Economies and Businesses will not be the same post-COVID-19. 2021 begins in the background of an economic disaster of magnificent scale, likes which we have never seen before. The economy has changed, consumer behaviour has changed and most importantly, the the relationship dynamics of businesses and customers have changed. 

The idea of office environment and office spaces seems obsolete in 2021. Work from home (WFH) will be the new normal. Majority non-factory staff today are providing services from home instead of travelling to work. Post Covid-19 for an enterprise employing a group of staff it becomes tougher to maintain the attendance and standard efficiency of the staff. The less travelling and time saving due to WFH is the added benefit and seems lucrative to many but becomes tougher for the employers to ensure maximum output. So to solving many such problems and solutions we might see few new software development trends in 2021. 

Workforce/Employee Tracking Softwares and apps 

With the SARS CoV2 looming across the world, many enterprises have decided to assemble their team members and shifted to working from home method. Working from home seems to be the best way in these circumstances  to main the efficiency of team and to keep the enterprises running. This new order of work organisation is supremely new to majority of enterprises, hence employee monitoring also becomes tricky for them. To monitor the employee efficiency, attendance, and productivity and taking apt penalties aptly this trends is here to stay for a while 

Improving Information Discovery With Knowledge Mining and AI 

The data in the majority of the firms is unorganised and unstructured. Unlike organised data, analysis of apt information from unorganised data like emails, text documents, videos, etc., is a colossal work, and at the same time this data also holds crucial value data of the enterprise.  

Data intel mining will be a decisive Intranet trend to see in 2021. Modern intranets does knowledge mining in three steps – 

  • Digest : Modern enterprise systems beholds knowledge and intel of various sort, be it structured or unstructured. You can bring your data together with knowledge mining tools by using  previous built connectors to link first and third party apps.  
  • Absorb: The tagging and processing of data is done with enriched with the apt metadata. With technologies like Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligences, Big Data and Natural Language Processing this huge task which once was manual is automated. Data enrichment ensures the high SEO ratings and discoverability in search engines. 
  • Assimilate: Cognitive enterprise search engines  are becoming more productive for enterprises when compared to the traditional search tools. By using technologies like AI and NLP promising results with high relevance are delivered. By linking all the internal and external enterprise apps it can create an integrated search engine to provide much better relevant content related to the enterprise. 

Personalised search and content recommendations backed by AI 

Tailored and personalised content delivery will be a decisive element in all enterprise Intranets from 2021 on. Cognitive enterprise search engine that the available intranets use today acts as a centralised search option and the search results that we get are highly personalised and tailored according to the customer’s relevance. 

For example, a quick search on the “UI experts” of the company will produce the names of the relevant people and personalise the results based on the user’s location, language, etc. 

Smart suggestions, search recommendations, filtering and sorting, geospatial search, etc.are some more areas offered by modern enterprise search program which is backed by AI. 

The information overload is another problem which overwhelms and confuses users rather than channelling them right, it specially is seen in traditional intranet feed. With a revamped intranet search users get precise personalised results which channelise the traffic at target points. 

Faster access to knowledge with bots 

Especially from the last year we see more and more firms integrating chat bots in their websites. Bots can be designed in a particular fashion so that they can help with the relevant information related to any services of the enterprise or else the info regarding a certain employee. 

For example, a knowledge bot can answer questions like “Who is the PR head of a company in London?” or “How to fix an error in operating system”. It can also be used by employees of the respective company to source documents from the repository etc. Chat bots can conduct natural language conversations and provide seamless operations and satisfactory search results in text or voice output. These bots behave like a personal assistant helping you manoeuvre through the program. 

Cybersecurity 

Global security spending will reach $ 174.7 billion in 2024, with an annual growth rate of 8.1%, according to IDC estimates. 

In 2020 the banking industry has suffered significant attacks worldwide, IBM Security estimates the cost of cyber data breaches approx. $ 8.2 million.‍ 

FinTechs have tried hard in integrating biometric security use in their apps, and also in identification and authentication systems of the company. In 2021 we will see the integration and prioritising cybersecurity in various apt applications and softwares of the various sectors in the industry, not just FinTechs.  

Biometric technology 

Technology that uses biometrics like fingerprint, voice and face too for the identity verification processes and for things like financial departments of the enterprises. Accordingly, the combinations of two or more biometrics can also be done in order to achieve higher security standards making any sort of fraudulent activity highly difficult even when the users physically not there but still verification can be done through integrating biometrics in their applications. 

Machine learning (ML) 

Last decade was revolutionary especially in ML evolution. In more clear way, a piece of software that uses ML uses algorithms that allows it to perform task based on it appears to be learning the user behaviour. 

An example would be a speech-to-text software product that learns how to recognise different accents and dialects of users and respond in a standard way.  

The rigorous testing through which a software program goes through before coming to market, which is an extremely time consuming task  can be done through ML with ease these days in no time. The testing is very uniform and efficient as it doesn’t have the column of human error boosting the confidence of the developers by providing the validity to their programs. 

2021 we will be seeing  more and more innovations in ML which will be a continuous trend for many upcoming years in the software development sector. 

Software development outsourcing 

Outsourcing is more than ever welcomed and embraced by software development companies in the backdrop of Covid-19 pandemic. Most enterprises need bespoke software solutions these days targeting the personalised needs of the enterprise.  

Outsourcing promises several perks: 

  • It is very cost effective and light on budget for an enterprise as they don’t have to assemble workforce working full-time on a particular software development.    
  • With outsourcing software development companies can tap the untamed potential of best of the experts and outsource the custom softwares developed by them.  
  • With  professional software development teams,  they work on an agile methodology which many times is not there in in-house teams. Resulting in quicker delivery of the project boosting productivity. 

With the pandemic still on its course many of these trends will be 

common to look for in 2021. While the pandemic might end in future 

but the aftereffects across all sectors will be prominent.