Economic turbulence was the theme that dominated businesses this year. From S&P?s historic downgrade of the USA?s credit rating, to the Eurozone crisis, boardroom discussions centered around fears of a double-dip recession. But believe it or not, the technology sector is looking at 2012 on a high note. With innovation, trends are emerging as potential solutions to the four most pressing problems that businesses face: reducing costs, improving business efficiency, optimising the workforce and enabling a global business model as developed nations crumble. People, presence, productivity and performance are the new 4Ps of doing business. And technology is here to provide solutions to these challenges.

Big 3: Cloud, mobile, social

The biggest buzzwords for 2012 will be the megatrends that everyone was talking about this year: cloud, mobile and social computing. As businesses in India look for faster, smarter and more efficient ways of working, these three stand out as the technologies that businesses turn to first.

In fact, the other important technologies are a consequence of the mobile, social and cloud-enabled business.

Today companies are exploring different avenues to incorporate these new trends into the professional space without compromising on security. Naresh Wadhwa, president and country manager, India and Saarc, Cisco, says, ?The network will unify wireless and wired access to support the proliferation of devices (bring your own device) and ubiquitous mobility. Network technology architecture will connect any device across any combination of networks, increase cost efficiency by integrating network security and management, and improve business processes, including energy management.?

Bring your own device

The business world is also placing its bests on the Big 3: cloud, mobile and social computing, owing to the potential they hold in enabling all 4Ps of doing business. In fact, smart devices have already fueled the ?bring your own device? trend in India. Today?s new technology-savvy generation, is used to having control of their work tools and environment, and they want to choose how they can be most productive. This evolving workforce wants to use their smartphones, tablets, or laptops of choice to do company work, when and where they want.

Says Shantanu Ghosh, vice president and managing director, India product operations, Symantec, ?Today the office can be anywhere?and as businesses encourage employees to use their own devices, the office is also becoming more heterogeneous. Businesses that are used to one standardised platform or device will, in 2012, look for IT solutions that work across multiple platforms.?

Mobile workforce management

However, this also creates a new challenge: how do you manage the mobile workforce? James Thomas, country manager, India operations, Kronos, says, ?In 2012, we will see workforce management shifting to the mobile world. With today?s workforce enthusiastically embracing cellular phones, smart phones, and tablets for everyday activities, mobile applications will improve productivity by making it easier for managers and employees to complete a wide range of workforce related tasks using a variety of mobile devices on the go.?

Mobile workforce management enables employees to complete common administrative tasks on their mobile devices. Wherever managers are, they can easily see and rapidly respond to potential workforce management issues and employees can perform their time management tasks when they need to, where they need to. This on-the-go access means workforce is able to instantly engage, make effective decisions, take action, and move on.

The biggest enabler of the mobile workforce is cloud computing?everyone is talking about it, but few Indian organisations have taken the plunge. This is set to change, as businesses realise they can fly high with the cloud?innovating faster, working smarter.

Customer relationship management

Finally, social media was in the news for all the wrong reasons recently, but Indian brands are taking it very seriously: not only as an internal employee engagement tool, but also listen to conversations about their brand and industry and gain insight into customer behaviour.

Raj Mruthyunjayappa, senior vice-president and managing director, Talisma, feels ?2012 will see the emergence of innovative front-office back office integration strategies to manage customers in a unified manner. This will enable businesses to deliver a more fulfilling and enriching experience to today?s empowered customers by understanding their priorities better.?

Information explosion

The confluence of these three megatrends has an interesting result: the volume of information that is being created?traditional transactional data and zetabytes of new, interactional data?has triggered an information explosion. Businesses today have an untapped asset, information, and they are starting to look for a return on data.

Big opportunities in big data

With distributed data processing, we have entered the era of big data. James Markarian, EVP and CTO, Informatica, says, ?Big data is being driven by the nexus of three secular technology megatrends?cloud computing, social computing and mobile computing. Cloud computing, by changing the economics of computing, enables even more transaction data to be cost effectively captured by cloud service providers. Social computing, by enabling the next generation of data-centric applications, represents unprecedented volumes of interaction data. And, finally, mobile computing, by empowering users with context-aware and location-based services, represents the next surge in device sensor interaction data.?

These secular technology megatrends are driving big data?larger volumes, broader variety, higher velocity and more business value, he says.

Data analytics

As businesses look to leverage big data for a single, reliable and usable version of the truth, they are turning to data analytics tools for more efficient use of their information. Today, high-quality information assets translate into better decisions, fewer mistakes and more productivity. Bala Variyam, vice-president, Collabera Labs, points out that in the recent past, organisations started applying analytics to evaluate the social media conversations of customers and potential customers about their products and brands, influencing their product development, pricing strategies, marketing campaigns and sales approaches. ?In fact, one need not be surprised if analytics-as-a-service gains steam in 2012,? he says.

New approach to data security

Like any other asset, though, information has also become a sitting duck. This year proved how poorly protected information can damage the bottomline and hit headlines, and everyone?from governments to industry bodies to regulators?has begun creating better rules to govern technology and prevent theft and misuse of critical information. ?In 2011, we saw regulatory compliance driving security adoption in Indian businesses across industries, particularly the banking and financial services sector which lost an average of R6.86 crore in revenue due to cyber attacks. As attackers become more targeted and sophisticated, we will see businesses adopting a new security approach?one that is risk-based and policy-driven, information-centric and operationalised across a well managed infrastructure,? says Ghosh from Symantec.

Network optimisation

While all of these trends hold promise to transform businesses in 2012, there are constraints like network limitations.

?Network optimisation will become increasingly desirable as underperforming data stored in the public cloud will grow faster than expected as cloud storage prices continue to decline. Further, with maturing trends such as cloud computing, virtualisation and virtual desktops, a growing number of organisations will own lesser IT assets,? says Anil Batra, managing director, Riverbed Technology, India.

Enterprise video usage

As bandwidth improves, more enterprises will use video as a business enabler. Today the network can support vast volumes of video delivered over the Web in real time.

Batra adds, ?As the popularity of video over HTTP increases, video usage in the enterprise will gain momentum.?

As the years go by, while technologies and predictions continue to dominate our day-to-day life, surely there is a whole host of things to watch out for?both in our professional and personal space.

Be it for entertainment or business, the future is certain to offer surprises that will create more innovative, interesting, informative and intelligent opportunities for us to be a part of.