Five transformative trends to watch for in 2024

By Kevin Haaland, Chief Technology Officer at Tehama

Traditional norms of workspaces and technological interactions are undergoing a seismic shift and in 2024, the technology and business landscape is poised to rapidly evolve under the influence of relentless innovation and unforeseen global challenges. 

As Tehama Technologies Founder and CEO, Paul Vallée recently wrote in a column for VMblog, “Despite some businesses still chanting the ‘Return to Office’ mantra, most businesses everywhere have come to terms with this epiphany—the hybrid and remote work era is not a fad; it’s here to stay! So let’s get real, the 5-days in the office movement is basically dead and steam is gathering again for fully remote teams.”

Here are five ways technology will change our professional lives and experiences in the coming year.

1. The desktop will become less relevant.

The smartphone revolutionized the way we communicate, collaborate, and complete tasks, while also allowing us to work, play, shop, be entertained and monitor our financial and physical health, all from a single device. In a similar manner, the desktop computer is expected to transform into an enterprise cybersecurity platform. Cybersecurity buyers are done with the tech stack integration treadmill and want it all under one cohesive, easy-to-adopt, manage, and defend roof. This is diminishing the need for a physical or virtual desktop experience.

With an enterprise cybersecurity platform at their fingertips, end users will be able to confidently enjoy a seamless virtual desktop experience while benefiting from zero-trust networking, threat intelligence and avoidance, privileged access management, and workflow automation capabilities. Tehama is leading the way with its Cybersecurity Platform for Hybrid and remote work.

2. Like electricity to your home, cloud services will become a utility.

It’s fascinating to see how technology is evolving at a rapid pace. As per the trends, it’s expected that compute/storage and network capacity will soon become a utility service, just like electricity in your home. The idea of cloud services as a utility, however, is a significant departure from the traditional approach of purchasing a physical desktop or laptop, where you must consider the amount of CPU, RAM, and disk space you will need over the device’s lifetime. This approach wastes money, as you buy for your theoretical maximum usage over the hardware’s lifetime, which is often unnecessary. On the flip side, if you do not have enough capacity to handle peak usage, productivity, and the end-user experience can be negatively impacted.

By using cloud-delivered services, you can match capacity to their needs, which is a more efficient and cost-effective way of managing your computing and storage requirements. This approach allows you to pay only for the capacity that you need, which can result in significant cost savings over time.

3. Insider threat containment, behavioral analytics, and Zero Trust will become non-negotiable.

As Paul wrote in his VMBlog commentary, “The recent surge in geopolitical activity is a clear indication that state actors are ramping up their efforts to infiltrate mission-critical infrastructure and pose hidden threats. To safeguard your business, you need to fight for a renewed budget and invest in discovering latent threats. Without question, this means implementing enhanced compliance checks, such as reference, academic, police records, and residential history checks. But that’s not enough! You must also adopt insider threat containment, insider behavioral analytics, and Zero Trust technologies to fortify compliance measures and limit the blast radius of the inevitable incident.”

Comprehensive solutions incorporating these crucial elements from the beginning, not as afterthoughts is the only way to go. You must ensure that security, privacy, and compliance are an integral part of your operations, not add-ons that must be developed and maintained by their internal teams. Your organization needs solutions tailored to your specific needs that are scalable, robust, and easy to use. 

4. AI will continue to change the threat landscape.

As technology continues to advance, the methods used by malicious actors to attack infrastructure are also becoming more sophisticated and frequent. To tackle this challenge, your organization must migrate away from traditional solutions such as Virtual Private Networks (VPN), which are inherently insecure, especially in hybrid work. Instead, you must adopt cloud-native offerings that use a Zero Trust approach to security and appropriate encryption to protect infrastructure from potential attacks and safeguard confidential data. Doing so can ensure that your infrastructure is secure and your data is protected against unauthorized access.

5. Traditional office spaces will continue to decline.

Companies are rethinking the need for the conventional office after seeing the benefits of remote and hybrid work. While this shift may impact office real estate, businesses are experiencing improved productivity and increased access to global talent by allowing workers the flexibility to work from anywhere. 

By embracing remote work, you can tap into a wider pool of skilled professionals who may need to be able or willing to relocate for a traditional office job. Additionally, remote work can provide your employees with greater flexibility and work-life balance, increasing job satisfaction and retention. Overall, the shift away from traditional office work will likely impact how companies operate profoundly, and those who can adapt and embrace new ways of working will probably be the most successful in the long run.

As we journey through these transformative trends, one thing becomes clear: the future of work and technology is not just about adapting to change; it’s about leading it. 

Paul writes in his VMblog column, “As 2024 approaches, organizations must pivot to a work landscape deeply integrated with AI and cybersecurity. Mastery of these tools will define productivity, yet their risks demand a sharper focus on threat detection and response. Forward-thinking teams will need to be agile, informed, and proactive. Embracing this future means preparing to use technology smartly and safely, ensuring success in an era where adaptability and vigilance go hand in hand.” 

Tehama is here to help businesses become disruptors in the face of change with the Cybersecurity Platform for Hybrid and Remote Work. It’s the only all-in-one enterprise-level solution for safely onboarding global staff, managing secure access to sensitive data, and delivering work immediately. To learn more, visit: http://tehama.io.