Whoa! Another prediction season is already upon us. Shaped by the fast-moving aftershocks of the COVID-19 crisis, 2021 promises to be a time of change. As usual, we made our predictions list and checked it twice. But rather than guess the future, we asked experts, business leaders, and big thinkers to help us size up noteworthy trends and technologies that should be on your radar in 2021 and beyond. Here’s a quick rundown of what we found out.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released recommendations on how organizations should use case management solutions to manage returning to onsite work in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the CDC, case management tools can “make the traditional contact tracing process faster and more efficient” by streamlining data capture and management and merging workflows with other workforce management solutions such as surveillance systems.

As many countries face another wave of COVID-19 cases, organizations around the world are planning new ways to keep their workforces safe. Leading companies have made huge strides in managing coronavirus while keeping their workplaces open. But despite how far we’ve come, many employees still doubt that their organizations are ready to respond to COVID-19.

Automation was already well on its way to becoming a ubiquitous investment in 2020, then the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated interest and adoption. Organizations started deploying Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), and other automation capabilities en masse, which interacted with mission-critical systems, legacy applications, and workers in both the front and back office.

Even before COVID-19 became the biggest challenge to operational resilience in a generation, organizations were struggling with a gap between digital transformation and internal processes that felt decidedly “pre-digital.” Automation presents a solution, connecting new tools to old, legacy systems through three key shifts in technology.

Suddenly there’s a crisis. What do you do? Many organizations responded to the COVID-19 crisis by quickly automating with digitally-distanced work processes such as telemedicine, digital learning, working from home and the like. But few were positioned to do it well. So says best-selling author George Westerman in his essay: Digital Transformation Isn’t Really a Technology Challenge.

If your COVID-19 reopening plans have gone through more phases than you can count, you’re not alone. What was once planned for October has pushed to January or June or maybe never. Even the companies that have managed to get back onsite or into the office often live in constant vigilance, knowing that a single positive COVID-19 test could send them into lockdown.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced government organizations to reassess their strategies, plans, and aspirations for digital transformation. Despite the uncertainty, IT leaders must quickly identify and act on strategies and plans that lead to positive outcomes. In many cases, governments will expand the role of digital technologies in service and program delivery.

One of the biggest failings of old-school, custom software development is its inability to help large organizations survive against unexpected challenges and quickly adapt to change. It could hardly be otherwise. For decades, companies were limited by inflexible business applications that took so much time to architect, develop, test and deploy. Not to mention the time it took to maintain, upgrade and enhance them. All of which set the stage for a revolution.