Digital transformation 2018: Act on change or get left behind

As organisations face into a new year of digital transformation, Dell has announced its predictions for how exciting new advances will aid the progress of Irish business and society at large. Aisling Keegan, vice-president and commercial general manager of Dell EMC Ireland, said: "Emerging technologies have the potential to solve some of the intractable problems faced by humanity, and offer the opportunity to increase productivity for business. "To help organisations throughout Ireland prepare for the digital transformation happening around, we've compiled our predications to explore what innovations will come to the fore in 2018." "From the explosion in the number of connected devices, the widespread adoption of AI, the journey towards the'mega cloud' and the enhancement of cybersecurity technologies, 2018 will be a year of epic transformation. Organisations must act on this change or be left behind." So, what can we expect from the new year? Over the next few years, AI will change the way teams spend their time acting on data, not just in terms of curating it. Data-driven'thinking tasks' will be carried out for companies, significantly reducing the time they spend scoping, debating, scenario planning and testing every new innovation. Expect to see a reduction in bottlenecks. IoT-enhanced cities, organisations, homes and vehicles will become even more prevalent in 2018, according to Dell's outlook. "With the cost of processing power decreasing and a connected node approaching $0, soon we'll have 100bn connected devices and, after that, a trillion.