attention to for 2021 include-

1. Remote Work

Perhaps no other digital transformation trend is as radical and long term as the remote work trend. Business leaders across industries have accepted that remote work is the new normal. Even after pandemic fears pass, the increase in long term remote work is inevitable. Businesses have discovered that remote working is more profitable and productive for everyone involved. In fact, even before 2020 remote working was considered a top digital transformation trend.

With the increase in remote working, smart remote work technologies have experienced rapid growth in both use and development. This top digital transformation is heavily focused on security and ease of usage. Best class companies across industries from financial services to application development sectors have already adopted the remote work phenomenon. Several best class companies do not expect employees that are remote working to ever need to come back on site. In response, much smaller and less well known business leaders are wisely following suit.

2. Hybrid Cloud

A top transformation trend is evident in the pace business leaders are increasingly implementing hybrid cloud infrastructure. The hybrid cloud refers to a blended storage, computing, and services environment. This environment consists of on site data center infrastructure as well as private and public cloud services. Hybrid cloud infrastructure orchestrates various platforms expertly. As such, cloud computing is benefited by hybrid cloud infrastructure.

The focus on hybrid cloud infrastructure across industries is largely attributed to customer experience and customer service shifts. Hybrid cloud infrastructure seeks to meet customers where they are currently while also confronting data growth challenges. Additionally, hybrid cloud infrastructure is purposefully proactive towards security, privacy, and compliance concerns. While not a new business digital transformation trend, the hybrid cloud infrastructure is certainly one to pay attention to.

3. Cybersecurity

Sadly, tragedy regularly brings along with it opportunities with bad intentions. Cybersecurity was hit especially hard in 2020 and as such has been deemed a top transformation trend priority. In the first 4 months of 2020, there was a 238% rise in attacks on financial services sectors like banks. In the same time period, there was a 600% increase in cloud server attacks!

Business leaders attribute the sharp increase in cybersecurity attacks to several different reasons. Hackers likely saw the opportunity to create new attacks with more remote work across industries than ever before. With fewer on site data center security experts, transformation programs are working to create new cybersecurity strategies. Additionally, expanding and upgrading existing cybersecurity related business processes is a top priority. Case studies and thought leadership assert that artificial intelligence and machine learning are crucial for the cybersecurity digital transformation trend. As such, business leaders across industries are investing heavily in artificial intelligence and machine learning for cybersecurity needs.

4. Headless Tech

Headless tech is an unsettling phrase with a very important influence on digital transformation trends to come. Headless tech refers to the detachment of front end presentation from back end data functionality. Headless tech is focused on customer experiences and customer service correlated with shopping. The focus across industries on customer experiences and customer service is unsurprising. In fact, case studies reflect 86% of businesses stating their customer acquisition costs have increased over the last 2 years.

Thought leadership and case studies stress the importance of maximizing return on investment of net new customer acquisition costs. Additionally, digital transformation programs must focus on customer retention and development. Headless tech digital transformation initiatives support more streamlined data driven business processes and customer experience improvements. As a result, businesses successfully engaging with this digital transformation trend are likely to experience significant bottom line profitability increases.

5. Customer Data Platforms

Third party application development efforts of digital technologies business leaders are heavily focused on solving bad data issues. Savvy business leaders are increasingly turning to digital transformation solutions to address their own bad data. Fittingly so, as according to estimates, bad data costs businesses in the United States $3 trillion each year!

Customer data platforms are a top consideration for business leaders looking to decrease bad data in their organizations. Customer data platforms allow businesses to utilize data from multiple sources. Moreover, customer data platforms organize and tag relevant information, promoting data driven business processes and decision making. The rise of customer data platforms will not come at the cost of other data based digital technologies. Business leaders are still focused on big data and data analytics platforms. However, due to the rise in remote work and high pace digital transformation, customer data platforms are more focal.

Key Takeaways for Digital Transformation Trends

Staying aware of digital transformation trends supplies businesses with a competitive edge.
Digital transformation trends range from remote work to headless tech.