This year, telecommuting will generate a record 500 million increase in PC and tablet shipments
By the end of 2021, it is expected that 51% of all knowledge workers in the world will work remotely, against an amount of just 27% we had in 2019. The forecast is from Gartner, Inc., a world reference in research and advice for companies .
“A hybrid workforce is the future of work, with remote and face-to-face part of the same solution to optimize employers' workforce needs,” says Ranjit Atwal, Senior Director of Research at Gartner.
According to new global research, it is estimated that remote workers will represent 32% of all employees on the planet by the end of 2021. That's more than the 17% registered in 2019. Gartner defines that knowledge workers are the ones who they are involved in some kind of knowledge-intensive occupation, such as lawyers, writers, accountants or engineers. For Gartner, a remote worker is an employee who works away from their company, government, or customer for at least one full day a week (hybrid workers) or who works entirely from home (completely remote workers).
Telecommuting varies considerably across the world, depending on IT adoption, culture, and the mix of modern things. By 2022, about a third of workers will be mobile (a mix of hybrid and fully mobile). In addition, the United States will lead the number of telecommuters in 2022, accounting for 53% of the US workforce. Across Europe, UK teleworkers will account for 52% of the workforce by 2022, while teleworkers in Germany and France will account for 37% and 33% respectively.
India and China will produce large numbers of teleworkers, but their overall attendance rates will remain relatively low, with 30% of teleworkers in India, and 28% of workers in China operating from the telecommuting model.
Impact on how IT is acquired and used by 2024 – The lasting impact of telecommuting is resulting in a reassessment of the IT infrastructure that changes buyer requirements to demand work-anywhere capabilities. “By 2024, organizations will be forced to submit digital business transformation plans for at least the next five years. These plans will have to adapt to a post-COVID-19 world that involves an ever-increasing adoption of remote working and digital touchpoints,” says Atwal.
Digital products and services will play a big role in these digital transformation efforts. This longer strategic plan requires continued investment in strategic remote technology continuity implementations along with new technologies such as hyper-automation, Artificial Intelligence and collaboration technologies to open up more flexibility of location choice in job functions.
The hybrid workforce will continue to increase demand for PCs and tablets. By 2021, PC and tablet shipments will exceed 500 million units for the first time in history, highlighting demand in the business and consumer markets.
Organizations are also implementing Cloud solutions to enable remote workers to operate more quickly. Gartner predicts that end-user Public Cloud services spending will grow by 23.1% by 2021 as CIOs and IT leaders continue to prioritize cloud-powered applications such as Software as a Service (SaaS). SaaS apps are designed for remote access and are not limited by the location of workers using the app. Social and collaboration tools will continue to be “must haves”, which will drive the global social and collaboration software market to increase its sales by 17.1% in 2021.
In terms of connectivity, many organizations have had to change and adapt IT approaches to ensure business continuity among their remote workers. By 2024, at least 40% of all remote access usage will be predominantly served by zero-trust network access (ZTNA - de Zero Trust Network Access, in English), against less than 5% at the end of 2020. While most of these organizations will not completely retire all of their customers facing VPN services, ZTNA will become the main replacement technology.
