As the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus said, “the only one constant in life is change.” This is certainly true for anyone working in areas related to or based upon technology (and few don’t these days). Industry standards have shown that Information Technology is one of the fastest growing industries always looks to stay ahead of the curve.  The pace of technological innovation is such that even the most fantastic of imagined futures seem like they could easily become reality.

Like every profession, it can be challenging to know where to direct your career path.  The majority of IT professionals commonly seek the following aspects in their career growth: working with an innovative technology stack, compensation, interesting projects, and company culture.

As existing technologies reach maturity, unforeseen developments arrive ever more quickly, and innovations make the leap from consumer applications to business (and vice versa), it’s imperative we constantly seek those who have the potential to add value to our own business and those of our customers.

As we look at 2018, the following is a comprehensive list of the top eight trends in Information Technology:

Artificial Intelligence

Businesses will increasingly integrate AI and machine learning into their products. Artificial intelligence technology has accelerated and personalized product/service offerings, making a material impact on enterprise and customers.  Machine learning will offer a source of insight which was not possible before and will drive most of the business decisions. These new insights are invaluable as IT team business leaders will be able to better personalize customer experiences.

Data Analytics and Business Intelligence

Data Analytics and Business Intelligence will come to the forefront in companies as executives are finding analytics increasingly important to adopt and incorporate in their business strategy. IT leaders will also rely heavily on latest technologies like machine learning, business automation, enterprise mobility solutions, and predictive analytics.  Why are business owners giving importance to business analytics? As more businesses move toward business intelligence, organizations are forced to capture, store, and interpret data. Companies need correct information in any decision-making process, and data holds the key to a business’ success.

Cybersecurity

As 2017 witnessed major security breaches and data hacking, executives will be held more accountable for company cybersecurity practices. These breaches often impact customer data and business information, so it is crucial to draw a solid cybersecurity policy and counter all kinds of cyberattacks.  The threats are rising, becoming more sophisticated and potentially more harmful. Ransomware threats smashed all other cybersecurity topics in 2017. Now, highly-targeted phishing attempts, possibly powered by artificial intelligence, create greater risks for shutting down an organization’s operations.  In 2018, we have started to see the emergence of more sophisticated malware that leverages AI to mimic writing styles, review appointments, and send false directions for an upcoming meeting to the victim. While organizations cannot completely protect themselves from ransomware and phishing attacks, they can get close with a layered security approach and employee education.  Employee education will need to be a reinforced strategy from the top down for every organization to embrace.

Enterprise Mobility

For the past decade, we can’t formulate a business strategy without including a mobile strategy. Mobile technology may not be advancing at the speed of light as it used to be, but the relative stability of the mobile marketplace is exactly what businesses want today. Stability improves reliability, lowers costs, and mitigates the risk associated with rapid market changes.  In today’s globalized world, it is never too early to start thinking about how marketing trends are going to evolve in 2018.

Internet of Things (IoT)

Many business leaders are predicting that IoT-specific platforms will play a more active role in the enterprise context. They will use the most ubiquitous people sensor, a mobile device, to tailor physical environments to individual preferences. Businesses will look to leverage a large amount of business data generated by many sources to drive higher revenue and profit. Businesses can find appropriate storage and management solutions to transform business processes.  Executives will analyze the latest business trends, remote monitoring of the entire process, and optimize cost by managing critical machinery by implementing IoT strategies. IoT will provide executives an opportunity to create seamless interaction among devices to gather, store, and process data.

In 2018, IT leaders can explore more insights from IoT to boost business productivity, enhance security and transform business.  We started talking about the Internet of Things just before the turn of the century. The impact seemed unimaginable — and in some ways, it still is. Now almost anything electric can be controlled from a smartphone and many devices connect without users even realizing. Using the data generated by smart devices to aggregate, analyze and deliver insight, helping organizations make more informed decisions and actions. IoT needs to be a critical part of an organization’s business strategy and will take an increased investment to support in 2018.

PaaS and IaaS

After the successful implementation of SaaS solutions, corporations are planning to push cloud computing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) solutions. IaaS and PaaS trends will allow executives to focus on cutting-edge technology, lowering business costs and expenses, and move toward focusing on sales and marketing in order to meet revenue goals.

Blockchain technology

For many, blockchain and Bitcoin have become synonymous. In reality, they are quite separate. While Bitcoin uses blockchain as its foundation, the potential for blockchain to verify almost anything that has a value is almost limitless. As an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way, the coming year will start to see blockchain being tested in multiple applications across numerous sectors.

Given that blockchain enables the authentication of any content, blockchain could be used to verify video content from multiple sources – such as public mobile phones and law enforcement body-worn cameras – for use within forensic investigations. Beyond video data, blockchain could also be used to verify the authenticity of devices connected to the camera network.

Cloud-to-Cloud

Despite the move towards edge computing, cloud computing will still play a significant role in IT infrastructures. As an increasing number of companies offer cloud-based services, the cloud ecosystem is increasingly becoming the preferred point of integration, rather than the traditional on-premise systems.

One benefit of integration between clouds is a significant potential reduction of in-house IT services required. Further, however, advanced composite services from multiple providers can be created and deployed through rich service APIs, including data analytics, content management, and storage, reducing time-to-market and rapidly increasing scale. Any organization delivering cloud-based services should be investigating the opportunity for integration with related services to add value to customers and partners.

Conclusion:

The outcome of new technological advances will depend on how they are perceived—as threats or as opportunities.  With innovative technology trends, such as edge computing, conversational platforms, immersive experiences, intelligent analytics, and self-driving cars, 2019 promises to make life infinitely more satisfying and exciting. Whether it is a hiring manager looking for the right engineering talent, or an engineer who is looking to learn new technologies, working with the right recruiter who can keep up in the industry can make all the difference in your organization.