As we embark on 2021 , it's time to focus on what's next in terms of trends and technological advancements. The Covid-19 pandemic shook up the industry and forced a large number of people to adapt to a new reality, whether it be through remote work, more comprehensive security or automation in the workplace.

As Gartner's latest report states, 2021's trends will essentially center on people and how to help them function in a digitalized environment, but also on location independence, which requires a technological shift to operate better, and finally, on adaptability, which was key during the pandemic and will remain the main advantage of thriving companies.

Here are three key trends we think will show their true potential in 2021:

1.Cybersecurity a key trend for businesses in 2021

Hackers have exploited the pandemic to expand their attacks worldwide. A 238% increase in attacks on banks, and a whopping 600% increase in attacks on cloud servers from January to April 2020 alone is not to be taken lightly.

Cybersecurity meshes will likely be part of the answer to that, allowing for the security perimeter to be defined around identities, and centralizing the policy orchestration and enforcement better than the current, more disordered systems. AI and Machine Learning will also prove important in areas like intrusion detection, security identity and intrusion management.  Fortinet, Cisco, Splunk and IBM are already all working on new solutions to precisely address the issues we've seen throughout 2020.

Another important security element is endpoint protection, response and remediation.  The majority of entreprises are using legacy antivirus solutions that used to get the job done but with the sophistication and proliferation of today's cybercrime, businesses require a new enterprise security standard. Real time endpoint protection includes multiple patented AI algorithms which protect against the widest array of threat vectors. On-device AI prevents known and unknown threats in real time.  Devices self defend and heal themselves by stopping processes, quarantining, remediating, and even rolling back events to surgically keep endpoints in a perpetually clean state. 

2. Cloud trend continues in 2021: hybrid and distributed cloud 

Now more than ever, the cloud is a mix of SaaS applications and on-prem solutions, of public and private clouds, and are here to address the challenges of exponential data growth, composing with varying workloads and decentralized businesses.

The disruptions caused by the pandemic have highlighted that having an agile and adaptable infrastructure enables companies to face uncertainty much better. Major investments have been made by Nutanix, AWS, Google, Azure, IBM and Oracle, and distributed cloud, where services are distributed to different physical location but their operation remains the responsibility of the public cloud provider, will help reduce data costs and latency.

3. Analytics and Hyperautomation: Anything that can be analyzed and automated will be 

While many organizations are supported by a patchwork of technologies, they will need to streamline their processes to become more efficient and agile. The proliferation of AI in our lives triggered by the pandemic will allow that to happen, starting with better analytics and cleaner datasets to be used in Business Intelligence. This in return will offer the possibility of leaner automation of common tasks, enabling the workforce to focus on the essentials. AI engineering will also help save time and cost, providing a clearer path to value when combining multiple techniques. This associated to the fact that AI is democratizing and already used in data processing, face recognition or customer service thanks to the power of the cloud, promises a rapid growth in 2021.

Many more technologies will continue to grow in the following years – among which, 5G, Internet of Behaviors, privacy-enhancing computing, blockchain, augmented reality – and we're looking forward to seeing how they evolve but the 3 highlighted trends are those we believe will have the most impactful on businesses.