Enhancing Enterprise Application Ecosystems to Withstand Disruptions

In a world characterized by constant disruption and unpredictability, enterprise applications face various threats, ranging from sabotage of undersea cables and the rise of AI-generated deepfakes to restrictive regulations. As businesses increasingly rely on intricate application ecosystems, it’s vital to build resilience into these applications to ensure continuity in their operations. This means adapting and preparing applications for emerging disruptions by diversifying infrastructure, enhancing cybersecurity measures, and adopting sustainable practices to maintain stability. It is important to recognize a wide range of potential disruptions, not just those driven by technology. All disruptions can have complex, multidimensional impacts that require a comprehensive and multifaceted response. Internet Vulnerabilities Nearly all global data passes through a limited number of undersea cables, which makes the internet infrastructure particularly susceptible to natural disasters. Events such as cyclones, submarine landslides, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes can significantly disrupt service. Deliberate human actions, such as sabotage of these cables, also pose serious threats. These scenarios could lead to extensive internet outages or isolate entire regions. While incidents of cable damage and sabotage can be mitigated through enhanced physical security, satellite internet, and global cooperative efforts, the detrimental effects on the credibility of internet reliability via AI deepfakes and the failure of crucial internet services may erode public trust in shared infrastructure and lead to fragmentation. Thus, investing in cybersecurity technologies to guard against deepfakes and their integration into existing applications is essential for organizations. Furthermore, the interconnected nature of current IT infrastructure adds to its fragility. The recent CrowdStrike outage highlighted the need for the entire ecosystem to provide high levels of service reliability to maintain public trust. Organizations lacking adequate redundancies and protections will find it challenging to recover from failures. Looking ahead, Gartner forecasts that by 2028, around 70% of companies will adopt regionally diversified supply chain models to enhance network resilience in light of ongoing global disruptions. Challenges from Regulation Restrictive government regulations, often focused on local or regional issues, are disrupting global operations for multinational organizations. This is particularly true for technology vendors who rely on the free movement of data, technology, and talent across borders. Such regulations hinder their competitiveness and impede their ability to offer a comprehensive suite of applications. An increase in government regulations surrounding technology development, usage, transfer, and sales has been observed, with stricter measures being implemented for data localization due to growing distrust among nations and concerns regarding the societal and environmental impacts of emerging technologies. As a response, multinational organizations may consider a federated structure, necessitating a revision of their global enterprise application strategies and a shift towards more localized models of application delivery. Additionally, organizations can mitigate the risks of nationalization by creating policies that require third-party vendors to comply with their specific AI, privacy, and localization policies and regulations. Commitment to Sustainability The recent focus on inflation and economic challenges has resulted in a lack of concrete action towards sustainability. However, two significant trends will compel organizations to prioritize sustainability. The first involves transformation activities that impact IT’s energy usage, particularly through the adoption of technologies like AI. Companies leveraging AI will need to substantially increase their efforts to offset environmental impacts and meet their ESG targets. The second trend concerns the indirect accountability organizations face for emissions caused by their vendors, particularly as they adopt more “as-a-service” models for consuming IT software and services. Gartner research indicates a gap between what organizations publicly commit to doing regarding managing GHG emissions from vendors and what they actually achieve. Shifting towards a consumption-based model complicates IT departments’ capability to estimate their carbon footprint, making it challenging for them to reach sustainability goals, especially concerning GHG emissions. Organizations will need to undertake additional due diligence in the application decision-making and sourcing process to align with business cost, performance, and environmental goals. This includes making ESG considerations mandatory criteria or increasing their importance when evaluating vendors and systematically examining their ongoing performance against sustainability objectives. Organizations should also engage and incentivize vendors to commit to shared environmental sustainability goals and key performance indicators while establishing milestones to facilitate continuous progress towards those targets.