Market research firm Forrester predicts 2021 will be the year every company will double-down on technology-fuelled experiences, operations, products and ecosystems.
Forrester’s 2021 Predictions report says the success of organisations will depend on how quickly and how well they harness technology to both enable their workforce in the new normal and build platforms that differentiate them.
It points out that investing in new technology, realising the full value of the existing technology stack and retiring technical debt will be critical to gaining a sustained business advantage.
Forrester’s Predictions reports analyse the dynamics impacting different industries and disciplines, including changing consumer behaviours, customer experience (CX), employee experience, as well as marketing,
It predicts that in the coming year, chief information officers (CIOs) will embrace cloud-first and platform strategies for speed and adaptiveness.
In 2021, it notes, 30% of firms will continue to accelerate their spend on cloud, security and risk, networks, as well as mobility – including struggling firms looking to leapfrog and gain advantage coming out of the pandemic.
CIOs who are slow to adapt will have massive attrition and will get mired in short-term fixes that achieve only digital sameness through peer comparison strategies, it adds.
Next year, chief marketing officers (CMOs) will drive customer obsession at their firms, says Forrester, noting CMOs will put the customer at the centre of everything they do – leadership, strategy and operations.
“If they haven’t already, CMOs will integrate marketing and customer experience in the coming months. Spend on loyalty and retention marketing will increase by 30% as these CMOs assert control over the full customer lifecycle in 2021,” the report says.
According to Forrester, firms will cut CX technology spend in 2021 but will improve CX. “As organisations tune their CX efforts for bigger impact, one voice-of-the-customer programme (and not multiple) will come to fruition, leading to consolidation of CX tools and technologies,” the market research firm says.
It adds this move will save organisations hundreds of thousands (or millions) of dollars – but it will also help them realise the value of the technologies that remain.
As a result, it predicts 25% of brands will achieve statistically significant advances in CX quality in 2021.
Forrester also believes remote work will rise to 300% of pre-COVID-19 levels. It explains that most companies will employ a hybrid work model, with fewer people in the office and more full-time, remote employees.
As a major portion of the workforce develops the skills and preference for effective remote work, says Forrester, they will come to expect a work-from-anywhere strategy from their company rather than an exception-driven remote-work policy.
It adds that regulatory and legal activity related to employee privacy infringements will double in the coming year.
The pandemic is igniting employers’ desire to collect, analyse and share employee personal data, says the firm.
“The silver lining from the pandemic is that firms accomplished tasks that once seemed impossible or were not even on their roadmap – sometimes overnight,” says Sharyn Leaver, senior vice-president of research at Forrester.
“Shifting to remote work, standing up e-commerce platforms to sell online, and organising events virtually to stay connected to their communities are just some examples of pivots that organisations had to make quickly. The pandemic affirmed the need for digital transformation – only digitally advanced organisations were able to adapt and transform their businesses quickly.
“The current economic climate has only increased the urgency for every enterprise, not just digital experts, to embrace technology as a strategic asset. Our 2021 Predictions clearly indicate a trend toward technology acceleration,” Leaver concludes.
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