The convergence of cloud computing, big data analytics, the Internet of Things (IoT), IT security and finance technology will continue to fundamentally alter the way companies do business in 2017, says a Thai-owned IT training and research firm.
"Organisations are increasingly confident about embracing emerging technologies, rather than just discussing the hype around these technologies," said Thanachart Numnonda, founder of the IMC Institute and president of the Association of the Thai ICT Industry.
Intense competition among global cloud-computing players in Thailand, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Oracle, attests to the massive demand for cloud services.
Mr Thanachart said IT investment in Thailand will continue shifting to cloud-based subscription services instead of on-premise software that requires in-house server hardware and software licences, thanks to lower upfront investment for hardware and software licensing as well as the cloud's advantage of increased business agility and security plus lower costs.
In the past two years, he said there has been strong interest in big data analytics in the telecom, bank and retail sectors as the deployment of analytics tools can help improve operational efficiency, drive new revenue streams and gain competitive advantages over rivals.
The IoT, a host of IP-instrumented devices and services, will also play a much greater role in enabling goods to be produced imaginatively, he said.
Mr Thanachart said the rapid increase in online services will pressure big companies to embrace web-scale IT architecture, an architectural approach used to deliver the capabilities of large cloud service providers within an enterprise IT setting.
"Web-scale IT will play an important role as companies need to improve the reliability and scalability of their online data services as well as support massive concurrent users without disruption to existing infrastructure," he said.
Financial technology (fintech), meanwhile, will continue its climb next year as more financial companies will become aware of fintech startups that are disrupting and revolutionising financial services from online banking to crowdfunding.
Thailand has over 10 million mobile banking accounts plus 12 million internet banking accounts, according to a report by the Bank of Thailand.
Mr Thanachart said PromptPay, formerly called Any ID, will create new digital standard rules for the financial sector as well as reduce the use of cash and cheques. The system links an ID card number and mobile phone number with a bank account number.
Even though the start of PromptPay has been postponed to the first quarter of 2017 from October, Thailand's banks have already moved forward with enhancements to facilitate the new service by upgrading their IT back-end systems.
Preventive security will continue to show strong growth as businesses beef up investment on IT security to deal with the surge in the number and sophistication of cyberattacks, said Mr Thanachart.
He said digital transformation will also become a hot topic for companies in Thailand over the next three years as companies will make concerted efforts to integrate the various digital initiatives across the business and create a clear digital vision that will allow businesses to deliver revenue-generating digital experiences.
The proliferation of mobile devices in the consumer and business world will pressure organisations to seek more mobility solutions next year to increase productivity and profitability and keep them moving in congested cities, said Mr Thanachart.