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Top trend for IT infrastructure in 2020? Simple.

Vincent Charpiot
February 6, 2020

I love it when pundits make their predictions about IT infrastructure, but they typically focus on micro-trends: hyper-personalization of the customer experience, expanded use of AI and RPA in industrial sectors, migration to hybrid cloud models for ITSM, and so on.

Those predictions are insightful and useful. But there’s a more basic, fundamental trend that will have a far greater impact on IT planning and strategy in 2020: the urgent need to simplify all aspects of provisioning and managing IT infrastructure.

The fact is, every facet of IT infrastructure has become ridiculously complex. The volume of innovations and technologies and hardware and software-defined capabilities has exploded – Big Bang style – and is pushing outward in all directions at warp speed. For example:

  • Cloud services now encompass dozens of categories: SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, public and private cloud, hybrid cloud, multi-cloud, cloud native, cloud storage, microservices, DevOps cloud, AI cloud, containers, and so on. It’s hard enough to understand what the options are, let alone select the right ones. The result, according to a new study, is that “three out of four CIOs say enterprise cloud complexity is making IT performance ‘extremely’ difficult to manage.” [Dynatrace: “Top Challenges for CIOs in a Software-Driven, Hybrid, Multi-Cloud World,” Sept. 2019]
  • Cybersecurity has become tortuously complicated with new threats, new attackers, and new exploits leading to more security products, services, and solutions to evaluate – firewalls, anti-virus, DDoS, cloud security, identity and access management, web gateways, threat intelligence, encryption/decryption, compliance monitoring … It’s overwhelming, particularly when there is also a severe skills shortage in cybersecurity. Today 53% of IT professionals struggle with the shortage of cybersecurity professionals. [ESG Research, April 2019]
  • Constant advances in AI, RPA, analytics, IoT, VR, blockchain, machine learning, DevOps tools, and other technologies continue to change and challenge IT infrastructure provisioning and management, adding to the complexity of IT operations and strategy.

No one can master all of these innovations and advancements. No IT department has the skill sets internally to implement and manage all the latest innovations internally. So, who’s going to take on the challenge of sorting all of this out for enterprise IT organizations?

Simply put, we are.

Capgemini is focusing on integrating, consolidating, and radically simplifying its offerings so IT organizations can focus on their core competency: meeting the service requirements of all constituents and the strategic objectives of the business. To cite just a few examples:

  • The Capgemini Cloud Platform integrates our portfolio of cloud services and accelerators into a single cloud management platform, so you have smart, secure ways to simplify cloud provisioning and management. Now you can combine public and private clouds with legacy data center resources; transfer more applications to the cloud with minimal disruption and risk; harness the cloud to streamline DevOps; and generally cut the cost and time to market for new innovations.
  • Capgemini Cybersecurity offerings bring it all together to streamline security: one partner for a full spectrum of consulting and managed security services; one team of 3,000+ security professionals; one global network of security operations centers; one point of contact with connections to global suppliers; and one business-focused approach that delivers multiple positive business outcomes.
  • Capgemini Cloud Services make it easier and safer to take full advantage of the cloud model and emerging technologies. We combine advisory, applications, and infrastructure services to increase your capacity to absorb innovations from multiple sources, so you can quickly adapt, get to market faster, and turn the promise of new advancements into actual business results.

Takeaway for I&O leaders

In short, the future of IT infrastructure is about taming complexity – and you’ll see this trend emerge and expand not just next year but for several years to come.

It’s time to merge strategies, services, and technologies into comprehensible, digestible units, so businesses can see, understand, and exploit the real opportunities of the digital age.

Capgemini is committed to leading in the simplification movement, and we’re already many steps ahead of our competitors. If you’d like to know what a unified, simplified approach can mean for your enterprise, please reach out to me via my Expert Connect profile and let’s share ideas.