Interview, Fireside Chat
"The Battle for Our Screens," Part 2: The Future of Work
Goldman SachsHeather Bellini, Ryan Nolan, Tammy Kiely, Renee James, Jake Siewert, Heath Terry, Marco Argenti
- A new 20-year technology cycle defined by Enterprise 4.0 and disparate workforces is expected to drive a wholesale replacement of legacy systems, including 1960s-era PBX technologies.
- Public cloud penetration is projected to rise from 10% in 2019 to over 40% within three years, while Desktop as a Service adoption is expected to reach approximately 60% due to pandemic acceleration.
- Application performance monitoring technology penetration is forecast to increase from a current 5% to roughly 60% over a timeframe shorter than previously estimated.
- Unified Communications as a Service, enabling phone numbers to follow users, is anticipated to become the standard for distributed workforces, alongside persistent video conferencing that replaces most but not all business travel.
- Capital expenditures are expected to shift from real estate to technology tools, supporting permanent remote work paradigms and infrastructure investments initiated during the crisis.
- The conversion of free collaboration tools to paid products is a critical factor anticipated within the next six to 12 months, while austerity may influence adoption rates between suite providers and standalone vendors.
- A permanent organizational capability to move 98% of employees to remote work in one week is expected to persist, with engineering productivity levels remaining unaffected by remote shifts.
- Virtual meeting "equalization" effects, including reduced feelings of second-class citizenship and a single global headquarters dynamic, are predicted to last, supported by daily use of tools like Zoom and Jabber.
- Flexible work schedules, such as working from the office three to four days a week and remotely one to two days, are expected to settle as the long-term norm, though physical office presence remains vital for hardware-dependent sectors like semiconductors.
- Productivity is expected to normalize from pandemic-era peaks to standard levels, with significant risk of hundreds of billions of hours in annual productivity loss without new software bridges to integrate workflows.
- Future software tools are expected to be personalized AI-driven systems that automatically capture to-dos and manage emails, with digital workflows evolving through phases of experience driving, intelligence surfacing, and worker-led automation.
- Enterprise software strategy is shifting from the center of architecture to the "outer edge" to harness trapped data from knowledge workers, where failure to engage risks displacement as a source of critical insights.
- IT departments are expected to push computing power to the edge over the next five to 10 years as part of a new security paradigm, with massive strategic interest and capital inflow anticipated for companies disrupting the future of work.
- Valuations for later-stage private companies addressing future work opportunities are expected to increase significantly, even during economic crises, as software is viewed as unlocking hundreds of billions of dollars in value.
- Employee sentiment is expected to oscillate between a desire for permanence in flexibility and fatigue-induced exhaustion from a lack of commute, with a significant portion preferring office camaraderie for specific productivity gains.
- Companies are expected to accommodate specific needs, such as shifting hours for parents with young children, while office space usage will likely become more flexible via reservation systems rather than designated desks.