NEW YORK, Dec. 6, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Deloitte has released "Tech Trends 2018: The Symphonic Enterprise," the latest edition of its annual in-depth examination of emerging trends in enterprise technology.

Deloitte's Tech Trends 2018 spotlights eight key trends that could potentially impact business strategies and outcomes. This year's theme, "The Symphonic Enterprise," is an idea that describes strategy, technology and operations working together, in harmony, across domains and boundaries.

Among the trends featured in this year's report are: "Digital Reality," which represents the next phase in the augmented reality and virtual reality revolution; "No-Collar Workforce," which discusses HR strategies for managing environments in which humans and machines work together; and "The New Core," which examines how core functions of finance and supply chain are being reimagined by digital convergence and the breakdown of traditional operational boundaries.

Tech Trends 2018 features the "Exponential Technology Watch List" which discusses strategies for exploring and harnessing innovation ideas that may not manifest for five years or more. It also explores two longer-term technology trends: artificial general intelligence and quantum encryption.

"Technology trends are no longer just the CIO's or CTO's responsibility. It's become a CxO, CEO and even board-level conversation," said Bill Briggs, chief technology officer and principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP. "We now see many forward-thinking organizations approach disruptive change more strategically. Instead of launching separate, domain-specific initiatives, they are thinking about exploration, use cases and deployment more holistically. Increasingly, they are focusing on how multiple disruptive technologies can work together to drive meaningful and measurable impact across the enterprise."

Here is a closer look at some of the trends that could offer opportunities and challenges across industries during the next 18 to 24 months:

• No-Collar Workforce: The rise of automation, artificial intelligence, and cognitive technologies will impact jobs and job families. The organization of the future must rewire talent management for the new hybrid human-machine workforce — simultaneously retraining augmented workers and pioneering new HR processes for managing virtual workers.
• Blockchain to Blockchains: Blockchain is moving rapidly from exploration into mission-critical production scenarios. Advanced use cases and increased adoption drives the need to coordinate, integrate, and orchestrate multiple blockchain initiatives within a large organization, potentially across multiple blockchains across a value chain.
• Digital Reality: In the next phase of augmented reality and virtual reality's evolution, companies are focusing less on the novelty of devices, and are focusing instead on developing strategies and impactful enterprise use cases. As this trend unfolds, IT leaders will work to tackle persistent challenges in core integration, cloud deployment, connectivity and access.

"The old lines are blurring," Briggs continued. "Instead of thinking within industry and business line verticals, and business process or technology platform horizontals, we're entering a world of diagonals – transcending technical scope and traditional organizational boundaries. These technology trends are enabling an entirely new way of solving problems and uncovering business opportunities. The symphonic enterprise is unified; it's the controlled collision of trends, with strategy, technology and operations working in harmony to imagine tomorrow, and get there from the realities of today."

The report features case studies, perspectives from industry luminaries, and insights from Deloitte professionals. As in prior years, it provides an 18-24 month outlook on technology trends.

The full Tech Trends 2018 report can be found here.

About Deloitte Tech Trends
Deloitte's Annual Tech Trends report identifies trends that are likely to disrupt businesses in the next 18 to 24 months. Now in its ninth year, the trends cover macro forces fueling innovation: digital, analytics, cloud, the reimagining of core systems, and the changing role of information technology. Tech Trends embodies insights from business and government executives on their current and future priorities; perspectives from industry and academic luminaries; roadmaps and investment priorities of startups, venture capitalists and leading technology vendors; and insights from our global network of Deloitte professionals. Learn more here. Follow the conversation at @DeloitteonTech or #techtrends.

About Deloitte
Deloitte provides industry-leading audit, consulting, tax and advisory services to many of the world's most admired brands, including more than 85 percent of the Fortune 500 and more than 6,000 private and middle market companies. Our people work across more than 20 industry sectors to make an impact that matters — delivering measurable and lasting results that help reinforce public trust in our capital markets, inspire clients to see challenges as opportunities to transform and thrive, and help lead the way toward a stronger economy and a healthy society. Deloitte is proud to be part of the largest global professional services network serving our clients in the markets that are most important to them. 

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