We’re in the middle of the golden age of innovation that’s creating absolutely astounding achievements. Within 10 years, , , and . This blade cuts both ways though. Many of today’s business leaders believe that stagnant companies won’t be able to sustain themselves within the next three years as innovation reshapes the business landscape at a breakneck pace. Elon will land people on Mars Germany won’t have any gasoline cars on the road you’ll be able to use more of your senses in virtual reality Harley Finkelstein, COO of Shopify, illustrated the recent tectonic shifts succinctly when talking about eCommerce trends: “the year 2030 has been pulled into 2020”. Shifts in technology originally planned for the next 10 years are happening now – and it’s not just when buying online. Mckinsey reports that overall customer interaction trends and that “digital adoption has taken a quantum leap at both the organizational and industry levels”. Companies that implemented innovation-promoting processes and tools are cashing in on their investments, and it’s up to the others to catch up. have been accelerated by three years As the famed cyberpunk author, William Gibson, said: “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed”. Data From The 2021 Digital Innovation Benchmark Every year, we commission a survey to explore how today’s leading organizations are using modern software architectures and other emerging technologies to enable business innovation. This year’s examined responses from 400 senior technology decision-makers in the United States and Europe, including CIOs, CTOs, VPs of IT, IT directors/architects, and software engineers from organizations across a range of industries. 2021 Digital Innovation Benchmark What we found begs each organization to ask the question: what would our future selves look back and wish we had invested in? Distributed Application Architectures: The Engine of an Innovation Rocketship To use a sports analogy, innovating is all about getting as many “at bats” as possible. To do that means iterating quickly and doubling down where you find success. of technology leaders believe are the future and that companies in order to score the most home runs. 87% microservices-based applications must support distributed applications Scalable Architectures: The Ability to Execute Business Plans Relies on it Maybe the most interesting insight of the survey is the discrepancy between executives and architects’ confidence in their ability to execute. Executives believed that their organizations were to keep pace with innovation through . Ultimately, architects and developers believe there is more investment needed to capture the opportunities their executives feel are within reach. 34% more prepared technologies like service mesh than application architects and engineers Urgent Innovation: Necessary to Keep Up No pressure, but according to our data, the clock is ticking. We’re living through an inflection point in customer digital expectations. Last year, only 39% of technology leaders surveyed believed that an organization would be if they failed to innovate. This year, the amount jumped to . out of business in less than three years 51% There’s the fairly obvious underlying cause to some of these survey results: the global COVID-19 pandemic and its implications for business. In fact, the majority ( ) to overcome COVID-19 business challenges. The bigger picture here though is that businesses need to be able to weather any storm and keep innovating because those who have already crossed the technology chasm will be poised to take advantage of those opportunities. 89% of technology leaders believe that it’s critical to create new digital experiences Basically, it’s time to get busy innovating or get busy declining. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the pace of technology adoption by 10 years, executives have higher expectations than the business may be prepared to deliver, and the timeliness are compressing to remain viable.
