Star Wars
Overview
The future of Enterprise IT strongly relies on emergent disruptive change because of a saturated market where most corporations already employ enterprise IT solutions that satisfy their most basic needs. The relatively mundane market of enterprise software transforms into an environment where breakthrough technologies as business enablers become the most important differentiator. The top three change drivers are socioeconomic, geopolitical and environmental challenges including technological advances, people skills and environmental concerns.
Contemporary enterprise IT corporations are mainly headquartered in the northern hemisphere (Oracle, SAP, Microsoft etc.) but this will shift as BRIC countries are expected to play an increasingly more important role in enterprise software. The current industrial economy will shift to become more networked where the BRIC countries will emerge to become main protagonists. This is partially due to the absence of growth capabilities in the West as the number of graduates with degrees in IT and computer science is significantly higher in BRIC countries, particularly in India.
The U.S. and Europe have to abide to the reality that the new capital of Enterprise IT resides on Indian soil. The key driver for outsourcing to India (or any other BRIC country) has always been cost. India continues to be the country that is outsourcing most of U.S. enterprise IT software development but will emerge as an important independent player that has a higher capability to deal with a shifting disruptive environment than any other country. Key to this development is the emergence of a new business model in BRIC enterprise IT vendors that can deal faster with technological advances than any other American or European vendor. This new business model is difficult to replicate and allows vendors to establish a different pricing model, radically reshapes the way a company does business and enter niche markets by better and more efficiently tailoring enterprise software to customer's needs and other delivery channels.
Implications
As the economy becomes more networked and outsourcing of platforms and enterprise software via the internet (cloud computing) becomes more accepted companies that have adopted such cloud computing software can't see whom is pulling the strings behind the curtain. Enterprise IT vendors in BRIC countries are delivering these solutions behind a western facade to companies that want to save on cost of ownership and maintainance. The cost-driver is thus used as an entry point for BRIC vendors to start globalizing the world with fully-outsourced adaptive cloud computing software. American and European vendors have created these pitfall themselves by shaping the foundations for a new competitive economy and using cost as the only motivator for outsourcing development.
As enterprise IT vendors continue to face a challenging economic environment, IT spending budgets will be essentially flattened in the West. BRIC countries will become more financially stable and powerful than western companies and have a higher capacity for dealing with disruptive change. The enterprise IT industry will thus shrink in the West but grow rapidly in the BRIC countries.
Time Frame
The first 2 Years (2009-2010)
Financial crisis will be an impetus for vendors to continue outsourcing IT development to India and other emerging IT-driven economies. Virtualization is regarded as 'the solution' for legacy software fully accepting the trend of platform consolidation. The major U.S. and European vendors present their cloud computing solutions to the public and the first signs of the semantic web arise at the beginning of 2010 but skepticism remains about its business enabling ability.
The next 5 Years (2011-2015)
The global economic recession continues and coincides with a change in the economy to confront the western domination of enterprise IT vendors in India with the domestic capability to compete on an equal basis with America and Europe. Using its well-developed IT competences and agility, India will lead the emerging economies and make the first steps towards technological breakthrough, having China, Indonesia and others following the trend shortly after. Legacy software will remain to exist but shifts to the side of enterprise IT vendors rather than consumers of enterprise software.
The last 10 Years (2016-2025)
The privacy issues of cloud computing are confronted by law and cloud computing has emerged as a fully accepted phenomenon. India uses its cost effectiveness as a driver to capitalize on this trend and overthrows companies like Oracle and SAP because of their agility and high-adoption rate of new business enabling technologies.
This period is marked by the rise of new breakthrough technologies. Technologies like traditional business intelligence reach market saturation. The semantic web transforms data warehousing and business intelligence, making it possible for companies to extrapolate and predict business acurately on the basis of complex artificial intelligence rather than historical data.