Gartner Newsroom

“Throughout history, great leaders have faced turmoil and turned it into inspiration. They have used the energy of disruption to drive real change and help people,” said Mr. Scheibenreif. 

“CIOs can contribute to the evolution of a more powerful and adaptable form of business, architected to deal with continuing business disruptions — composable business,” said Ms. Nunno.

“Composable business is a natural acceleration of the digital business that you live every day. It allows us to finally deliver the resilience and agility that these interesting times demand,” said Mr. Plummer.

Three building blocks to a composable business: 1) Composable Thinking - never lose your creativity. Anything is composable. 2) Composable Business Architecture - build the enterprise to be flexible and resilient. It’s about structure and purpose. 3) Composable Technologies – the tools for today and tomorrow.

These three building blocks are just the start. “Modularity, orchestration, discovery and autonomy are the principles that will guide our actions,” said Mr. Plummer. 

“Composable business will deliver the resilience you need. Built ready to support inspiration no matter what turmoil comes your way,” said Mr. Scheibenreif. 

Learn more from the Gartner Opening Keynote in the Gartner press release. 

“Three broad themes run through the Gartner top strategic technology trends for 2021: 1) People Centricity 2) Location Independence 3) Resilient Delivery.”

Internet of Behaviors (IoB): Combines existing technologies that focus on the individual directly – facial recognition, location tracking and big data – and connects the resulting data to associated behavioral events, such as cash purchases or device usage.

Total Experience (TX): A strategy that connects multiexperience with customer, employee and user experience disciplines.

Distributed Cloud: The distribution of public cloud services to different physical locations, while the operation, governance and evolution of the services remain the responsibility of the public cloud provider. 

Anywhere Operations: Refers to an IT operating model designed to support customers everywhere, enable employees everywhere and manage the deployment of business services across distributed infrastructures. 

Intelligent Composable Business: Radically re-engineers decision-making by accessing better information and responding more nimbly to it. 

Learn about four more strategic trends and additional details on each trend in the Gartner press release.

“When humans are added to any kind of transformation, things become messy.”

Cognitive Dissonance: “What we understand intellectually doesn’t reflect what we feel emotionally. In transformation, it comes down to balancing what we need to do and how we feel about it.” 

Emotional Triggers: “These are small actions or events that trigger an irrational reaction from humans. Managing the uncertainty of the ongoing pandemic makes people - including leaders - more susceptible to be triggered.”  

Delayed Gratification: “All transformations are filled with a ‘kale-chocolate’ dilemma. Humans don’t like waiting months for the gratifying outcomes of digital transformation initiatives just as they prefer the instant gratification of chocolate over the long term benefits of kale.”

Cognitive Strain vs. Cognitive Ease: “In transformation, even if what you’re doing is good for the organization, people will still experience cognitive strain. Humans prefer to be at cognitive ease, or the path forward that requires the least effort.”

“The main takeaway is that the emotional side of transformation can be planned.”

Global Pandemic: “This was an unwelcome way to start the decade, which exacerbated and redirected the remaining five factors that were already in play.”

Market Crash and Recession: “Half of CEOs anticipated a downturn going into 2020, but not to the level of persistent volatility that COVID-19 caused.”

Systemic Mistrust: “Trust was in trouble before the COVID-19 crisis hit with trade wars and border disputes. Now, there are travel restrictions and a fractured social civility to bear in mind when planning ahead.”

Weak Productivity: “Although productivity growth in advanced economies has been a concern for economists for many years, the complications of COVID-safe operations have significantly reduced it in many industries.”

Environment Concerns: “COVID-19 has not reset organizations’ views on climate change and plastic pollution, but it has reminded them of the power of nature.”

Talent Shortage: “Shortfalls of tiny amounts of the most critical skills could corrode or destroy market positions. The big battle moving forward will be around talent development.”